1209 quotes found
"A popular speaker, however unpopular and insignificant, has only to wind up his speech with half-a-dozen lines of Shakespeare (and to make it clearly understood that they are Shakespeare's) and he will sit down amid thunders of applause."
"So I fell in love with a rich attorney's Elderly, ugly daughter."
"She may very well pass for forty three In the dusk with the light behind her."
"But I submit, my lord, with all submission, To marry two at once is Burglaree!"
"Oh! my name is John Wellington Wells, I'm a dealer in magic and spells, In blessings and curses And ever-filled purses, In prophecies, witches, and knells. If you want a proud foe to "make tracks"— If you'd melt a rich uncle in wax— You've but to look in On our resident Djinn, Number seventy, Simmery Axe!"
"Or you or I must yield up his life to Ahrimanes. I would rather it were you."
"From such a face and form as mine, the noblest sentiments sound like the black utterances of a depraved imagination! It's human nature! I'm resigned."
"What, never? / No, never! / What, never? / Well, hardly ever!"
"Things are seldom what they seem; Skim milk masquerades as cream."
"Now landsmen all, whoever you may be, If you want to rise to the top of the tree, If your soul isn't fettered to an office stool, Be careful to be guided by this golden rule— Stick close to your desks and never go to sea, And you all may be Rulers of the Queen's Navee."
"I am the monarch of the sea, The Ruler of the Queen's Navee, Whose praise Great Britain loudly chants And we are his sisters, and his cousins, and his aunts!"
"When I was a lad I served a term As office boy to an attorney's firm. I cleaned the wndows and I swept the floor, And I polished up the handle of the big front door. I polished up that handle so carefullee That now I am the Ruler of the Queen's Navee!"
"In spite of all temptations To belong to other nations, He remains an Englishman!"
"The last three ships we took proved to be manned entirely by orphans, and so we had to let them go. One would think that Great Britain’s mercantile navy was recruited solely from her orphan asylums – which we know is not the case."
"When your process of extermination begins, let our deaths be as swift and painless as you can conveniently make them."
"No, Frederic, it cannot be. I don’t think much of our profession, but, contrasted with respectability, it is comparatively honest."
"Against our wills, papa—against our wills!"
"Exactly – you said "often" ('frequently') only once."
"Oh, dry the glistening tear That dews that martial cheek; Thy loving children hear, In them thy comfort seek. With sympathetic care Their arms around thee creep, For oh, they cannot bear To see their father weep!"
"Yes, but you don't go!"
"If you want a receipt for that popular mystery, Known to the world as a Heavy Dragoon - Take all the remarkable people in history, Rattle them off to a popular tune!"
"Art stopped short at the cultivated court of the Empress Josephine."
"Then a sentimental passion of a vegetable fashion must excite your languid spleen, An attachment à la Plato for a bashful young potato, or a not-too-French French bean! Though the Philistines may jostle, you will rank as an apostle in the high aesthetic band, If you walk down Piccadilly with a poppy or a lily in your medieval hand."
"Yes, I am the Apostle of Simplicity. I am called Archibald the All-Right, for I am infallible."
"Archibald: To understand this, it is not necessary to think of anything at all. Saphir: Let us think of nothing at all!"
"I know what love is. There was a happy time when I didn't, but bitter experience has taught me."
"A pallid and thin young man, A haggard and lank young man, A greenery-yallery, Grosvenor Gallery, Foot-in-the-grave young man!"
"The Law is the true embodiment Of everything that’s excellent. It has no kind of fault or flaw, And I, my Lords, embody the Law."
"The House of Peers, thoughout the war Did nothing in particular And did it very well."
"Never, never, never, Faint heart never won fair lady! Nothing venture, nothing win – Blood is thick, but water’s thin – In for a penny, in for a pound – It's Love that makes the world go round!"
"I can tell a woman's age in half a minute — and I do!"
"...Darwinian Man, though well-behav’d, At best is only a monkey shav’d!"
"Man is nature's sole mistake."
"Ah pray, make no mistake, we are not shy; We're very wide awake, The moon and I!"
"I am, in point of fact, a particularly haughty and exclusive person, of pre-Adamite ancestral descent. You will understand this when I tell you that I can trace my ancestry back to a protoplasmal primordial atomic globule. Consequently, my family pride is something inconceivable. I can’t help it. I was born sneering."
"No money, no grovel! (Actually an ad-lib introduced by Rutland Barrington when playing the rôle of Pooh-Bah, to the annoyance of Gilbert.)"
"…in the first place, self decapitation is an extremely difficult, not to say dangerous, thing to attempt; and, in the second, it’s suicide, and suicide is a capital offence."
"Pooh Bah: This professional conscientiousness is highly creditable to you, but it places us in a very awkward position. Koko: My good sir, the awkwardness of your position is grace itself compared with that of a man engaged in the act of cutting off his own head."
"To sit in solemn silence in a dull, dark dock, In a pestilential prison, with a life-long lock, Awaiting the sensation of a short, sharp shock, From a cheap and chippy chopper on a big black block!"
"[Koko is negotiating the terms by which he can behead Nanki-Poo in his place, and they involve letting the latter be married to his fiance until he is executed] Koko: But my position during the next month will be most unpleasant, most unpleasant! Nanki-Poo: Not nearly so unpleasant as mine at the end of it."
"I have a left shoulder-blade that is a miracle of loveliness. People come miles to see it. My right elbow has a fascination that few can resist."
"Ko-Ko: Well, a nice mess you've got us into, with your nodding head and the deference due to a man of pedigree! Pooh-Ba: Merely corroborative detail, intended to give artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative."
"...but it's an unjust world, and virtue is triumphant only in theatrical performances."
"The idiot who praises, with enthusiastic tone, All centuries but this and every country but his own."
"As someday it may happen that a victim must be found I've got a little list, I've got a little list Of society offenders who might well be underground, And who never would be missed—who never would be missed!"
"My object all sublime I shall achieve in time— To let the punishment fit the crime, The punishment fit the crime."
"I know a youth who loves a little maid— (Hey, but his face is a sight for to see!) Silent is he, for he's modest and afraid (Hey, but he's timid as a youth can be!)"
"Some word that teems with hidden meaning, like "Basingstoke". It might recall me to my saner self. For, after all, I am only Mad Margaret! Daft Meg! Poor Meg! He! he! he!"
"My eyes are fully open to my awful situation, I shall go at once to Roderic and make him an oration, I shall tell him I've recovered my forgotten moral senses, and I don't care tuppence ha'penny for any consequences. Now I do not want to perish by the sword or by the dagger, but a martyr may indulge a little pardonable swagger And a word or two of compliment my vanity would flatter, but I've got to die to-morrow, so it really doesn't matter!"
"When maiden loves, she sits and sighs, She wanders to and fro - Unbidden tear-drops fill her eyes, And to all questions she replies With a sad "heigh ho!""
"Heigh-dy! Heigh-dy! Misery me, lack-a-day-dee! He sipped no sup, and he craved no crumb, As he sighed for the love of a ladye!"
"I've jibe and joke, And quip and crank, For lowly folk And men of rank."
"Is life a boon? If so it must befall That death when e're he call Must call too soon."
"I should have preferred to ride through the streets of Venice; but owing, I presume, to an unusually wet season, the streets are in such a condition that equestrian exercise is impractical."
"In enterprise of martial kind, When there was any fighting, He led his regiment from behind— He found it less exciting."
"One of you may be Baptisto's son, for anything I know to the contrary; but the other is no less a personage than the only son of the late King of Barataria. ... And I trust — I trust it was that one who slapped me on the shoulder and called me his man!"
"Of that there is no manner of doubt— No probable, possible shadow of doubt— No possible doubt whatever."
"Oh, philosophers may sing Of the troubles of a King, But of pleasures there are many and of worries there are none; And the culminating pleasure That we treasure beyond measure Is the gratifying feeling that our duty has been done."
"The end is easily foretold, When every blessed thing you hold Is made of silver, or of gold, You long for simple pewter. When you have nothing else to wear But cloth of gold and satins rare, For cloth of gold you cease to care— Up goes the price of shoddy. In short, whoever you may be, To this conclusion you'll agree, When everyone is somebodee, Then no one's anybody!"
"There's a little group of isles beyond the wave, So tiny you might almost wonder where it is— That nation is the bravest of the brave, And cowards are the rarest of all rarities. The proudest nations kneel at her command, She terrifies all foreign-born rap-scallions; And holds the peace of Europe in her hand With half a score invincible battalions."
"By doing so, we shall, in course of time, Regenerate completely our entire land— Great Britain is that monarchy sublime, To which some add (but others do not) Ireland."
"You have a daughter, Captain Reese, Ten female cousins and a niece, A ma, if what I'm told is true, Six sisters and an aunt or two. Now, somehow, Sir, it seems to me, More friendly-like we all should be If you united of them to Unmarried members of the crew."
"Oh, I am a cook and a captain bold And the mate of the Nancy brig, And a bo'sun tight and a midshipmite And the crew of the captain's gig."
"Roll on, thou ball, roll on Through pathless realms of space, Roll on!"
"It's true I've got no shirts to wear, It's true my butcher's bill is due, It's true my prospects all look blue, But don't let that unsettle you! Never you mind! Roll on! (It rolls on.)"
"He is an Englishman! For he himself has said it, And it's greatly to his credit, That he is an Englishman!. For he might have been a Rooshian A French or Turk or Proosian, Or perhaps Itali-an. But in spite of all temptations To belong to other nations, He remains an Englishman."
"I love my fellow-creatures, I do all the good I can, Yet everybody says I'm such a disagreeable man And I can't think why!"
"Ah, take one consideration with another A policeman's lot is not a happy one!"
"Bad language or abuse I never, never use, Whatever the emergency; Though "Bother it" I may Occasionally say, I never use a big, big D-"
"On a tree by a river a little tomtit Sang "Willow, titwillow, titwillow" And I said to him, "Dicky-bird, why do you sit Singing ‘Willow, titwillow, titwillow?'. "Is it weakness of intellect, birdie?" I cried, "Or a rather tough worm in your little inside?" With a shake of his poor little head he replied, "Oh, Willow, titwillow, titwillow!""
"Life's a pudding full of plums; Care's a canker that benumbs, Wherefore waste our elocution On impossible solution? Life's a pleasant institution, Let us take it as it comes!"
"As innocent as a new-laid egg."
"Take away the Book of Mormon and the revelations, and where is our religion? We have none."
"Let us here observe, that a religion that does not require the sacrifice of all things never has power sufficient to produce the faith necessary unto life and salvation"
"The fundamental principles of our religion are the testimony of the Apostles and Prophets, concerning Jesus Christ, that He died, was buried, and rose again the third day, and ascended into heaven; and all other things which pertain to our religion are only appendages to it."
"Truth is "Mormonism." God is the author of it."
"We have learned by sad experience that it is the nature and disposition of almost all men, as soon as they get a little authority, as they suppose, they will immediately begin to exercise unrighteous dominion."
"A fanciful and flowery and heated imagination beware of; because the things of God are of deep import; and time, and experience, and careful and ponderous and solemn thoughts can only find them out. Thy mind, O man! if thou wilt lead a soul unto salvation, must stretch as high as the utmost heavens, and search into and contemplate the darkest abyss, and the broad expanse of eternity—thou must commune with God."
"A person may profit by noticing the first intimation of the spirit of revelation; for instance, when you feel pure intelligence flowing into you, it may give you sudden strokes of ideas, so that by noticing it, you may find it fulfilled the same day or soon; (i.e.) those things that were presented unto your minds by the Spirit of God, will come to pass; and thus by learning the Spirit of God and understanding it, you may grow into the principle of revelation, until you become perfect in Christ Jesus."
"Salvation cannot come without revelation; it is in vain for anyone to minister without it. No man is a minister of Jesus Christ without being a Prophet. No man can be a minister of Jesus Christ except he has the testimony of Jesus; and this is the spirit of prophecy."
"If you do not accuse each other, God will not accuse you. If you have no accuser you will enter heaven, and if you will follow the revelations and instructions which God gives you through me, I will take you into heaven as my back load. If you will not accuse me, I will not accuse you. If you will throw a cloak of charity over my sins, I will over yours—for charity covereth a multitude of sins. What many people call sin is not sin; I do many things to break down superstition, and I will break it down."
"I told the brethren that the Book of Mormon was the most correct of any book on earth, and the keystone of our religion, and a man would get nearer to God by abiding by its precepts, than by any other book."
"Our missionaries are going forth to different nations, and in Germany, Palestine, New Holland, the East Indies, and other places, the standard of truth has been erected: no unhallowed hand can stop the work from progressing, persecutions may rage, mobs may combine, armies may assemble, calumny may defame, but the truth of God will go forth boldly, nobly, and independent till it has penetrated every continent, visited every clime, swept every country, and sounded in every ear, till the purposes of God shall be accomplished and the great Jehovah shall say the work is done."
"A man is saved no faster than he gets knowledge."
"That which is wrong under one circumstance, may be, and often is, right under another. God said, 'Thou shalt not kill'; at another time He said, 'Thou shalt utterly destroy.' This is the principle on which the government of heaven is conducted—by revelation adapted to the circumstances in which the children of the kingdom are placed. Whatever God requires is right, no matter what it is, although we may not see the reason thereof till long after the events transpire.'"
"Our heavenly Father is more liberal in His views, and boundless in His mercies and blessings, than we are ready to believe or receive; and at the same time more terrible to the workers of iniquity, more awful in the executions of His punishments, and more ready to detect in every false way, than we are apt to suppose Him to be."
"Nothing is so much calculated to lead people to forsake sin as to take them by the hand, and watch over them with tenderness. When persons manifest the least kindness and love to me, O what power it has over my mind, while the opposite course has a tendency to harrow up all the harsh feelings and depress the human mind."
"Deep water is what I am wont to swim in."
"I told them I was but a man, and they must not expect me to be perfect; if they expected perfection from me, I should expect it from them; but if they would bear with my infirmities and the infirmities of the brethren, I would likewise bear with their infirmities."
"If I had not actually got into this work and been called of God, I would back out. But I cannot back out: I have no doubt of the truth."
"It is my meditation all the day, and more than my meat and drink, to know how I shall make the Saints of God comprehend the visions that roll like an overflowing surge before my mind."
"More painful to me are the thoughts of annihilation than death. If I have no expectation of seeing my father, mother, brothers, sisters and friends again, my heart would burst in a moment, and I should go down to my grave. The expectation of seeing my friends in the morning of the resurrection cheers my soul and makes me bear up against the evils of life. It is like their taking a long journey, and on their return we meet them with increased joy."
"There is no such thing as immaterial matter. All spirit is matter, but is more fine or pure, and can only be discerned by purer eyes. We cannot see it, but when our bodies are purified, we shall see that it is all matter."
"One of the grand fundamental principles of Mormonism is to receive truth, let it come from whence it may."
"I see no faults in the Church, and therefore let me be resurrected with the Saints, whether I ascend to heaven or descend to hell, or go to any other place. And if we go to hell, we will turn the devils out of doors and make a heaven of it. Where this people are, there is good society. What do we care where we are, if the society be good? I don't care what a man's character is; if he's my friend—a true friend, I will be a friend to him, and preach the Gospel of salvation to him, and give him good counsel, helping him out of his difficulties."
"Friendship is one of the grand fundamental principles of "Mormonism"; [it is designed] to revolutionize and civilize the world, and cause wars and contentions to cease and men to become friends and brothers."
"Have the Presbyterians any truth? Yes. Have the Baptists, Methodists, &c., any truth? Yes. They all have a little truth mixed with error. We should gather all the good and true principles in the world and treasure them up, or we shall not come out true "Mormons.""
"There has been a great difficulty in getting anything into the heads of this generation. It has been like splitting hemlock knots with a corn-dodger for a wedge and a pumpkin for a beetle."
"I have more to boast of than ever any man had. I am the only man that has ever been able to keep a whole church together since the days of Adam. A large majority of the whole have stood by me. Neither Paul, John, Peter, nor Jesus ever did it. I boast that no man ever did such a work as I. The followers of Jesus ran away from Him; but the Latter-day Saints never ran away from me yet."
"If my life is of no value to my friends it is of none to myself."
"I am going like a lamb to the slaughter; but I am calm as a summer's morning; I have a conscience void of offense toward God, and toward all men. I SHALL DIE INNOCENT, AND IT SHALL YET BE SAID OF ME — HE WAS MURDERED IN COLD BLOOD."
"Doctrine and Covenants, 135:4 (22 June 1844)"
"[I]t is not always wise to relate all the truth. Even Jesus, the Son of God, had to refrain from doing so, and had to restrain His feelings many times for the safety of Himself and His followers, and had to conceal the righteous purposes of His heart in relation to many things pertaining to His Father's kingdom."
"O Lord my God!"
"You don't know me; you never knew my heart. No man knows my history. I cannot tell it: I shall never undertake it. I don't blame any one for not believing my history. If I had not experienced what I have, I could not have believed it myself. . . . When I am called by the trump of the archangel and weighed in the balance, you will all know me then."
"I want to ask this congregation, every man, woman and child, to answer the question in their own heart, what kind of a being God is? . . . Does any man or woman know? Have any of you seen him, heard him, or communed with him? . . . God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man, and sits enthroned in yonder heavens! That is the great secret. If the veil were rent today, and the great God who holds this world in its orbit, and who upholds all worlds and all things by his power, was to make Himself visible,—I say, if you were to see Him today, you would see Him like a man in form—like yourselves in all the person, image, and very form as a man; for Adam was created in the very fashion, image and likeness of God, and received instruction from, and walked, talked and conversed with Him, as one man talks and communes with another. . . . It is the first principle of the Gospel to know for a certainty the Character of God, and to know that we may converse with him as one man converses with another, and that He was once a man like us; yea, that God Himself, the Father of us all, dwelt on an earth, the same as Jesus Christ himself did; and I will show it from the Bible."
"[T]he doctrine of a plurality of Gods is as prominent in the Bible as any other doctrine. . . . The head God organized the heavens and the earth. I defy all the world to refute me. In the beginning the heads of the Gods organized the heavens and the earth. Now the learned priests and the people rage, and the heathen imagine a vain thing. If we pursue the Hebrew text further, it reads, 'The head one of the Gods said, Let us make a man in our own image.' I once asked a learned Jew, 'If the Hebrew language compels us to render all words ending in heim in the plural, why not render the first Eloheim plural?' He replied, 'That is the rule with few exceptions; but in this case it would ruin the Bible.' He acknowledged I was right. . . . In the very beginning the Bible shows there is a plurality of Gods beyond the power of refutation. It is a great subject I am dwelling on. The word Eloheim ought to be in the plural all the way through—'Gods'. The heads of the Gods appointed one God for us; and when you take [that] view of the subject, its sets one free to see all the beauty, holiness and perfection of the Gods. All I want is to get the simple, naked truth, and the whole truth."
"Many men say there is one God; the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost are only one God. I say that is a strange God anyhow—three in one, and one in three! It is a curious organization. 'Father, I pray not for the world, but I pray for them which thou hast given me.' 'Holy Father, keep through Thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one as we are.' All are to be crammed into one God, according to sectarianism. It would make the biggest God in all the world. He would be a wonderfully big God—he would be a giant or a monster."
"Where was there ever a son without a father? And where was there ever a father without first being a son? Whenever did a tree or anything spring into existence without a progenitor? And everything comes in this way. Paul says that which is earthly is in the likeness of that which is heavenly, Hence if Jesus had a Father, can we not believe that He had a Father also? I despise the idea of being scared to death at such a doctrine, for the Bible is full of it."
"Element had an existence from the time he [God] had. The pure principles of element are principles which can never be destroyed; they may be organized and re-organized, but not destroyed. They had no beginning, and can have no end. . . . [T]he mind of man — the immortal spirit. Where did it come from? All learned men and doctors of divinity say that God created it in the beginning; but it is not so: the very idea lessens man in my estimation. I do not believe the doctrine; I know better. Hear it, all ye ends of the world; for God has told me so . . . We say that God himself is a self-existent being. Who told you so? It is correct enough; but how did it get into your heads? Who told you that man did not exist in like manner upon the same principles? Man does exist upon the same principles. God made a tabernacle and put a spirit into it, and it became a living soul. . . . The mind or the intelligence which man possesses is [co-eternal] with God himself. I know that my testimony is true . . . Is it logical to say that the intelligence of spirits is immortal, and yet that it had a beginning? The intelligence of spirits had no beginning, neither will it have an end. That is good logic. That which has a beginning may have an end. There never was a time when there were not spirits; for they are [co-eternal] with our Father in heaven. . . . I take my ring from my finger and liken it unto the mind of man—the immortal part, because it has no beginning. Suppose you cut it in two; then it has a beginning and an end; but join it again, and it continues one eternal round. So with the spirit of man. As the Lord liveth, if it had a beginning, it will have an end. All the fools and learned and wise men from the beginning of creation, who say that the spirit of man had a beginning, prove that it must have an end; and if that doctrine is true, then the doctrine of annihilation would be true. But if I am right, I might with boldness proclaim from the house-tops that God never had the power to create the spirit of man at all. God himself could not create himself."
"You have to learn how to be Gods yourselves, and be kings and priests to God, the same as all Gods have done before you, namely by going from one small degree to another, and from a small capacity to a great one: from grace to grace FROM EXALTATION TO EXALTATION until you ATTAIN THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD.""
"I teach the people correct principles and they govern themselves."
"Would to God, brethren, I could tell you who I am! Would to God I could tell you what I know! But you would call it blasphemy, and there are men upon this stand who would want to take my life."
"You will meet and become acquainted with your eternal Mother, the wife of your Father in Heaven… How could a Father claim His title unless there were also a Mother to share that parenthood?"
"For someone who is not a Mormon, what matters most about Joseph Smith is how American both the man and his religion have proved to be. So self-created was he that he transcends Emerson and Whitman in my imaginative response, and takes his place with the great figures of our fiction, since at moments he appears far larger than life, in the mode of a Shakespearean character. So rich and varied a personality, so vital a spark of divinity, is almost beyond the limits of the human, as normally we construe those limits. To one who does not believe in him, but who has studied him intensely, Smith becomes almost a mythology in himself."
"Joseph was no hair-shirt prophet. He believed in the good life, with moderate self-indulgence in food and drink, occasional sport, and good entertainment. And that he succeeded in enjoying himself to the hilt detracted not at all from the semi-deification with which his own people enshrouded him. Any protests of impropriety dissolved before his personal charm. "Man is that he might have joy" had been one of his first significant pronouncements in the Book of Mormon, and from that belief he had never wavered. He was gregarious, expansive, and genuinely fond of people. And it is no accident that his theology in the end discarded all traces of Calvinism and became an ingenuous blend of supernaturalism and materialism, which promised in heaven a continuation of all earthly pleasures—work, wealth, sex, and power."
"We do not worship the Prophet. We worship God our Eternal Father and the risen Lord Jesus Christ. But we acknowledge the Prophet; we proclaim him; we respect him; we reverence him as an instrument in the hands of the Almighty in restoring to the earth the ancient truths of the divine gospel, together with the priesthood through which the authority of God is exercised in the affairs of His Church and for the blessing of His people."
"Joseph Smith, the Prophet and Seer of the Lord, has done more, save Jesus only, for the salvation of men in this world, than any other man that ever lived in it."
"Once in the world's history we were to have a Yankee prophet, and we have had him in Joe Smith. For good or for evil, he has left his track on the great pathway of life—or, to use the words of Horne, "knocked out for himself a window in the wall of the nineteenth century," whence his rude, bold, good-humored face will peer out upon the generations to come."
"I feel like shouting hallelujah, all the time, when I think that I ever knew Joseph Smith, the Prophet whom the Lord raised up and ordained, and to whom He gave keys and power to build up the kingdom of God on earth and sustain it."
"I write as a sow pisses."
"Sie wird das nothwendigste und härteste und die hauptsache in der Musique niemahlen bekommen, nämlich das tempo, weil sie sich vom jugend auf völlig befliessen hat, nicht auf den tact zu spiellen."
"I know myself, and I have such a sense of religion that I shall never do anything which I would not do before the whole world; but I am alarmed at the very thoughts of being in the society of people, during my journey, whose mode of thinking is so entirely different from mine (and from that of all good people). But of course they must do as they please. I have no heart to travel with them, nor could I enjoy one pleasant hour, nor know what to talk about; for, in short, I have no great confidence in them. Friends who have no religion cannot be long our friends."
"The most stimulating and encouraging thought is that you, dearest father, and my dear sister, are well, that I am an honest German, and that if I am not always permitted to talk I can think what I please; but that is all."
"I must give you a piece of intelligence that you perhaps already know — namely, that the ungodly arch-villain Voltaire has died miserably like a dog — just like a brute. That is his reward!"
"A fellow of mediocre talent will remain a mediocrity, whether he travels or not; but one of superior talent (which without impiety I cannot deny that I possess) will go to seed if he always remains in the same place."
"As I love Mannheim, Mannheim loves me."
"…passions, violent or not, must never be expressed to the point of disgust, and Music must never offend the ear, even in most horrendous situations, but must always be pleasing, in other words always remain Music…"
"My fatherland has always the first claim on me."
"The golden mean, the truth, is no longer recognized or valued. To win applause one must write stuff so simple that a coachman might sing it, or so incomprehensible that it pleases simply because no sensible man can comprehend it."
"I care very little for Salzburg and not at all for the archbishop: I shit on both of them."
"As death, when we come to consider it closely, is the true goal of our existence, I have formed during the last few years such close relationships with this best and truest friend of mankind that death's image is not only no longer terrifying to me, but is indeed very soothing and consoling, and I thank my God for graciously granting me the opportunity...of learning that death is the key which unlocks the door to our true happiness. I never lie down at night without reflecting that —- young as I am — I may not live to see another day. Yet no one of all my acquaintances could say that in company I am morose or disgruntled."
"It is a mistake to think that the practice of my art has become easy to me. I assure you, dear friend, no one has given so much care to the study of composition as I. There is scarcely a famous master in music whose works I have not frequently and diligently studied."
"Melody is the essence of music. I compare a good melodist to a fine racer, and counterpointists to hack post-horses; therefore be advised, let well alone and remember the old Italian proverb: Chi sa più, meno sa—Who knows most, knows least."
"Stay with me to-night; you must see me die. I have long had the taste of death on my tongue, I smell death, and who will stand by my Constanze, if you do not stay?"
"All I insist on, and nothing else, is that you should show the whole world that you are not afraid. Be silent, if you choose; but when it is necessary, speak—and speak in such a way that people will remember it."
"Neither a lofty degree of intelligence nor imagination nor both together go to the making of genius. Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius."
"When I am, as it were, completely myself, entirely alone, and of good cheer — say traveling in a carriage, or walking after a good meal, or during the night when I cannot sleep — it is on such occasions that my ideas flow best, and most abundantly. Whence and how they come, I know not, nor can I force them."
"I pay no attention whatever to anybody's praise or blame. I simply follow my own feelings."
"It may be that when the angels go about their task praising God, they play only Bach. I am sure, however, that when they are together en famille they play Mozart."
"Mozart's music is free of all exaggeration, of all sharp breaks and contradictions. The sun shines but does not blind, does not burn or consume. Heaven arches over the earth, but it does not weigh it down, it does not crush or devour it. Hence earth remains earth, with no need to maintain itself in a titanic revolt against heaven. Granted, darkness, chaos, death and hell do appear, but not for a moment are they allowed to prevail. Knowing all, Mozart creates music from a mysterious center, and so knows the limits to the right and the left, above and below. He maintains moderation."
"I have always reckoned myself among the greatest admirers of Mozart, and shall do so till the day of my death."
"21 piano sonatas, 27 piano concertos, 41 symphonies, 18 masses, 13 operas, 9 oratorios and cantata, 2 ballets, 40 plus concertos for various instruments, string quartets, trios and quintets, violin and piano duets piano quartets, and the songs. This astounding output includes hardly one work less than a masterpiece."
"Lengthy immersion in the works of other composers can tire. The music of Mozart does not tire, and this is one of its miracles."
"Listening to Mozart, we cannot think of any possible improvement."
"Mozart, particularly, I loved. I was determined to write poetry that had as a structure what classical music, particularly Mozart, has as a structure."
"Mozart is undoubtedly one of the greatest of original geniuses, and I have never known any other composer to possess such an amazing wealth of ideas. I wish he were not so spendthrift with them. He does not give the listener time to catch his breath, for no sooner is one inclined to reflect upon a beautiful inspiration than another appears, even more splendid, which drives away the first, and this continues on and on, so that in the end one is unable to retain any of these beauties in the memory."
"Mozart's influence transcends history. Each generation sees something different in his work. Mozart's music, which to so many of his contemporaries still seemed to have the brittleness of clay, has long since been transformed into gold gleaming in the light, though it has taken on the different luster of each new generation No earthly remains of Mozart survived save a few wretched portraits, no two of which are alike; the fact that all the reproductions of his death-mask, which would have shown him as he really was, have crumbled to bits seems symbolic. It is as though the world-spirit wished to show that here is pure sound, conforming to a weightless cosmos, triumphant over all chaotic earthliness, spirit of the world-spirit."
"how can one live without Mozart."
"I tell you before God and as an honest man that your son is the greatest composer known to me; he has taste and in addition the most complete knowledge of composition."
"You wish me to write an opera buffa for you. Most willingly, if you are inclined to have a vocal composition of mine for yourself alone, but if with a view to produce it on the stage at Prague, I cannot in that case comply with your wish, all my operas being too closely connected with our personal circle, so they could never produce the proper effect. ... But even then I should risk a great deal, for scarcely any man could stand beside the great Mozart. I only wish I could impress on every friend of mine, and on great men in particular, the same depth of musical sympathy and profound appreciation of Mozart's inimitable music that I myself feel and enjoy; then nations would vie with each other to possess such a jewel within their frontiers.... It enrages me to think that the unparalleled Mozart is not yet engaged by some imperial or royal court! Forgive my excitement, but I love the man so dearly!"
"There is a wretched unbelief abroad which seems to contain much healing power. It deems such a connection accidental, and sees in it only a lucky conjunction of the different forces in the game of life. It thinks it an accident that the lovers win one another, accidental that they love one another; there are a hundred other women with whom the hero would have been equally happy, and whom he could have loved as deeply. It thinks that there has been many a poet who might have become as immortal as Homer, if this splendid subject had not already been appropriated by him; many a composer who might have made himself as immortal as Mozart, had the opportunity offered. … The accidental has but one factor; it is accidental that Homer found in the Trojan War the most distinguished epic subject conceivable. The fortunate has two factors: it is fortunate that the most distinguished epic subject fell to the lot of Homer; here the accent falls as much on Homer as on the material. It is this profound harmony which reverberates through every work of art we call classic. And so it is with Mozart; it is fortunate that the subject, which is perhaps the only strictly musical subject, in the deeper sense, that life affords, fell to — Mozart."
"My brother was a rather pretty child."
"Your countenance ... was so grave that many intelligent persons, seeing your talent so early developed and your face always serious and thoughtful, were concerned for the length of your life."
"But what is it about Mozart? Is there a pianist alive who really manages to play him well? Casadesus, whom I heard in Odessa in the F major Sonata K 332 – it must be about a century ago – left an unforgettable impression, a miracle such as one rarely witnesses. And then there was Neuhaus, who played the A minor Rondo in so touching a manner that it almost reduced you to tears. It's odd, but Haydn – who seems after all to be fairly close to Mozart in terms of genius – is infinitely less difficult to play (he's almost easy in fact). So what's Mozart's secret?"
"Pascal and Felix Mendelssohn were prodigiously precocious. But when each died before reaching age forty, each was physiologically an old man. Not so with Mozart – from him could have been extrapolated as much again in the future as had generously erupted in the past."
"What was evident was that Mozart was simply written down music already finished in his head. And music, finished as no music is ever finished. Displace one note and there would be diminishment. Displace one phrase and the structure would fall. I was staring through the cage of those meticulous ink strokes at an absolute beauty."
"Mozart was the Shakespeare of music; and as long as the immortal bard is read, Mozart will live in the admiration of mankind. He has reached the passions through the ear as Shakspeare did through the mind, and no works will live that do not touch the passions and the heart — they are the same in all ages, and will make Shakspeare and Mozart a poet and a composer "For all time"."
"In relation to God he is like a child who brings everything to his father: the stones from the street and peculiar sticks and little plants and even once a ladybug; and with him all of these things are melodies, melodies that he brings to God, melodies that he suddenly knows when he is inside of prayer. And when he has finished praying, and he is no longer on his knees and no longer has his hands folded, then he sits there at the piano, or he sings with an incredible childlikeness, and in doing so he no longer has any idea whether he is playing something for God or whether it is God who is using him to play something at once for himself and for Mozart. There is a great conversation between Mozart and God that is the purest prayer, and this entire conversation is nothing but music."
"He brought to the classical symphony not only depths of expression but the idea that the musical phrase is inextricably bound up with the particular colouration of the instrument that plays it."
"It is a sobering thought that when Mozart was my age, he had been dead for two years."
"Excluding and banning the sublime work of Mozart in the Temple for his masonry militancy seems ridiculous and even offensive to all "men of good will" who love only and above all great classical music, which they do not look with any prejudice at the choices made in life by any genius, and they do not think at all that his celestial notes could harm the soul of anyone or even disturb that of the Franciscan fathers."
"openmozart.net: Friedrich Rochlitz forgery"
"Livepictures from Mozart Birthhous in Salzburg"
"Entre los Individuos, como entre Las Naciones, El respeto al derecho ajeno es la paz."
"The government of the republic will fulfill its duty to defend its independence, to repel foreign aggression, and accept the struggle to which it has been provoked, counting on the unanimous spirit of the Mexicans and on the fact that sooner or later the cause of rights and justice will triumph."
"In use of the broad powers with which I have been invested, I have found it proper to declare that 1. Priests of any cult who, abusing their ministry, excite hate or disrespect for our laws, our government, or its rights, will be punished by three years’ imprisonment or deportation. 2. Because of the present crisis all cathedral chapters are suppressed, except for that of Guadalajara because of its patriotic behavior. 3. Priests of all cults are forbidden from wearing their vestments or any other distinguishing garment outside of the churches… All violators will be punished with fines of ten to one hundred pesos or imprisonment from fifteen to sixty days."
"Democracy is the destiny of humanity; freedom its indestructible arm."
"Adversity, Citizen Deputies, discourages none but contemptible peoples; ours has been ennobled by great feats and we are far from being shorn of the immense obstacles, material and moral, which the country will oppose…"
"There is no help but in defense but I can assure you... the Imperial Government will not succeed in subduing the Mexicans, and its armies will not have a single day of peace... we must stop them, not only for our country but for the respect of the sovereignty of the nations."
"Mexicans: let us now pledge all our efforts to obtain and consolidate the benefits of peace. Under its auspices, the protection of the laws and of the authorities will be sufficient for all the inhabitants of the Republic. May the people and the government respect the rights of all. Between individuals, as between nations, peace means respect for the rights of others."
"There is one thing beyond the reach of perversity. The inevitable failure of history, she will judge us"
"The vision that impels feminists to action was the vision of the Grandmothers' society, the society that was captured in the words of the sixteenth-century explorer Peter Martyr nearly five hundred years ago. It is the same vision repeated over and over by radical thinkers of Europe and America, from François Villon to John Locke, from William Shakespeare to Thomas Jefferson, from Karl Marx to Friedrich Engels, from Benito Juarez to Martin Luther King, from Elizabeth Cady Stanton to Judy Grahn, from Harriet Tubman to Audre Lorde, from Emma Goldman to Bella Abzug, from Malinalli to Cherríe Moraga, and from Iyatiku to me. That vision as Martyr told it is of a country where there are "no soldiers, no gendarmes or police, no nobles, kings, regents, prefects, or judges, no prisons, no lawsuits... All are equal and free.""
"This is the beginning of a social movement in fact and not in pronouncements. We seek our basic, God-given rights as human beings. Because we have suffered — and are not afraid to suffer — in order to survive, we are ready to give up everything, even our lives, in our fight for social justice. We shall do it without violence because that is our destiny. To the ranchers, and to all those who opposes, we say, in the words of Benito Juárez: "El respeto al derecho ajeno es la paz." [Respect for another's right is the meaning of peace.]"
"Without realizing it the maids provided me with a version of Benito Juárez; they were all like Benito Juárez. Like him they vindicated themselves: "Dirty foreigners." Like him they defended Mexico, as stubborn as mules. Like him they had no roof of their own and had eaten only poor people's food, and for me, a girl raised on French mashed potatoes, discovering them meant entering into "the other.""
"L'État c'est la grande fiction à travers laquelle tout le monde s'efforce de vivre aux dépens de tout le monde."
"By virtue of exchange, one man's prosperity is beneficial to all others."
"The profit of the one is the profit of the other."
"Competition is merely the absence of oppression."
"In the department of economy, an act, a habit, an institution, a law, gives birth not only to an effect, but to a series of effects. Of these effects, the first only is immediate; it manifests itself simultaneously with its cause — it is seen. The others unfold in succession — they are not seen: it is well for us, if they are foreseen. Between a good and a bad economist this constitutes the whole difference: the one takes account only of the visible effect; the other takes account of both the effects which are seen and those which it is necessary to foresee. Now this difference is enormous, for it almost always happens that when the immediate consequence is favourable, the ultimate consequences are fatal, and the converse. Hence it follows that the bad economist pursues a small present good, which will be followed by a great evil to come, while the true economist pursues a great good to come, at the risk of a small present evil."
"Either fraternity is spontaneous, or it does not exist. To decree it is to annihilate it. The law can indeed force men to remain just; in vain would it try to force them to be self-sacrificing."
"If socialists mean that under extraordinary circumstances, for urgent cases, the State should set aside some resources to assist certain unfortunate people, to help them adjust to changing conditions, we will, of course, agree. This is done now; we desire that it be done better. There is however, a point on this road that must not be passed; it is the point where governmental foresight would step in to replace individual foresight and thus destroy it."
"[The socialists declare] that the State owes subsistence, well-being, and education to all its citizens; that it should be generous, charitable, involved in everything, devoted to everybody; ...that it should intervene directly to relieve all suffering, satisfy and anticipate all wants, furnish capital to all enterprises, enlightenment to all minds, balm for all wounds, asylums for all the unfortunate, and even aid to the point of shedding French blood, for all oppressed people on the face of the earth. Who would not like to see all these benefits flow forth upon the world from the law, as from an inexhaustible source? … But is it possible? … Whence does [the State] draw those resources that it is urged to dispense by way of benefits to individuals? Is it not from the individuals themselves? How, then, can these resources be increased by passing through the hands of a parasitic and voracious intermediary? ... Finally … we shall see the entire people transformed into petitioners. Landed property, agriculture, industry, commerce, shipping, industrial companies, all will bestir themselves to claim favors from the State. The public treasury will be literally pillaged. Everyone will have good reasons to prove that legal fraternity should be interpreted in this sense: "Let me have the benefits, and let others pay the costs." Everyone's effort will be directed toward snatching a scrap of fraternal privilege from the legislature. The suffering classes, although having the greatest claim, will not always have the greatest success."
"When under the pretext of fraternity, the legal code imposes mutual sacrifices on the citizens, human nature is not thereby abrogated. Everyone will then direct his efforts toward contributing little to, and taking much from, the common fund of sacrifices. Now, is it the most unfortunate who gains from this struggle? Certainly not, but rather the most influential and calculating."
"Lorsque la Spoliation est devenue le moyen d’existence d’une agglomération d’hommes unis entre eux par le lien social, ils se font bientôt une loi qui la sanctionne, une morale qui la glorifie."
"It is a rather singular argument to maintain that, because an abuse which has been permitted a temporary existence, cannot be corrected without wounding the interests of those who have profited by it, it ought, therefore, to claim perpetual duration."
"Life, faculties, production — in other words, individuality, liberty, property — this is man. And in spite of the cunning of artful political leaders, these three gifts from God precede all human legislation, and are superior to it. Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place."
"It is impossible to introduce into society a greater change and a greater evil than this: the conversion of the law into an instrument of plunder."
"When law and morality contradict each other, the citizen has the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense or losing his respect for the law."
"Thus, if there exists a law which sanctions slavery or monopoly, oppression or robbery, in any form whatever, it must not even be mentioned. For how can it be mentioned without damaging the respect which it inspires? Still further, morality and political economy must be taught from the point of view of this law; from the supposition that it must be a just law merely because it is a law. Another effect of this tragic perversion of the law is that it gives an exaggerated importance to political passions and conflicts, and to politics in general."
"But how is this legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime."
"Legal plunder can be committed in an infinite number of ways. Thus we have an infinite number of plans for organizing it: tariffs, protection, benefits, subsidies, encouragements, progressive taxation, public schools, guaranteed jobs, guaranteed profits, minimum wages, a right to relief, a right to the tools of labor, free credit, and so on, and so on. All these plans as a whole — with their common aim of legal plunder — constitute socialism."
"No legal plunder: This is the principle of justice, peace, order, stability, harmony, and logic. Until the day of my death, I shall proclaim this principle with all the force of my lungs (which alas! is all too inadequate)."
"Essayez d’imaginer une forme de travail imposée par la Force, qui ne soit une atteinte à la Liberté ; une transmission de richesse imposée par la Force, qui ne soit une atteinte à la Propriété. Si vous n’y parvenez pas, convenez donc que la Loi ne peut organiser le travail et l’industrie sans organiser l’Injustice."
"Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all. We disapprove of state education. Then the socialists say that we are opposed to any education. We object to a state religion. Then the socialists say that we want no religion at all. We object to a state-enforced equality. Then they say that we are against equality. And so on, and so on. It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain. I do not dispute their right to invent social combinations, to advertise them, to advocate them, and to try them upon themselves, at their own expense and risk. But I do dispute their right to impose these plans upon us by law – by force – and to compel us to pay for them with our taxes."
"If the natural tendencies of mankind are so bad that it is not safe to permit people to be free, how is it that the tendencies of these organizers are always good? Do not the legislators and their appointed agents also belong to the human race? Or do they believe that they themselves are made of a finer clay than the rest of mankind?"
"It seems to me that this is theoretically right, for whatever the question under discussion — whether religious, philosophical, political, or economic; whether it concerns prosperity, morality, equality, right, justice, progress, responsibility, cooperation, property, labor, trade, capital, wages, taxes, population, finance, or government — at whatever point on the scientific horizon I begin my researches, I invariably reach this one conclusion: The solution to the problems of human relationships is to be found in liberty."
"Le plus pressé, ce n'est pas que l'État enseigne, mais qu'il laisse enseigner. Tous les monopoles sont détestables, mais le pire de tous, c'est le monopole de l'enseignement."
"If (when) goods don’t cross borders, soldiers will."
"By the way, have you had time to read Bastiat's partly posthumous volume, 'Les Harmonies Economiques'? If not, do so; it will require a studious perusal, but will repay it. He has breathed a soul into the dry bones of political economy, and has vindicated his favourite science from the charge of inhumanity with all the fervour of a religious devotee."
"In three years every Frenchman can know how to read. Do you think that we shall be the better off? Imagine on the other hand that in each commune, there was ONE bourgeois, only one, who had read Bastiat, and that this bourgeois was respected, things would change."
"The shallowest and therefore the most successful representative of the apologists of vulgar economics."
"Bastiat...was not long in awakening to the fact that not Protection but Socialism was now the foe that menaced France. He turned round with admirable versatility, and brought to bear on the new monster the same keen and patient scrutiny, the same skilful dexterity in reasoning and illustration, which had done such good service against the more venerable heresy. The pamphlets which he wrote between 1848 and 1850 contain by much the most penetrating and effective examination that the great Socialist writers in France have ever received."
"When Sir Robert Peel had at last passed his famous measure [the repeal of the Corn Laws], Bastiat, a French economist and Cobden's friend, was gravely disappointed. It was not enough that the markets of England were thrown wide open to French commerce. "What you have to show France above all else," said Bastiat in an astounding letter, "is that freedom of exchange will cause the disappearance of those military perils which France apprehends. England ought seriously to disarm." It would be hard indeed to surpass the pedant naïveté of this French Free Trader. It was not enough that England should surrender her markets—she must surrender herself as well, or France would not believe in her sincerity!"
"Give Him thanks, all ye His works so wondrous! Sing His honor, sing His glory, bless and magnify His Name! Jehovah’s praise endures forevermore, Amen, Amen!."
"Ich sage ihnen vor Gott, als ein ehrlicher Mann, ihr Sohn ist der größte Componist, den ich von Person und den Nahmen nach kenne: er hat geschmack, und über das die größte Compositionswissenschaft."
"If I could only impress on the soul of every friend of music, and on high personages in particular, how inimitable are Mozart's works, how profound, how musically intelligent, how extraordinarily sensitive! (for this is how I understand them, how I feel them) — why then the nations would vie with each other to possess such a jewel within their frontiers. Prague should hold him fast — but should reward him, too: for without this, the history of great geniuses is sad indeed, and gives but little encouragement to posterity to further exertions; and unfortunately this is why so many promising intellects fall by the wayside."
"Dear Haydn, how I love you! But other pianists? They're rather lukewarm towards you. Which is a great shame."
"Haydn is, together with Schumann, probably the most neglected and misunderstood of the greatest composers. Some might argue with this statement by saying that Haydn's works are frequently performed and that he has long been recognised as the father figure of Viennese Classicism. Papa Haydn has become one of the worst clichés in classical music. It degrades one of history's most innovative composers into a lovable but minor figure."
"[A]lthough you have a right to appoint me to the office... yet you have no right to expect me either to spend money to forward the election or to cheat any man's vote, and I shall do neither... a seat in the House can never bring me either honours or emoluments, nothing, in short, but labour and trouble - you cannot expect from me, so will not, in fact, receive from me, either flatteries, treats or bribes."
"This led me to extend my inquiry into the origin of all religions, and this again led to an enquiry into the origin of nations and languages; and ultimately I came to a resolution to devote six hours a day to this pursuit for ten years. Instead of six hours daily for ten years, I believe I have, upon the average, applied myself to it for nearly ten hours daily for almost twenty years. In the first ten years of my search I may fairly say, I found nothing which I sought for; in the latter part of the twenty, the quantity of matter has so crowded in upon me, that I scarcely know how to dispose of it."
"It is curious to observe how the Cross is regaining its old place in this country. A hundred years ago our Protestant females would have been shocked at the idea of wearing a cross. Now they all have crosses dangling from their necks; and our priests generally prevail to have it elevated on the tops of our new churches. They say it is not an object of adoration. True : but all in its proper time. It will not be elevated on the church and the altar for nothing. A prudent Pope, availing himself of the powers given to him by the Council of Trent, would not find it difficult to effect a reconciliation between the Papal See and the Protestant Church of England. The extremes are beginning to bend to the circular form."
"“The peninsula of India would be one of the first peopled countries, and its inhabitants would have all the habits of the progenitors of man before the flood in as much perfection or more than any other nation… In short, whatever learning man possessed before his dispersion may be expected to be found here, and of this, Hindustan affords innumerable traces… notwithstanding … the fruitless efforts of our priests to disguise it.”"
"Anacalypsis: An Attempt to Draw Aside the Veil of the Saitic or an Inquiry into the Origin of Languages, Nations and Religions."
"I think it right to warn my reader, that there are more passages than one in the book, which are of that nature, which will be perfectly understood by my Masonic friends, but which my engagements prevent me explaining to the world at large. My Masonic friends will find their craft very often referred to. I believe, however that they will not find any of their secrets betrayed; but I trust they will find it proved, that their art is the remains of a very fine ancient system, or, perhaps, more properly, a branch of the fine and beautiful system of WISDOM which, in this work, I have developed."
"In all the Romish [Catholic] countries of Europe, France, Italy, Germany, etc., the God Christ, as well as his mother, are described in their old pictures and statues to be black. The infant God in the arms of his black mother, his eyes and drapery white, is himself perfectly black. If the reader doubts my word he may go to the Cathedral at Moulins—to the famous Chapel of the Virgin at Loretto—to the Church of the Annunciata—the Church at St. Lazaro or the Church of St. Stephen at Genoa—to St. Francisco at Pisa—to the Church at Brixen in Tyrol and to that at Padua—to the Church of St. Theodore at Munich—to a church and to the Cathedral at Augsburg, where a black virgin and child as large as life—to Rome and the Borghese chapel of Maria Maggiore—to the Pantheon—to a small chapel of St. Peters on the right hand side on entering, near the door; and in fact, to almost innumerable other churches in countries professing the Romish religion."
"We have found the Black complexion or something relating to it whenever we have approached the origin of nations. The Alma Mater, the Goddess Multimammia, the founders of the Oracles, the Memnon of first idols, were always Black. Venus, Jupiter, Apollo, Bacchus, Hercules, Asteroth, Adonis, Horus, Apis, Osiris, and Amen: in short all the... deities were black. They remained as they were first... in very ancient times."
"When I consider all the circumstances detailed above respecting the Pans, I cannot help believing that, under the mythos, a doctrine or history of a sect is concealed. Cunti, the wife of Pandu (du or God, Pan), wife of the generative power, mother of the Pandavas or devas, daughter of Sura or Syra the Sun—Pandæa only daughter of Cristna or the Sun—Pandion, who had by Medea a son called Medus, the king of the Medes, who had a cousin, the famous Perseus — surely all this is very mythological — an historical parable!"
"I think Pandeism was system; — and that when I say the country or kingdom of Pandæa, I express myself in a manner similar to what I should do, if I said the Popish kingdom or the kingdoms of Popery; or again, the Greeks have many idle ceremonies in their church, meaning the Greeks of all nations: or, the countries of the Pope are superstitions, &c. At the same time, I beg to be understood as not denying that there was such a kingdom as that of Pandae, the daughter of Cristna, any more than I would deny that there was a Kingdom of France ruled by the eldest son of the church, or the eldest son of the Pope."
"— We have seen that though Cristna was said to have left many sons, he left his immense empire, which extended from the sources of the Indus to Cape Comorin, (for we find a Regio Pandionis near this point,) to his daughter Pandæa; but, from finding the icon of Buddha so constantly shaded with the nine Cobras, &c., I am induced to think that this Pandeism was a doctrine, which had been received both by Buddhists and Brahmins."
"Indeed I cannot doubt that there has been really one grand empire, or one Universal, one Pandæan, or one Catholic religion, with one language, which has extended over the whole of the world; uniting or governing at the same time..."
"[A] less conventional member of the squirearchy... a political radical, reforming county magistrate and idiosyncratic historian of religions."
"His indefatigable exertions in the detection and correction of the great abuses then existing in the management of the York Lunatic asylum, and the formation of another and very extensive establishment for the care and protection of pauper lunatics at Wakefield, will be monuments of his humble spirit and perseverance and philanthropy."
"Any man could, if he were so inclined, be the sculptor of his own brain ( p. xv)."
"Instead of elaborating on accepted principles, let us simply point out that for the last hundred years the natural sciences have abandoned completely the Aristotelian principles of intuition, inspiration, and dogmatism."
"The unique method of reflection indulged in by the Pythagoreans and followers of Plato (and pursued in modern times by Descartes, Fichte, Krause, Hegel, and more recently at least partly by Bergson) involves exploring one’s own mind or soul to discover universal laws and solutions to the great secrets of life."
"This history of civilization proves beyond doubt just how sterile the repeated attempts of metaphysics to guess at nature' s laws have been. Instead, there is every reason to believe that when the human intellect ignores reality and concentrates within, it can no longer explain the simplest inner workings of life' s machinery or of the world around us ( p. 2)."
"The intellect is presented with phenomena marching in review before the sensory organs. It can be truly useful and productive only when limiting itself to the modest tasks of observation, description, and comparison, and of classification that is based on analogies and differences. A knowledge of underlying causes and empirical laws will then come slowly through the use of inductive methods."
"As Claude Bernard has pointed out, researchers cannot transcend the determinism of phenomena; instead, their mission is limited to demonstrating the how, never the why, of observed changes. This is a modest goal in the eyes of philosophy, yet an imposing challenge in actual practice."
"Knowing the conditions under which a phenomenon occurs allows us to reproduce or eliminate it at will, therefore allowing us to control and use it for the benefit of humanity. Foresight and action are the advantages we obtain from a deterministic view of phenomena."
"The severe constraints imposed by determinism may appear to limit philosophy in a rather arbitrary way. However, there is no denying that in the natural sciences — and especially in biology — it is a very effective tool for avoiding the innate tendency to explain the universe as a whole in terms of general laws."
"Now and then philosophers invade the field of biological sciences with these beguiling generalizations, which tend to be unproductive, purely verbal solutions lacking in substance. At best, they may prove useful when viewed simply as working hypotheses."
"There is no doubt that the human mind is fundamentally incapable of solving these formidable problems (the origin of life, nature of matter, origin of movement, and appearance of consciousness). Our brain is an organ of action that is directed toward practical tasks; it does not appear to have been built for discovering the ultimate causes of things, but rather for determining their immediate causes and invariant relationships."
"It is important to note that the most brilliant discoveries have not relied on a formal knowledge of logic. Instead, their discoverers have had an acute inner logic that generates ideas with the same unstudied unconsciousness that allowed Jourdain to create prose."
"In summary, there are no small problems. Problems that appear small are large problems that are not understood (p. 17)."
"Cajal is considered the father of modern neuroscience, as important in his field as Charles Darwin or Louis Pasteur are in theirs (though relatively unknown outside of it)."
"Santiago Ramón y Cajal is recognized as the founder of modern neuroscience, his discoveries representing the fundamental pillars of our current understanding of the nervous system."
"As the decades have passed, one by one all his theories have been corroborated using modern techniques, and the main hypotheses that Cajal postulated have become universally recognized as biological laws: The neuron theory; the law of the dynamic polarization of the neuron and the principle of connectional specificity."
"For most neuroscientists, the roots of our discipline stem from Santiago Ramón y Cajal, the Spanish scientist who, during almost half a century of patient work, showed that the nervous system is made up of independent nerve cells. His studies on the anatomical organization of the brain are still a source of inspiration for many of us. His monumental body of work fully justifies that Ramón y Cajal be singled out as the founder of modern neuroscience."
"Well may the boldest fear and the wisest tremble when incurring responsibilities on which may depend our country's peace and prosperity, and in some degree the hopes and happiness of the whole human family."
"By the theory of our Government majorities rule, but this right is not an arbitrary or unlimited one. It is a right to be exercised in subordination to the Constitution and in conformity to it. One great object of the Constitution was to restrain majorities from oppressing minorities or encroaching upon their just rights. Minorities have a right to appeal to the Constitution as a shield against such oppression."
"Foreign powers do not seem to appreciate the true character of our Government."
"The world has nothing to fear from military ambition in our Government."
"Although in our country the Chief Magistrate must almost of necessity be chosen by a party and stand pledged to its principles and measures, yet in his official action he should not be the President of a part only, but of the whole people of the United States. While he executes the laws with an impartial hand, shrinks from no proper responsibility, and faithfully carries out in the executive department of the Government the principles and policy of those who have chosen him, he should not be unmindful that our fellow-citizens who have differed with him in opinion are entitled to the full and free exercise of their opinions and judgments, and that the rights of all are entitled to respect and regard."
"It becomes us, in humility, to make our devout acknowledgments to the Supreme Ruler of the Universe, for the inestimable civil and religious blessings with which we are favored."
"The passion for office among members of Congress is very great, if not absolutely disreputable, and greatly embarrasses the operations of the government. They create offices by their own votes and then seek to fill them themselves."
"Thank God, under our Constitution there was no connection between church and state."
"There is more selfishness and less principle among members of Congress, as well as others, than I had any conception [of], before I became President of the U.S."
"With me it is emphatically true that the presidency is "no bed of roses.""
"Under the benignant providence of Almighty God the representatives of the States and of the people are again brought together to deliberate for the public good. The gratitude of the nation to the sovereign arbiter of all human events should be commensurate with the boundless blessings which we enjoy. Peace, plenty, and contentment reign throughout our borders, and our beloved country presents a sublime moral spectacle to the world."
"No president who performs his duties faithfully and conscientiously can have any leisure. If he entrusts the details and smaller matters to subordinates constant errors will occur. I prefer to supervise the whole operations of the government myself rather than entrust the public business to subordinates, and this makes my duties very great."
"I am heartily rejoiced that my term is so near its close. I will soon cease to be a servant and will become a sovereign."
"I love you Sarah. For all eternity, I love you."
"For the next ten years the question of the admission of Texas as a state of the Union was a burning issue in American politics. As each new state demanded entry into the Union so the feeling for and against slavery ran higher. The great Abolitionist journalist, William Lloyd Garrison, called for a secession of the Northern states if the slave state of Texas was admitted to the Union. The Southerners, realising that Texan votes would give them a majority in the Senate if this vast territory was admitted as a number of separate states, clamoured for annexation. The capitalists of the East were committed, through the formation of land companies, to exploit Texas, and besides the issue of dubious stocks by these bodies vast quantities of paper notes and bonds of the new Texan Republic were floated in the United States. The speculation in these helped to split the political opposition of the Northern states to the annexation. Even more important was the conversion of many Northerners to belief in the “Manifest Destiny” of the United States. This meant that their destiny was to spread across the whole of the North American continent. The Democratic Party in the election of 1844 called for the occupation of Oregon as well as the annexation of Texas, thus holding out to the North the promise of Oregon as a counterweight to Southern Texas. The victory of the Democratic candidate, James K. Polk, was interpreted as a mandate for admitting Texas, and this was done by joint resolution of Congress in February 1845."
"It remained to persuade Mexico to recognise this state of affairs, and also to fix the boundaries of Texas. President Polk was determined to push them as far south as possible, and war was inevitable. It broke out in May 1846. Meanwhile a similar train of events was unfolding on the other side of the continent. All this time American penetration of the West had continued, often with grim experiences of starvation and winter snows. Nothing could stop the migration towards the Pacific. The lure of the rich China trade and the dream of controlling the Western Ocean brought the acquisition of California to the fore, and gave her even more importance in American eyes than Texas. In June 1846 the American settlers in California, instigated from Washington, raised the Bear Flag as their standard of revolt and declared their independence on the Texan model. Soon afterwards American forces arrived and the Stars and Stripes replaced the Bear."
"Polk was by nature an introvert but out of political necessity forced himself to mingle. He had few genuinely close friends. Still, he was generally well liked. A classic overachiever, he was very ambitious. Biographer Charles C. Sellers attributed his "feverish drive" to "early physical inferiority," "frustrations of his boyish ambitions," and "his mother's stern gospel of duty." To compensate for a lack of brilliance and charisma, he, according to sellers, "drove himself ruthlessly, exploiting the abilities and energies he did possess to an extent that few men can equal." Yet he kept a firm rein on his ambition, never letting it threaten his career."
"President James K. Polk, who presided over the invasion of Mexico, saw its significance as an example of how a democracy could carry on and win a foreign war with as much "vigor" as authoritarian governments were able to do. He believed that an elected civilian government with its volunteer people's army was even more effective than European monarchies in the quest for empire. The victory over Mexico proved to the European powers, he felt, that the United States was their equal. Standing tall through military victory over a weak country: it was not Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush who thought up that idea. The tradition is as old as the United States itself."
"Ohne Begeisterung, welche die Seele mit einer gesunden Wärme erfüllt, wird nie etwas Großes zustande gebracht."
"In Städten glaubt man, es gehöre zum guten Tone, nicht einmal zu wissen, wer in demselben Hause wohnt."
"Achte dich selbst, wenn du willst, dass andere dich achten sollen!"
"Handle gut und anständig, weniger anderen zu gefallen, eher um deine eigene Achtung nicht zu verscherzen."
"Es gibt keine Notlügen; noch nie ist eine Unwahrheit gesprochen worden, die nicht früh oder spät nachteillige Folgen für jedermann gehabt hätte."
"Gar zu leicht missbrauchen oder vernachlässigen uns die Menschen, sobald wir mit ihnen vertraulich werden. Um angenehm zu leben, muss man fast immer ein Fremder unter den Leuten bleiben."
"In deiner Kleidung verfalle nie in Nachlässigkeit, wenn du allein bist. Gehe nicht schmutzig, nicht krumm noch mit groben Manieren einher, wenn dich niemand beobachtet."
"Keine Verbindungen pflegen dauerhafter zu sein als die, welche in der frühen Jugend geschlossen werden. Man ist da noch weniger misstrauisch, weniger schwierig in Kleinigkeiten."
"Lerne den Ton der Gesellschaft anzunehmen, in der du dich befindest."
"Lerne Widerspruch ertragen. Sei nicht kindisch eingenommen von deinen Meinungen."
"Sei nicht zu sehr ein Sklave der Meinungen andrer von dir! Sei selbständig! Was kümmert dich am Ende das Urteil der ganzen Welt, wenn du tust, was du sollst?"
"Der Umgang mit Kindern hat für einen verständigen Menschen unendlich viel Interesse. Hier sieht er das Buch der Natur in unverfälschter Ausgabe aufgeschlagen."
"Über viele Dinge urteilen Kinder, von Systemgeist, Leidenschaft und Gelehrsamkeit unverführt, weit richtiger als Erwachsene."
"Vor einem grauen Haupte sollst du aufstehen!"
"Wer immer in Zerstreuungen lebt, wird fremd im eigenen Herzen."
"Wir sehen die klügsten, verständigsten Menschen im Leben Schritte tun, über die wir den Kopf schütteln müssen."
"The idle story of the Pretender's having been introduced in a warming-pan, into the Queen's bed, though as destitute of all probability as of all foundation, has been much more prejudicial to the cause of Jacobitism, than all that Mr. Locke and others have written, to show the unreasonableness and absurdity of the doctrines of indefeasible hereditary right, and unlimited passive obedience."
"I foresee, that before the end of this century, the trade of both King and Priest will not be half so good a one as it has been."
"The chapter of knowledge is a very short, but the chapter of accidents is a very long one."
"I assisted at the birth of that most significant word "flirtation," which dropped from the most beautiful mouth in the world."
"Unlike my subject will I frame my song, It shall be witty, and it shan't be long."
"At twelve you may walk, for at this time o' the year, The sun like your wit, is as mild, as 'tis clear: But mark in the meadows the ruin of Time; Take the hint, and let life be improv'd in its prime."
"Cheerful with wisdom, with innocence gay, And calm with your joys gently glide thro' the day. The dews of the evening most carefully shun — Those tears of the sky for the loss of the sun."
"Then in chat, or at play, with a dance, or a song, Let the night, like the day, pass with pleasure along. All cares, but of love, banish far from your mind; And those you may end, when you please to be kind."
"I see that you are in fears again from your White Boys, and have destroyed a good many of them; but I believe, that if the military force had killed half as many landlords, it would have contributed more effectually to restore quiet. The poor people in Ireland are used worse than negroes by their Lords and Masters, and their Deputies of Deputies of Deputies. For there is a sentiment in every human breast that asserts man's natural right to liberty and good usage, and that will, and ought to rebel when oppressed and provoked to a certain degree."
"Religion is by no means a proper subject of conversation in a mixed company."
"Tyrawley and I have been dead these two years; but we don't choose to have it known."
"Marriage is the cure of love, and friendship the cure of marriage."
"The nation looked upon him as a deserter, and he shrunk into insignificancy and an earldom."
"He adorned whatever subject he either spoke or wrote upon, by the most splendid eloquence."
"Be wiser than other people if you can; but do not tell them so."
"Whatever is worth doing at all, is worth doing well."
"The knowledge of the world is only to be acquired in the world, and not in a closet."
"An injury is much sooner forgotten than an insult."
"There is time enough for everything, in the course of the day, if you do but one thing at once; but there is not time enough in the year, if you will do two things at a time."
"I really know nothing more criminal, more mean, and more ridiculous than lying. It is the production either of malice, cowardice, or vanity; and generally misses of its aim in every one of these views; for lies are always detected, sooner or later."
"Courts and camps are the only places to learn the world in."
"The world is a country which nobody ever yet knew by description; one must travel through it one's self to be acquainted with it."
"Do as you would be done by, is the surest method of pleasing."
"Take the tone of the company you are in."
"I knew once a very covetous, sordid fellow, who used to say, "Take care of the pence, for the pounds will take care of themselves.""
"The young leading the young, is like the blind leading the blind; “they will both fall into the ditch.”"
"I recommend you to take care of the minutes: for hours will take care of themselves."
"Patience, to hear frivolous, impertinent, and unreasonable applications: with address enough to refuse, without offending; or, by your manner of granting, to double the obligation: dexterity enough to conceal a truth, without telling a lie: sagacity enough to read other people’s countenances: and serenity enough not to let them discover anything by yours; a seeming frankness, with a real reserve. These are the rudiments of a politician; the world must be your grammar."
"Advice is seldom welcome; and those who want it the most always like it the least."
"Speak of the moderns without contempt, and of the ancients without idolatry."
"Never seem wiser, nor more learned, than the people you are with. Wear your learning, like your watch, in a private pocket: and do not pull it out and strike it; merely to show that you have one."
"Sacrifice to the Graces."
"In my mind, there is nothing so illiberal and so ill-bred, as audible laughter."
"I am sure that since I have had the full use of my reason, nobody has ever heard me laugh."
"The characteristic of a well-bred man is, to converse with his inferiors without insolence, and with his superiors with respect and with ease."
"Manners must adorn knowledge, and smooth its way through the world. Like a great rough diamond, it may do very well in a closet by way of curiosity, and also for its intrinsic value."
"Women who are either indisputably beautiful, or indisputably ugly, are best flattered upon the score of their understandings; but those who are in a state of mediocrity are best flattered upon their beauty, or at least their graces; for every woman who is not absolutely ugly thinks herself handsome."
"Little minds mistake little objects for great ones, and lavish away upon the former that time and attention which only the latter deserve. To such mistakes we owe the numerous and frivolous tribe of insect-mongers, shell-mongers, and pursuers and driers of butterflies, etc. The strong mind distinguishes, not only between the useful and the useless, but likewise between the useful and the curious."
"A strong mind sees things in their true proportions; a weak one views them through a magnifying medium, which, like the microscope, makes an elephant of a flea: magnifies all little objects, but cannot receive great ones."
"The herd of mankind can hardly be said to think; their notions are almost all adoptive; and, in general, I believe it is better that it should be so; as such common prejudices contribute more to order and quiet, than their own separate reasonings would do, uncultivated and unimproved as they are."
"Without some dissimulation no business can be carried on at all."
"I recommend to you, in my last, an innocent piece of art: that of flattering people behind their backs, in presence of those who, to make their own court, much more than for your sake, will not fail to repeat, and even amplify, the praise to the party concerned. This is of all flattery the most pleasing, and consequently the most effectual."
"Idleness is only the refuge of weak minds."
"Abject flattery and indiscriminate assentation degrade, as much as indiscriminate contradiction and noisy debate disgust. But a modest assertion of one’s own opinion, and a complaisant acquiescence in other people’s, preserve dignity."
"Style is the dress of thoughts."
"Women are much more like each other than men: they have, in truth, but two passions, vanity and love; these are their universal characteristics."
"We must not draw general conclusions from certain particular principles, though, in the main, true ones. We must not suppose that, because a man is a rational animal, he will therefore always act rationally; or, because he has such or such a predominant passion, that he will act invariably and consequentially in the pursuit of it. No. We are complicated machines: and though we have one main-spring, that gives motion to the whole, we have an infinity of little wheels, which, in their turns, retard, precipitate, and sometimes stop that motion."
"Know the true value of time; snatch, seize, and enjoy every moment of it. No idleness, no laziness, no procrastination: never put off till to-morrow what you can do to-day."
"Dispatch is the soul of business."
"I wish to God that you had as much pleasure in following my advice, as I have in giving it to you."
"Knowledge may give weight, but accomplishments give luster, and many more people see than weigh."
"Let blockheads read what blockheads wrote."
"The manner is often as important as the matter, sometimes more so."
"You had better refuse a favor gracefully, than to grant it clumsily. Manner is all, in everything: it is by manner only that you can please, and consequently rise. All your Greek will never advance you from secretary to envoy, or from envoy to ambassador; but your address, your manner, your air, if good, very probably may."
"It is commonly said, and more particularly by Lord Shaftesbury, that ridicule is the best test of truth."
"Let dull critics feed upon the carcasses of plays; give me the taste and the dressing."
"Every woman is infallibly to be gained by every sort of flattery, and every man by one sort or other."
"It is a great advantage for any man to be able to talk or hear, neither ignorantly nor absurdly, upon any subject; for I have known people, who have not said one word, hear ignorantly and absurdly; it has appeared by their inattentive and unmeaning faces."
"A proper secrecy is the only mystery of able men; mystery is the only secrecy of weak and cunning ones."
"There are some occasions in which a man must tell half his secret, in order to conceal the rest; but there is seldom one in which a man should tell all. Great skill is necessary to know how far to go, and where to stop."
"The reputation of generosity is to be purchased pretty cheap; it does not depend so much upon a man’s general expense, as it does upon his giving handsomely where it is proper to give at all. A man, for instance, who should give a servant four shillings, would pass for covetous, while he who gave him a crown, would be reckoned generous; so that the difference of those two opposite characters, turns upon one shilling."
"People will no more advance their civility to a bear, than their money to a bankrupt."
"Let this be one invariable rule of your conduct—never to show the least symptom of resentment, which you cannot, to a certain degree, gratify; but always to smile, where you cannot strike."
"Our conjectures pass upon us for truths; we will know what we do not know, and often, what we cannot know: so mortifying to our pride is the base suspicion of ignorance."
"In short, let it be your maxim through life, to know all you can know, yourself; and never to trust implicitly to the informations of others."
"It is an undoubted truth, that the less one has to do, the less time one finds to do it in. One yawns, one procrastinates, one can do it when one will, and therefore one seldom does it at all."
"You foolish man, you do not understand your own foolish business."
"[On sex] The pleasure is momentary, the position ridiculous, the expense damnable."
"It wasn't until I grew up and read Lord Chesterfield that I began my education. He became my tutor and the public library my university."
"For my part, I like more straight-forward work."
"They teach the morals of a whore, and the manners of a dancing master."
"To my great surprise they seem really written from the heart, not for the honour of his head, and in truth do no great honour to the last, nor show much feeling in the first, except in wishing for his son's fine gentleman-hood."
"Le succès, qui ne prouve pas toujours le mérite, tient souvent davantage au choix du sujet qu’à son exécution."
"On peut citer de mauvais vers, quand ils sont d'un grand poète."
"L'amour est, comme la médecine, seulement l'art d'aider à la nature."
"J’ai été étonné du plaisir qu’on éprouve en faisant le bien."
"Le scélérat a ses vertus, comme l'honnête homme a ses faiblesses."
"Une occasion manquée se retrouve, tandis qu’on ne revient jamais d’une démarche précipitée."
"On a toujours assez vécu, quand on a eu le temps d’acquérir l’amour des femmes et l’estime des hommes."
"Une main occupée pour la force, l'autre pour l'amour, quel orateur pourrait prétendre à la grâce en pareille situation?"
"Le luxe absorbe tout: on le blâme, mais il faut l'imiter; et le superflu finit par priver du nécessaire."
"La honte que cause l’amour est comme sa douleur: on ne l’éprouve qu’une fois. On peut encore la feindre après; mais on ne la sent plus. Cependant le plaisir reste, et c’est bien quelque chose."
"L’homme jouit du bonheur qu’il ressent, et la femme de celui qu’elle procure. Cette différence, si essentielle et si peu remarquée, influe pourtant, d'une manière bien sensible, sur la totalité de leur conduite respective. Le plaisir de l’un est de satisfaire des désirs, celui de l’autre est surtout de les faire naître."
"Pour les hommes, dites-vous vous-même, l'infidélité n'est pas l'inconstance."
"Le ridicule qu’on a augmente toujours en proportion qu’on s’en défend."
"Ou vous avez un rival ou vous n'en n'avez pas. Si vous en avez un, il faut plaire pour lui être préféré; si vous n'en n'avez pas, il faut encore plaire pour éviter d'en avoir."
"On n'est heureux que par l'amour."
"La vengeance est un plat qui se mange froid."
"The God who created these fair heavens with the same facility as yon green sapling; he who hath bestowed on man a life of toil, of transient joys and fleeting pains, that he might not forget the higher worth of his enduring soul, and might feel that immortality waited for him beyond the grave;—He, he is one only God!"
"He who has an opinion of his own, but depends upon the opinion and taste of others, is a slave."
"Stalin was an example of creativity, humanism and an edifying example of peace and heroism! [...] Everything that he did, he did at the service of the people. Our father Stalin is dead, but when remembering his example, our affection towards him will make our arms grow strong for the building of a great tomorrow, to assure a future in memory of his magnificent example."
"Now the question is, "Who is going to use whom?" Even accepting the form of the question, the answer is the proletariat. If it wasn't so I wouldn't be here. I am working for Socialism and through Socialism."
"As for the bourgeois state, at the present moment, we are seeking to overcome it, to overthrow it.… Our objective is total, scientific, Marxist socialism."
"We already had success in creating a democratic, national government that is revolutionary and popular. That is how socialism begins, not with decrees."
"We start from different ideological positions. For you, to be a Communist or a Socialist is to be totalitarian; for me no.… On the contrary, I think Socialism frees man."
"I have been to Cuba many times. I have spoken many times with Fidel Castro and got to know Commander Ernesto Guevara well enough. I know Cuba's leaders and their struggle. It has been difficult to overcome the blockade. But the reality in Cuba is very different from that in Chile. Cuba came from a dictatorship, and I arrived at the presidency after being senator for 25 years."
"I have experience and I am employing it in the service of a Chilean road for Chile's problems. We always take advantage of experience wherever it comes from, but adapting it to our reality. I am putting it to use in a Chilean way, for the problems of Chile. We are not anyone's mental colonists."
"Surely, this will be the last opportunity for me to address you. The Air Force has bombed the antennas of Radio Magallanes. My words do not have bitterness but disappointment. … the only thing left for me is to say to workers: I am not going to resign!"
"Placed in a historic transition, I will pay for loyalty to the people with my life. And I say to them that I am certain that the seeds which we have planted in the good conscience of thousands and thousands of Chileans will not be shriveled forever. They have force and will be able to dominate us, but social processes can be arrested by neither crime nor force. History is ours, and people make history."
"Workers of my country: I want to thank you for the loyalty that you always had, the confidence that you deposited in a man who was only an interpreter of great yearnings for justice, who gave his word that he would respect the Constitution and the law and did just that."
"I address the youth, those who sang and gave us their joy and their spirit of struggle. I address the man of Chile, the worker, the farmer, the intellectual, those who will be persecuted, because in our country fascism has been already present for many hours — in terrorist attacks, blowing up the bridges, cutting the railroad tracks, destroying the oil and gas pipelines, in the face of the silence of those who had the obligation to act. They were committed. History will judge them. Surely, Radio Magallanes will be silenced, and the calm metal instrument of my voice will no longer reach you. It does not matter. You will continue hearing it. I will always be next to you. At least my memory will be that of a man of dignity who was loyal to his country."
"The people must defend themselves, but they must not sacrifice themselves. The people must not let themselves be destroyed or riddled with bullets, but they cannot be humiliated either. Workers of my country, I have faith in Chile and its destiny. Other men will overcome this dark and bitter moment when treason seeks to prevail. Keep in mind that, much sooner than later, great avenues will again be opened, through which will pass the free man, to construct a better society. Long live Chile! Long live the people! Long live the workers! These are my last words, and I am certain that my sacrifice will not be in vain, I am certain that, at the very least, it will be a moral lesson that will punish felony, cowardice, and treason."
"I am not the president of all the Chileans. I am not a hypocrite that says so."
"I think Pinochet has been proven to be an evil dictator in the eyes of most people in the world, and most people see Allende as a dreamer and even as a visionary."
"Allende was proposing very deep reforms. He had a dream. He was a socialist, a Marxist, the first socialist Marxist president ever to be elected by a democratic free election. He wanted to institute these reforms within the bounds of Chile's constitution. We continued to enjoy all the civil rights we had before: freedom of the press, speech, education and religion. Within the constitutional framework, he tried to redistribute the land and that meant taking it from rich landowners who owned half the country. He also attempted to regain control of Chile's copper mines from the North Americans, and do many other things that were very important to our economy and for our dignity as a country. It was a fascinating process and a beautiful dream. Before that, Chile had been a democracy, but without social justice. How can you have a social democracy if there is such great inequality that a few people have all the opportunities and all the wealth while the great majority does not?"
"I don't think he influenced my life much until he died, although I always had great admiration for him. When we had the military coup in Chile in 1973, it was not he, but the military coup that changed the lives of so many Chileans. It affected half the population dramatically. Salvador Allende was my father’s first cousin. I saw him on weekends, sometimes on vacations, but I did not live with him. After the military coup, I realized that he had a historical dimension. I only saw that after I left Chile. Following the coup, his name was banned throughout Chile. When I went to Venezuela, every time I said my name, people would ask immediately if I was related to Salvador Allende. He has become a legendary figure, a hero."
"Allende is seeking the totality of power, which means Communist tyranny disguised as the dictatorship of the proletariat."
"Chile had long been polarized between conservatives and reformers. Socialists had the upper hand until World War II, after which liberal Christian Democrats dominated, following many socialist programmes. When conservatives and liberals split in 1970, Salvador Allende, a prominent and eloquent Marxist, won the election with 36 per cent of the vote. He pledged to rule democratically, but brought in ideologues whose policies caused crippling shortages and explosive inflation. Hostility between left and right paralyzed the government, while strikes and Allende's efforts to create a popular militia increased the fury of the opposition. The military had traditionally stood outside politics, but now seemed the country's only hope for stability. Urged on by politicians and the press, leaders of the navy and air force planned a coup. They called on General Pinochet to join them."
"We should remember that Chile was, in the '70s, beginning of the ’70s, the most democratic country in the Spanish-speaking world — Latin America and Spain and Portugal included. And this day, for the first time in history, of the Chilean history, the army revolted against the legitimate government. That was unexpected. And this army overthrew the government and changed the regime and established, in place of the parliamentarian democracy, a dictatorship, and through force, through massive arrests, through killings … the president was Salvador Allende, a Democrat for forty years in the public life of Chile, a convinced Democrat, that fought until his last moment of life for defending the law and defending the freedom of all the Chilean citizens."
"This past Saturday, there were memorials held across the United States to mark the ninth anniversary of the attacks of September 11, 2001. But the 9/11 attacks were not the only September 11th remembered that day. In Chile, many people spent the day reflecting on another 9/11: September 11th, 1973, when a US-backed coup led by General Augusto Pinochet ousted the democratically elected president, Salvador Allende. He died in the palace on that day."
"Except perhaps for Che Guevara, no one has quite been the heroic totem to the global left than the late Marxist president of Chile, whose death in 1973 made him a martyr to socialism. Allende seemingly legitimized socialism as a democratically elected leader, the first Marxist who in 1970 didn't shoot his way to power.That gave the left hope for more. Elected with just 36% of the vote in a split election, he believed he had a mandate to ram through a hard-core Marxist program of expropriation and indoctrination like that of his mentor, Cuba's Fidel Castro. In the process Allende left Chile's economy in ruins and trampled the rule of law so badly he brought his country to the brink of civil war. He was stopped only when the legislature charged him with 22 constitutional violations and ordered Chile's military to oust him."
"I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its own people."
"Of all of the leaders in the region, we considered Allende the most inimical to our interests. He was vocally pro-Castro and opposed to the United States. His internal policies were a threat to Chilean democratic liberties and human rights."
"Since the 1950s, several democratically elected socialist governments have nationalized large parts of their extractive sectors and begun to redistribute to the poor and middle class the wealth that had previously hemorrhaged into foreign bank accounts, most notably Mohammad Mosaddegh in Iran and Salvador Allende in Chile. But those experiments were interrupted by foreign-sponsored coups d'état before reaching their potential."
"The Popular Unity victory did not bring on the social panic US intelligence had expected. On the contrary, the new government’s independence in international affairs and its decisiveness in economic matters immediately created an atmosphere of social celebration. During the first year, 47 industrial firms were nationalised, along with most of the banking system. Agrarian reform saw the expropriation and incorporation into communal property of six million acres of land formerly held by the large landowners. The inflationary process was slowed, full employment was attained and wages received a cash rise of 30 per cent. … Popular Unity, with a single legal act supported in Congress by all of the nation’s popular parties, recovered for the nation all copper deposits worked by the subsidiaries of the American companies Anaconda and Kennecott. Without indemnification: the government having calculated that the two companies had made a profit in excess of $800m over 15 years. The petite bourgeoisie and the middle class, the two great social forces that might have supported a military coup at that moment, were beginning to enjoy unforeseen advantages and not at the expense of the proletariat, as had always been the case, but, rather, at the expense of the financial oligarchy and foreign capital. The armed forces, as a social group, have the same origins and ambitions as the middle class, so they had no motive, not even an alibi, to back the tiny group of coup-minded officers. Aware of that reality, the Christian Democrats not only did not support the barracks plot at that time but resolutely opposed it, for they knew it was unpopular among their own rank and file. Their objective was something else again: to use any means possible to impair the good health of the government so as to win two-thirds of the seats in Congress in the March 1973 elections. With such a majority, they could vote for the constitutional removal of the president of the republic."
"In that final battle, with the country at the mercy of uncontrolled and unforeseen forces of subversion, Allende was still bound by legality. The most dramatic contradiction of his life was being at the same time the congenital foe of violence and a passionate revolutionary. He believed that he had resolved the contradiction with the hypothesis that conditions in Chile would permit a peaceful evolution toward socialism under bourgeois legality. Experience taught him too late that a system cannot be changed by a government without power. That belated disillusionment must have been the force that impelled him to resist to the death, defending the flaming ruins of a house that was not his own, a sombre mansion that an Italian architect had built to be a mint and that ended up as a refuge for presidents without power. He resisted for six hours with a sub-machine gun that Castro had given him and was the first weapon that Allende had ever fired. … According to the story of a witness who asked me not to give his name, the president died in an exchange of shots with that gang. Then all the other officers, in a caste-bound ritual, fired on the body. Finally, a non-commissioned officer smashed in his face with the butt of his rifle. A photograph exists: Juan Enrique Lira, a photographer for the newspaper El Mercurio took it. He was the only one allowed to photograph the body. It was so disfigured that when they showed the body in its coffin to Señora Hortensia Allende, his wife, they would not let her uncover the face."
"His greatest virtue was following through but fate could grant him only that rare and tragic greatness of dying in armed defence of an anachronistic booby of bourgeois law, defending a Supreme Court of Justice that had repudiated him but would legitimise his murderers, defending a miserable Congress that had declared him illegitimate but which was to bend complacently before the will of the usurpers, defending the freedom of opposition parties that had sold their souls to fascism, defending the whole moth-eaten paraphernalia of a shitty system that he had proposed abolishing but without a shot being fired. The drama took place in Chile, to the greater woe of the Chileans, but it will pass into history as something that has happened to us all, children of this age, and it will remain in our lives for ever."
"The Popular Unity government represented the first attempt anywhere to build a genuinely democratic transition to socialism — a socialism that, owing to its origins, might be guided not by authoritarian bureaucracy, but by democratic self-rule."
"I knew what none of them could possibly know, that the corporatocracy, its band of EHMs [economic hitmen), and the jackals waiting in the background would never allow the little guys to gain control. I only had to draw upon the examples of Arbenz and Mossadegh — and more recently, upon the 1973 CIA overthrow of Chile's democratically elected president, Salvador Allende."
"In Chile, a CIA-supported coup helped put Gen. Augusto Pinochet in power from 1973 to 1990."
"The armed forces have acted today solely from the patriotic inspiration of saving the country from the tremendous chaos into which it was being plunged by the Marxist government of Salvador Allende.… The Junta will maintain judicial power and consultantship of the Public Accounts Control. The Chambers will remain in recess until further orders. That is all."
"Twenty-nine years ago, in Chile, on the 11th of September 1973, General Pinochet overthrew the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende in a CIA-backed coup. “Chile should not be allowed to go Marxist just because its people are irresponsible,” said Henry Kissinger, Nobel Peace Laureate, then the U.S. Secretary of State... Guatemala, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Brazil, Peru, the Dominican Republic, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Honduras, Panama, El Salvador, Mexico and Colombia – they’ve all been the playground for covert – and overt – operations by the CIA. Hundreds of thousands of Latin Americans have been killed, tortured or have simply disappeared under the despotic regimes that were propped up in their countries..."
"These works brought all these people here. Something should be done to get them at work again."
"At long last I am able to say a few words of my own... You must believe me when I tell you that I have found it impossible to carry the heavy burden of responsibility and to discharge my duties as King as I would wish to do without the help and support of the woman I love."
"[The Indian princes’] ceremonies are so irritating and ridiculous"
"This place ought never to have been dug up."
"It must be remembered that Dupach is more than half Negro, and due to the peculiar mentality of this Race, they seem unable to rise to prominence without losing their equilibrium."
"I hear you are going to In-jea. A most interesting country. I had a very good time there in my early youth. You must do the pig-sticking in Rajasthan. And you will find the people most agreeable in their own way. They have been most uncommonly decent to my niece."
""British Empire. First trip to India. Glorious. Never would have believed it would all be gone in my lifetime. Not possible, I'd've thought. I am the last king-emperor, you know. My brother was, for a time, but had to give it up. I didn't."
"Mona said, 'Did you see Gore's new play The Best Man when you were in New York?' 'Of course not.'...'Don't like plays, only shows.' He meant musical comedies."
"Discussing coronation ceremonies with Vidal, "I quickly moved on to...the moment when two masons appear and ask the newly crowned king for instructions as to his tomb. 'Masons? Masons! Yes. You one? I'm one. But I've forgotten all the odds and ends. Dull, really.""
"The thing that impresses me most about America is the way parents obey their children."
"It certainly is a situation of great delicacy but, at the same time, one in which it would seem I hold fifty per cent of the bargaining power in order that the Duchess and I can plan for the future in the most constructive and convenient way."
"Perhaps one of the only positive pieces of advice that I was ever given was that supplied by an old courtier who observed: "Only two rules really count. Never miss an opportunity to relieve yourself; never miss a chance to sit down and rest your feet.""
"[Italy:] [T]hey are indeed a repulsive nation these dagoes, both the men and the women & I'm just longing to quit them for good & all !!! (18 September 1918)"
"[Cologne, Germany:] Claud & I had a stroll in the centre of town afterwards & had great fun making the Hun men civilians get off the pavement for us .... It does one worlds of good to know how humiliating it must be for the Huns. (9 January 1919)"
"[Quebec City, Canada:] A rotten priest-ridden community who are the completest passengers & who won't do their bit in anything & of course not during the war !! (23 August 1919)"
"[In Qu'Appelle Valley, Saskatchewan] (referring to (First Nations of Canada, then known as Canadian Indians):] I've told you what a foul decadent lazy crowd they are & what I think of them !! But this camp is pitched right inside an Indian reserve … & we have hundreds of the mouldy local tribe camped around us. (6 October 1919)"
"[Barbados:] A proper bum island this Barbados....It's a unique sort of scenery, very ugly, & I didn't take much to the coloured population, who are revolting. (26-27 March 1920)"
"[Panama:] [A] deadly spot the end of the world almost....There are 20,000 British coloured people working on the canal...; they are mostly from Jamaica & smell too revolting for words....the Panamanians are a very queer people, all dagoes of course, though very pompous and dirty. (31 March - 1 April 1920)"
"Honolulu, Hawaii:] (At a luau) [A] unique native stunt though the Hawaiian food we were made to eat was too revolting for words....One got rather tired of the native songs & longed for some of our tunes. (14 April 1920)"
"[Outside Adelaide, Australia:] [T]hey showed us some of the native aborigines at a wayside station in the great plain yesterday afternoon though they are the most revolting form of living creatures I've ever seen !! They are the lowest known form of human beings & are the nearest thing to monkeys I've ever seen. (11 July 1920)"
"[Acapulco, Mexico:] [Q]ueer, dirty little dago town....The people are too revolting for words, super dagoes & some of them are quite black as a result of Spaniards inter-breeding with the Indians; & of course they only speak Spanish. (9 September 1920)"
"This trend was encouraged by the well-known sympathies of the Prince of Wales, or King Edward VIII as he became on 20 January 1936. Lacking both intelligence and a sense of constitutional propriety, the Prince made his views clear when he told Prince Louis Ferdinand of Prussia, in July 1933, that it "was no business of ours to interfere in Germany’s internal affairs either re Jews or re anything else" and that "dictators were very popular these days and that we might want one in England before long". Four months later, he told the former Austrian Ambassador Count Mensdorff that national socialism was "the only thing to do", while, in June 1935, the diarist and Tory MP Chips Channon noted "much gossip about the Prince of Wales' alleged Nazi leanings". The reason tongues had been set wagging was the speech the Prince had given to members of the British Legion on 11 June 1935, in which he praised the forthcoming visit to Germany of a delegation of ex-servicemen. This took place the following month and was, as Anthony Eden had warned, a propaganda gift for the regime."
"The importance of the Abdication to our story is twofold. First, it removed a monarch who exhibited a worrying admiration for dictatorships in general and Nazi Germany in particular. Describing the crisis on 22 November, Chips Channon noted that the King, who "is insane about Wallis, insane", was also "going the dictator way", being "pro-German, against Russia and against too much slip-shod democracy". "I shouldn't be surprised", continued the Conservative MP, "if he aimed at making himself a mild dictator." This was unlikely. Yet it is possible to imagine a situation in which the King's sympathies, combined with his lack of respect for the constitution, could have triggered a worse crisis than that which occurred in December 1936. Then the monarchy was able to survive since it was essentially a personal affair and the King went quietly. A political rupture would have been a very different matter. Second, the Abdication was wilfully misinterpreted by Ribbentrop, who persuaded Hitler that it constituted a plot by the British Government to rid itself of a pro-German monarch. "Don’t you know what expectations the Führer has based on the King's support in the coming negotiations? He’s our greatest hope!" expostulated the Ambassador when the Embassy's Press Attaché, Fritz Hesse, tried to warn him about the crisis. "Don’t you think the whole affair is an intrigue of our enemies to rob us of one of the last big positions we hold in this country? … You'll see, the King will marry Wally and the two will tell Baldwin and his whole gang to go to the devil." When this turned out not to be the case, Hitler's confidence in the English and the possibility of an Anglo-German alliance was severely shaken. According to Hesse, he told Ribbentrop to pack his bags and return to Germany. There was, he said, "no other person in England who is ready to play with us" now "that the King has been dethroned"."
"There is another grave matter which overshadows our minds tonight. In a few minutes we are going to sing "God Save the King". I shall sing it with more heartfelt fervour than I have ever sung it in my life. I hope and pray that no irrevocable decision will be taken in haste, but that time and public opinion will be allowed to play their part, and that a cherished and unique personality may not be incontinently severed from the people he loves so well. I hope that Parliament will be allowed to discharge its function in these high constitutional questions. I trust that our King may be guided by the opinions that are now for the first time being expressed by the British nation and the British Empire, and that the British people will not in turn be found wanting in generous consideration for the occupant of the Throne"
"It is not relevant to this account to describe the brief but intensely violent controversy that followed. I had known King Edward VIII since he was a child, and had in 1910 as Home Secretary read out to a wonderful assembly the Proclamation creating him Prince of Wales at Carnarvon Castle. I felt bound to place my personal loyalty to him upon the highest plane. Although during the summer I had been made fully aware of what was going forward, I in no way interfered or communicated with him at any time. However, presently in his distress he asked the Prime Minister for permission to consult me. Mr. Baldwin gave formal consent, and on this being conveyed to me I went to the King at Fort Belvedere. I remained in contact with him till his abdication, and did my utmost to plead both to the King and to the public for patience and delay. I have never reprented of this—indeed, I could do no other."
"He was at his best only when the going was good."
"In Britain the inter-war years were marked by a decline in the power of two traditionally important institutions: the monarchy and the military. In December 1936 Edward VIII abdicated, having been bullied into doing so by the Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin, who disapproved of the American divorcée he wished to marry and who asserted that the British public (and the governments of the Dominions) shared his sentiments."
"[An explanation for the attraction of Wallis Simpson] There must have been some sort of sadomasochistic relationship [...] He relished the contempt and bullying she bestowed on him."
"For me to be at a comedy club and flip out and say this crap, I'm deeply, deeply sorry. … I'm not a racist, that's what's so insane about this!"
"Shut up! Fifty years ago we'd have you upside-down with a fucking fork up your ass!"
"They're going to arrest me for calling a black man a nigger?"
"You can talk! You can talk! You can talk! You're brave now, motherfucker! Throw his ass out! He's a nigger! He's a nigger! He's a nigger! A nigger, look, there's a nigger! Ooh! Ooh! All right, ya see? It shocks you, it shocks you to see what's buried beneath, you stupid motherfuckers!"
"Well, you interrupted me, pal. That's what happens when you interrupt the white man, don't you know?"
"Cracker-ass? Are you calling me cracker-ass, nigga!?"
"He's a nigger! He's a nigger! He's a nigger!"
"What was uncalled for? It is uncalled for you to interrupt my ass, you cheap motherfucker! [Responding to the heckler saying "That was uncalled for!"]"
"What's the matter, too much for you to handle?""
"Ohh, I guess you got me there. He's absolutely right. I'm just a wash-up. Gotta stand on the stage. [Responding to the heckler saying "You're not funny! You're a reject! You never had no shows! You never had no movies! 'Seinfeld,' that's it!"]"
"Ohh, I guess I gotta quit because I said 'nigger.'"
"If we understood the world, we would realize that there is a logic of harmony underlying its manifold apparent dissonances."
"Music is for me like a beautiful mosaic which God has put together. He takes all the pieces in his hand, throws them into the world, and we have to recreate the picture from the pieces."
"If I could express the same thing with words as with music, I would, of course, use a verbal expression. Music is something autonomous and much richer. Music begins where the possibilities of language end. That is why I write music."
"Whereas most other modern composers are engaged in manufacturing cocktails of every hue and description, I offer the public cold spring water."
"Never pay any attention to what critics say…Remember, a statue has never been set up in honour of a critic!"
"It is so difficult to mix with artists! You must choose business men to talk to, because artists only talk of money."
"The framework of a symphony must be so strong that it forces you to follow it, regardless of the environment and circumstances."
"I often conduct an orchestra in my sleep; my orchestras are so huge that the back desks of the violas vanish into the horizon. And everything is so wonderful."
"Art is the signature of civilizations."
"In his work a means of escape has been found from outmoded romanticism on the one hand and from a barren objectivity on the other."
"Sibelius is unquestionably a leader in the front rank of symphonic composers. He has got out of the ruts worn by his predecessors far more completely than Brahms got away from Beethoven, or even Richard Strauss from Wagner. If someone would only burn Finlandia he would come to our young people as an entirely original inventor of a new art form and a new harmony technique."
"Sibelius has an acutely developed sense of identification with nature and a preoccupation with myth that at one and the same time define his unique strength and his basic limitation. These preoccupations override his involvement in the human predicament, except in so far as it affects man’s relationship with nature."
"Compañeros, this old man is my father. He has come to offer me rewards in the name of the Spaniards. I have always respected my father but my homeland comes first."
"Allons enfants de la Patrie, Le jour de gloire est arrivé! Contre nous de la tyrannie, L'étendard sanglant est levé, (bis) Entendez-vous dans les campagnes Mugir ces féroces soldats? Ils viennent jusque dans vos bras Égorger vos fils, vos compagnes! Aux armes, citoyens, Formez vos bataillons, Marchons, marchons! Qu'un sang impur Abreuve nos sillons!"
"To arms! to arms! ye brave! The avenging sword unsheathe! March on! march on! all hearts resolved On victory or death!"
"Papa told her about a Lohengrin performance. It was just before his first entrance. He was ready to step into the boat, which, drawn by a swan, was to take him on-stage. Somehow the stagehand on the other side got his signals mixed, started pulling, and the swan left without Papa. He quietly turned around and said: "What time's the next swan?" That story has since become a classic in operatic lore."
"During my first year on the stage at Brünn [1896/97] I conceived the idea of a pilgrimage to Bayreuth, in order to hear and to see the wonders of Wagner's works at the spot dedicated to his memory. I was successful in my application to the management of the Festival for a free pass for the cycle - four nights of The Ring of the Nibelungen and Parzifal, on condition that I sang at an audition held in Bayreuth by Frau Cosima Wagner, who took every opportunity of seeking new talent. [...]"
"After America had entered the war in December 1941 all postal service with Germany and Austria was stopped. But Papa had faithfully kept on writing to me, a ten-page letter nearly every week. They were never mailed and I found them, neatly bundled, sealed and addressed to me. … And now, on the plane, winging back home, I began to read his letters. They are remarkable documents. It's the whole war, as seen from the other side, through the eyes of a man who detested the fascist system, who hated the Nazis with a white fury. In the midst of the astonishing German victories in the early part of the war he was firmly convinced that Hitler MUST and WOULD lose. He dreaded communism, and all his predictions have come true. He told of all the spying that went on, the denunciations to the Gestapo, the sudden disappearances of innocent people, of the daily new edicts and restrictions, of confiscations that were nothing but robberies, arrests, and executions; how every crime committed was draped in the mantilla of legality. His great perception, intelligence, decency, his wonderful humanity, his love of music and above all his worshipful adoration for his Elsa — through every page they shimmered with luminescent radiance."
"For it would be unbecoming, says Aristotle, to come to banquet covered in sweat and dust; for the true gentleman should neither be dirty nor be unwashed nor [Rejoice in mire], as Heraclitus says."
"It was a saying of Demetrius Phalereus, that "Men having often abandoned what was visible for the sake of what was uncertain, have not got what they expected, and have lost what they had,—being unfortunate by an enigmatical sort of calamity.""
"Every investigation which is guided by principles of Nature fixes its ultimate aim entirely on gratifying the stomach."
"Dorion, ridiculing the description of a tempest in the "Nautilus" of Timotheus, said that he had seen a more formidable storm in a boiling saucepan."
"On one occasion some one put a very little wine into a wine-cooler, and said that it was sixteen years old. "It is very small for its age," said Gnathæna."
"οὐκ ἐν τῷ μεγάλῳ τὸ εὖ κείμενον εἶναι, ἀλλὰ ἐν τῷ εὖ τὸ μέγα."
"Sir, you must be all caution and no fear, and you'll find true what our old friend Archimedes said some while ago."
"Some say, that Signor Bononcini, Compared to Handel's a mere ninny; Others aver, to him, that Handel Is scarcely fit to hold a candle. Strange! that such high dispute should be 'Twixt Tweedledum and Tweedledee."
"Christians, awake! salute the happy morn, Whereon the Saviour of mankind was born."
"Take time enough: all other graces Will soon fill up their proper places."
"As clear as a whistle."
"The point is plain as a pike-staff."
"Bone and Skin, two millers thin, Would starve us all, or near it; But be it known to Skin and Bone That Flesh and Blood can't bear it."
"Thus adorned, the two heroes, 'twixt shoulder and elbow, Shook hands and went to 't; and the word it was bilbow."
"Were I a king (God bless me) I should hate My chaplains meddling with affairs of state; Nor would my subjects, I should think, be fond, Whenever theirs the Bible went beyond."
"In reading authors, when you find Bright passages that strike your mind, And which perhaps you may have reason To think on at another season, Be not contented with the sight, But take them down in black and white; Such a respect is wisely shown That makes another's sense one's own."
"Th' Eternal Mind, ev'n Heathens understood, Was Infinitely Powerful, Wise, and Good. In their Conceptions, who conceiv'd aright, These Three Essential Attributes unite. They saw that, wanting any of the Three, Such an All-perfect Being could not be."
"From the Divine, Eternal Spirit springs Order and Rule and Rectitude of Things, Thro' outward Nature, His Apparent Throne, Visibly seen, intelligibly known, — Proofs of a Boundless Pow'r, a Wisdom's Aid, By Goodness us'd, Eternal and Unmade."
"Endless Perfections after all conspire, And to adore excite and to admire; But to plain Minds the Plainest Pow'r Above Is Native Goodness to attract our Love; Centre of all Its various Pow'r and Skill Is One Divine, Immutable Good Will."
"The Sabbath was made for Man; not Man for the Sabbath."
"Of true Religion Works of Mercy seem To be the plainest Proof in Christ's Esteem; Who has Himself declar'd what He will say To all the Nations at the Judgment Day: "Come," or "Depart," is the predicted Lot Of brotherly Compassion shown, or not."
"Here, all ye learned, full of all Dispute, Of true and false Religion lies the Root. The Mind of Christ, when He became a Man, With all Its Tempers, forms its real Plan, The Sheep from Goats distinguishing full well; — His Love is Heav'n, and Want of It is Hell."
"My spirit longs for Thee, Within my troubled breast, Though I unworthy be Of so divine a Guest."
"No rest is to be found But in Thy blessèd love; O let my wish be crowned And send it from above."
"God bless the King! (I mean our faith's defender!) God bless! (No harm in blessing) the Pretender. But who Pretender is, and who is King, God bless us all! That's quite another thing!"
"Religion's Meaning when I would recall, Love is to me the plainest Word of all. Plainest, — because that what I love, or hate, Shews me directly my internal State; By its own Consciousness is best defin'd Which way the Heart within me stands inclin'd. On what it lets its Inclination rest, To that its real Worship is address'd; Whatever Forms or Ceremonies spring From Custom's Force, there lies the real Thing; Jew, Turk or Christian be the Lover's Name, If same the Love, Religion is the same."
"Of all Religions if we take a View, There is but one that ever can be true, — One God, One Christ, One Spirit, none but He. All else is Idol, whatsoe'er it be,— A Good that our Imaginations make, Unless we love it purely for His Sake."
"The One Unbounded, Undivided Good, By all His Creatures partly understood. If therefore Sense of its apparent Parts Raise not His Love or Worship in our Hearts, Our selfish Wills or Notions we may feast, And have no more Religion than a Beast."
"Religion, then, is Love's Celestial Force That penetrates thro' all to Its True Source; Loves all along, but with proportion'd Bent, As Creatures further the Divine Ascent, Not to the Skies or Stars, but to the part That will be always uppermost, — the Heart, There is the Seat, as Holy Writings tell, Where the Most High Himself delights to dwell; Whither attracting the desirous Will To its true Rest, He saves it from all Ill, Gives it to find in His Abyssal Love An Heav'n within, — in other Words, Above."
"All which she entreats, for His Sake, to be done, Who suffer'd to save them, Christ Jesus, His Son,— In respect to the World, the Redeemer of All; "To the Church of the Faithful, most chiefly," saith Paul; And to them who shall suffer, whoever they be, In the Spirit of Christ, in the highest Degree. How ought such a Goodness all Minds to prepare For an hearty "Amen" to this Catholic Pray'r!"
"The Church is indeed, in its real Intent, An Assembly where Nothing but Friendship is meant; And the utter Extinction of Foeship and Wrath By the Working of Love in the Strength of its Faith. This gives it its holy and catholic Name, And truly confirms its apostolic Claim; Showing what the One Saviour's One Mission had been: "Go and teach all the World," — ev'ry Creature therein. In the Praise ever due to the Gospel of Grace Its Universality holds the first Place. When an Angel proclaim'd Its glad Tidings the Morn That the Son of the Virgin, the Saviour, was born, "Which shall be to all People," was said to complete The angelical Message, so good and so great, Full of " Glory to God," in the Regions Above, And of "Goodness to Men," is so Boundless a Love."
"This short Supplication, or Litany, read When the longer with us is not wont to be said, Tho' brief in Expression, as fully imports The Will to all Blessings, for "Men of all Sorts," — Same brotherly Love, by which Christians are taught To "pray without ceasing," or limiting Thought; That Religion may flourish upon its true Plan Of Glory to God and Salvation to Man."
"The state of the country at present is perhaps the most alarming that it is possible to conceive. The rapid progress of the French arms, and the wide diffusion of French principles, has given to a republican party here such strength and spirit that there is, in my opinion, nothing mischievous and desperate which may not be apprehended from them."
"[W]hen I see their treatment of Savoy, of Geneva, and in their present threatening of Holland, a system of impudent, savage and profligate warfare, equal to the most tyrannous enterprizes of the most despotic governments—I cannot any longer wish that the Powers of Europe should sit tamely with their hands before them without endeavouring to throw some stop in the way of an insolence and implacability of ambition which is no less dangerous to every other country, than it is irreconcilable with the duty, the policy, and the repeated profession of France."
"As to this Country—though I am not so enthusiastically attached to the beauties of its constitution, and still less so determinedly blind to its defects, as to believe it unimproveable—yet I do think it by much the best practical Government that the world has ever seen—that of America perhaps excepted, and of that indeed it is not quite fair yet to form a decided opinion—I do think it almost impossible to begin improving now, without a risque of being hurried beyond all limits of prudence and happiness, and I do feel such a horror of the 1st. and 2nd. of Septr., and such a distrust of impossibility of erecting and preserving a purer form of Government among a refined, that is to say a corrupt, people, that I cannot but hold it to be the duty of myself and of every other man, according to their respective ability and opportunity, to resist by every honest and prudent exertion any attempt that may be made to assimilate the state of this country in theory or in practice to that of France. And I would resign therefore for the present any propensity that I might entertain to reform—for the sake of securing the existence of the State, till such time as it may set about reforming itself without danger of total confusion."
"I am as ready as any man to allow, that the French are enthusiastically animated, be it how it may, to a state of absolute insanity. I desire no better proof of their being mad, than to see them hugging themselves in a system of slavery so gross and grinding as their present, and calling at the same time aloud upon all Europe to admire and envy their freedom. But before their plea of madness can be admitted as conclusive against our right to be at war with them, gentlemen would do well to recollect that of madness there are several kinds. If theirs had been a harmless idiot lunacy, which had contented itself with playing its tricks, and practising its fooleries at home; with dressing up strumpets in oak leaves, and inventing nicknames for the calendar, I should have been far from desiring to interrupt their innocent amusements; we might have looked on with hearty contempt, indeed, but with a contempt not wholly unmixed with commiseration."
"But if theirs be a madness of a different kind, a moody mischievous insanity,—if not contented with tearing and wounding themselves, they proceed to exert their unnatural strength for the annoyance of their neighbours,—if not satisfied with weaving straws, and wearing fetters at home, they attempt to carry their systems and their slavery abroad, and to impose them on the nations of Europe it becomes necessary then, that those nations should be roused to resistance. Such a disposition must, for the safety and peace of the world, be repelled, and, if possible, eradicated."
"WE avow ourselves to be partial to the COUNTRY in which we live, notwithstanding the daily panegyricks which we read and hear on the superior virtues and endowments of its rival and hostile neighbours. We are prejudiced in favour of her Establishments, civil and religious; though without claiming for either that ideal perfection, which modern philosophy professes to discover in the more luminous systems which are arising on all sides of us."
"[T]here is one way of considering what is advantageous to this country, to which I confess I am very partial; and the rather, perhaps, because it does not fall in with the new and fashionable philosophy of the day. I know it is a doctrine of that large and liberal system of ethics which has of late been introduced into the world, and which has superseded all the narrow prejudices of the ancient school,—that we are to consider not so much what is good for our country, as what is good for the human race; that we are all children of one large family;—and I know not what other fancies and philanthropics, which I must take shame to myself for not being able to comprehend. I, for my part, still conceive it to be the paramount duty of a British member of parliament, to consider what is good for Great Britain."
"I do not envy that man's feelings, who can behold the sufferings of Switzerland, and who derives from that sight no idea of what is meant by the deliverance of Europe. I do not envy the feelings of that man, who can look without emotion at Italy,—plundered, insulted, trampled upon, exhausted, covered with ridicule, and horror, and devastation;—who can look at all this, and be at a loss to guess what is meant by the deliverance of Europe? As little do I envy the feelings of that man, who can view the peoples of the Netherlands driven into insurrection, and struggling for their freedom against the heavy hand of a merciless tyranny, without entertaining any suspicion of what may be the sense of the word deliverance. Does such a man contemplate Holland groaning under arbitrary oppressions and exactions? Does he turn his eyes to Spain trembling at the nod of a foreign master? And does the word deliverance still sound unintelligibly in his ear? Has he heard of the rescue and salvation of Naples, by the appearance and the triumphs of the British fleet? Does he know that the monarchy of Naples maintains its existence at the sword's point? And is his understanding, and his heart, still impenetrable to the sense and meaning of the deliverance of Europe?"
"[I]n God's name, Sir, let us look about us! Let us consider the state of the world as it is, not as we fancy it ought to be! Let us not seek to hide from our own eyes, or to diminish in the eyes of those who look to our deliberations for information, the real, imminent, and awful danger which threatens us, from the overgrown power, the insolent spirit, and still more, the implacable hatred of our natural rivals and enemies! Let us not amuse ourselves with vain notions, that our greatness and our happiness, as a nation, are capable of being separated. It is no such thing. The choice is not in our power. We have...no refuge in littleness. We must maintain ourselves what we are, or cease to have a political existence worth preserving."
"Away with the cant of "measures, not men!" the idle supposition that it is the harness and not the horses that draw the chariot along! No, Sir, if the comparison must be made, if the distinction must be taken, men are every thing, measures comparatively nothing. I speak, Sir, of times of difficulty and danger; of times when systems are shaken, when precedents and general rules of conduct fail. Then it is, that not to this or that measure, however prudently devised, however blameless in execution, but to the energy and character of individuals, a state must be indebted for its salvation. Then it is that kingdoms rise or fall in proportion as they are upheld, not by well-meant endeavours (laudable though they may be), but by commanding, over-awing talents; by able men."
"Look at France, and see what we have to cope with, and consider what has made her what she is? A man. You will tell me that she was great, and powerful, and formidable, before the date of Buonaparte's government; that he found in her great physical and moral resources: that he had but to turn them to account. True, and he did so. Compare the situation in which he found France with that to which he has raised her. I am no panegyrist of Buonaparte; but I cannot shut my eyes to the superiority of his talents, to the amazing ascendant of his genius. Tell me not of his measures, and his policy. It is his genius, his character, that keeps the world in awe. Sir, to meet, to check, to curb, to stand up against him, we want arms of the same kind. I am far from objecting to the large military establishments which are proposed to you. I vote for them with all my heart. But for the purpose of coping with Buonaparte, one great commanding spirit is worth them all."
"We are hated throughout Europe and that hate must be cured by fear."
"I am aware that, in examining any proposition, the object or tendency of which is to introduce change of any description in the constitutions of human society, there are two general considerations, clashing very much with each other, which naturally present themselves to every reflecting mind. The one, the most extensive, perhaps the most popular, is the dread of innovation; the other, the expediency of timely reformation or concession. In reconciling these opposite and conflicting principles, and in assigning to each its due weight in human affairs, consists almost the whole art of practical policy."
"The deed is done, the nail is driven, Spanish America is free; and if we do not mismanage our affairs sadly, she is English."
"I said that it was my object to make his Majesty comfortable and happy, by placing him at the head of Europe, instead of being reckoned fifth in a great confederacy. That the circumstances which gave rise to that confederacy, and justified and held it together were gone by; and that the King of England could not have hung upon it longer without losing all importance, even in the eyes of the other members of it, and without incurring the odium of all other nations; nay, that his share of odium would be greater than that of the four continental Sovereigns; because they, being more or less arbitrary, might be considered as labouring in their vocation, but that the continuance of England as a subordinate part of such a league, would have been considered as depriving them of their natural protection, and would be resented accordingly."
"I said that I was aware that the King had been afraid that the steps taken with respect to Spanish America would involve us in a war; that I was perfectly confident that they would not if taken in time... Sir W. K. said that the King had certainly entertained that fear, but was now perfectly satisfied that his fears had been unfounded; that he (Sir W. K.) was certain that, on the contrary, the fear of England was a predominant feeling with the continental Governments. I said that I hoped so; that that was the state to which I had wished to bring things, and that I trusted his Majesty must feel better pleased, upon reflection, to be the object of such fear, than of cajolery and contempt."
"I called the New World into existence to redress the balance of the Old."
"I can prove anything by statistics except the truth."
"Story! God bless you! I have none to tell, sir."
"I give thee sixpence! I will see thee damned first."
"So down thy hill, romantic Ashbourn, glides The Derby dilly, carrying three INSIDES."
"And finds, with keen, discriminating sight, Black ’s not so black,—nor white so very white."
"Give me the avowed, the erect, the manly foe, Bold I can meet,—perhaps may turn his blow! But of all plagues, good Heaven, thy wrath can send, Save, save, oh save me from the candid friend!"
"No, here ’s to the pilot that weathered the storm!"
"The right hon. gentleman knows what the introduction of a great name does in debate, how important is its effect, and occasionally how electrical. He never refers to any author who is not great, and sometimes who is not loved—Canning, for example. That is a name never to be mentioned, I am sure, in the House of Commons without emotion. We all admire his genius; we all, at least most of us, deplore his untimely end; and we all sympathize with him in his fierce struggle with supreme prejudice and sublime mediocrity, with inveterate foes and with—"candid friends." The right hon. gentleman may be sure that a quotation from such an authority will always tell. Some lines, for example, upon friendship, written by Mr. Canning, and quoted by the right hon. gentleman! The theme, the poet, the speaker—what a felicitous combination! Its effect in debate must be overwhelming; and I am sure, were it addressed to me, all that would remain for me would be thus publicly to congratulate the right hon. gentleman, not only on his ready memory, but on his courageous conscience."
"He had much more in common with Pitt than any one else about him, and his love for Pitt was quite filial, and Pitt's feeling for him was more that of a father, than a mere political leader. I am sure that from the first, Pitt marked Canning out as his political heir, and had, in addition, the warmest personal regard for him."
"Mr. Canning, an old representative of Liverpool, whom I rejoice to say my father brought to Liverpool, emancipated this country from its servitude to the Holy Alliance; and for so doing he was more detested by the upper classes of this country than any man has been during the present century."
"Who e'er ye are, all hail! – whether the skill Of youthful CANNING guides the ranc'rous quill; With powers mechanic far above his age, Adapts the paragraph and fills the page; Measures the column, mends what e'er's amiss, Rejects THAT letter, and accepts of THIS;"
"The reception they have met with has been of the most enthusiastic description. One instance alone will suffice for the Fact. You, Sir, are styled even in the Senate, by all the Officers of State, the Redeemer of Chile."
"[I]f I might be allowed to express in one sentence the principle which I think ought to guide an English Minister, I would adopt the expression of Canning, and say that with every British Minister the interests of England ought to be the shibboleth of his policy."
"He was the greatest orator of the age after the deaths of Pitt and Fox. He was a dynamite statesman of infinite courage and resource."
"The real key to Canning's policy is that, though emotional on the surface, it was intellectual in its aims and design. It was, in truth, "a system of policy" profoundly matured in time of enforced idleness, fortified by knowledge of history and international law, and practically applied to the conditions of the time. And these principles, he considered, were sufficient for the time being. Their nature may be indicated in a few words: no Areopagus, non-intervention; no European police system; every nation for itself, and God for us all; balance of power; respect for facts, not for abstract theories; respect for treaty rights, but caution in extending them. Provided it is sovereign and observes diplomatic obligations, a republic is as good a member of the comity of nations as a monarchy. "England not Europe"; "Our foreign policy cannot be conducted against the will of the nation"; "Europe's domain extends to the shores of the Atlantic, England's begins there." England's function is "to hold the balance between the conflicting principles of democracy and despotism," to mediate between two hemispheres, and to bring the New World (pace Monroe) into connection with the Old."
"I read, I study, I examine, I listen, I reflect, and out of all of this I try to form an idea into which I put as much common sense as I can. I shall not speak much for fear of saying foolish things; I will risk still less for fear of doing them, for I am not disposed to abuse the confidence which they have deigned to show me. Such is the conduct which until now I have followed and will follow."
"Humanity has gained its suit; Liberty will nevermore be without an asylum."
"Liberty consists in the freedom to do everything which injures no one else; hence the exercise of the natural rights of each man has no limits except those which assure to the other members of the society the enjoyment of the same rights."
"True republicanism is the sovereignty of the people. There are natural and imprescriptible rights which an entire nation has no right to violate, just as national sovereignty is above the secondary agreements of the government."
"An irresistible passion that would induce me to believe in innate ideas, and the truth of prophecy, has decided my career. I have always loved liberty with the enthusiasm which actuates the religious man with the passion of a lover, and with the conviction of a geometrician. On leaving college, where nothing had displeased me more than a state of dependance, I viewed the greatness and the littleness of the court with contempt, the frivolities of society with pity, the minute pedantry of the army with disgust, and oppression of every sort with indignation. The attraction of the American revolution transported me suddenly to my place. I felt myself tranquil only when sailing between the continent whose powers I had braved, and that where, although our arrival and our ultimate success were problematical, I could, at the age of nineteen, take refuge in the alternative of conquering or perishing in the cause to which I had devoted myself."
"I would never have drawn my sword in the cause of America, if I could have conceived that thereby I was founding a land of slavery."
"If the liberties of the American people are ever destroyed, they will fall by the hands of the Romish clergy."
"Pronounce him one of the first men of his age, and you have yet not done him justice. Try him by that test to which he sought in vain to stimulate the vulgar and selfish spirit of Napoleon; class him among the men who, to compare and seat themselves, must take in the compass of all ages; turn back your eyes upon the records of time; summon from the creation of the world to this day the mighty dead of every age and every clime — and where, among the race of merely mortal men, shall one be found, who, as the benefactor of his kind, shall claim to take precedence of Lafayette?"
"Born and educated in the highest order of feudal Nobility, under the most absolute Monarchy of Europe, in possession of an affluent fortune, and master of himself and of all his capabilities at the moment of attaining manhood, the principle of republican justice and of social equality took possession of his heart and mind, as if by inspiration from above. He devoted himself, his life, his fortune, his hereditary honors, his towering ambition, his splendid hopes, all to the cause of liberty. He came to another hemisphere to defend her. He became one of the most effective champions of our Independence; but, that once achieved, he returned to his own country, and thenceforward took no part in the controversies which have divided us. In the events of our Revolution, and in the forms of policy which we have adopted for the establishment and perpetuation of our freedom, Lafayette found the most perfect form of government. He wished to add nothing to it."
"When the principle of hereditary dominion shall be extinguished in all the institutions of France; when government shall no longer be considered as property transmissible from sire to son, but as a trust committed for a limited time, and then to return to the people whence it came; as a burdensome duty to be discharged, and not as a reward to be abused; when a claim, any claim, to political power by inheritance shall, in the estimation of the whole French people, be held as it now is by the whole people of the North American Union — then will be the time for contemplating the character of Lafayette, not merely in the events of his life, but in the full development of his intellectual conceptions, of his fervent aspirations, of the labors and perils and sacrifices of his long and eventful career upon earth; and thenceforward, till the hour when the trump of the Archangel shall sound to announce that Time shall be no more, the name of Lafayette shall stand enrolled upon the annals of our race, high on the list of the pure and disinterested benefactors of mankind."
"Lafayette avoided the factions jealous of Washington because he recognized that Washington was the Revolution and that should he be reduced in power or replaced, the whole cause would collapse. … Washington was a shrewd judge of character and never would have warmed to Lafayette if he had been only a superficial ingratiating romantic. Lafayette scrupulously looked after his men, spending his own money when Congress failed to provide them necessities. Nor was he backward in suggesting to Washington certain changes and innovations from French military practice."
"Ambition, as that passion is generally understood,— a strong desire to rise above others, to occupy the first place, — formed no part of Lafayette's character. In him the passion was nothing more than a constant and irresistible wish to do good."
"Lafayette valued reputation and glory, but cared little for the power that generally results from them. Having one day been asked who was in his opinion the greatest man of this age: "In my idea," replied he, "General Washington is the greatest man, for I look upon him as the most virtuous.""
"No one deserves more than he the esteem which he enjoys here. He is a prodigy for his age, full of courage, spirit, judgment, good manners, feelings of generosity and of zeal for the cause of liberty on this continent."
"Lafayette is a young man of royal birth, with liberal politics and what Jefferson later called "a canine appetite for fame." Someone said he was "a statue in search of a pedestal." But he was intoxicated with, [had] a rather theoretical love of, liberty. It was theoretical because liberty wasn't known to many Europeans. [Lafayette] was a great romantic and he fell in love with America, the concept of America that the French had. This wild new world where you could start the world over, to use Tom Paine's phrase."
"Lafayette, nous voilà!"
"Despite all of his face-smashing asskicking prowess, perhaps the Marquis de Lafayette's greatest contribution to the American Revolution was his ability to get the French Crown off its ass to help bail our shit out. … The Marquis de Lafayette is probably one of the only Frenchmen to ever be declared a national hero in the United States — a statistic that is badass in and of itself. Roughly 40 cities in America are named after him, he has numerous statues across the country, and he is fondly remembered as a motherfucker who helped us gain our independence from our oppressive British masters. He was also a goddamned badass who kicked nuts, refused to let anybody stand in the way of his mission to bring freedom to the common man, and bravely fought for liberty and equality — even when it didn't pay dick."
"The Marquis de Lafayette is extremely solicitous of having a command equal to his rank. I do not know in what light Congress will view the matter, but it appears to me, from a consideration of his illustrious and important connexions, the attachment which he has manifested for our cause, and the consequences which his return in disgust might produce, that it will be advisable to gratify him in his wishes; and the more so, as several gentlemen from France, who came over under some assurances, have gone back disappointed in their expectations. His conduct with respect to them stands in a favorable point of view; having interested himself to remove their uneasiness, and urged the impropriety of their making any unfavorable representations upon their arrival at home; and in all his letters he has placed our affairs in the best situation he' could. Besides, he is sensible; discreet in his manners; has made great proficiency in our language; and, from the disposition he discovered at the battle of Brandywine, possesses a large share of bravery and military ardor."
"Celtic jerseys are not for second best, They don't shrink to fit inferior players."
"I don't believe everything Bill tells me about his players. Had they been that good, they'd not only have won the European Cup but the Ryder Cup, the Boat Race and even the Grand National."
"We did it by playing football. Pure, beautiful, inventive football."
"Football is nothing without fans."
"Force, unregulated or ill-regulated, is not only wasted in the void, like that of gunpowder burned in the open air, and steam unconfined by science; but, striking in the dark, and its blows meeting only the air, they recoil, and bruise itself. It is destruction and ruin. It is the volcano, the earthquake, the cyclone; — not growth and progress. It is Polyphemus blinded, striking at random, and falling headlong among the sharp rocks by the impetus of his own blows."
"Intellect is to the people and the people's Force, what the slender needle of the compass is to the ship — its soul, always counselling the huge mass of wood and iron, and always pointing to the north. To attack the citadels built up on all sides against the human race by superstitions, despotisms, and prejudices, the Force must have a brain and a law. Then its deeds of daring produce permanent results, and there is real progress. Then there are sublime conquests. Thought is a force, and philosophy should be an energy, finding its aim and its effects in the amelioration of mankind. The two great motors are Truth and Love. When all these Forces are combined, and guided by the Intellect, and regulated by the Rule of Right, and Justice, and of combined and systematic movement and effort, the great revolution prepared for by the ages will begin to march. The Power of the Deity Himself is in equilibrium with His Wisdom. Hence only results HARMONY."
"Less glory is more liberty. When the drum is silent, reason sometimes speaks."
"Though Masonry neither usurps the place of, nor apes religion, prayer is an essential part of our ceremonies. It is the aspiration of the soul toward the Absolute and Infinite Intelligence, which is the One Supreme Deity, most feebly and misunderstandingly characterized as an "architect." Certain faculties of man are directed toward the Unknown — thought, meditation, prayer. The unknown is an ocean, of which conscience is the compass. Thought, meditation, prayer, are the great mysterious pointings of the needle. It is a spiritual magnetism that thus connects the human soul with the Deity. These majestic irradiations of the soul pierce through the shadow toward the light. It is but a shallow scoff to say that prayer is absurd, because it is not possible for us, by means of it, to persuade God to change His plans. He produces foreknown and foreintended effects, by the instrumentality of the forces of nature, all of which are His forces. Our own are part of these. Our free agency and our will are forces. We do not absurdly cease to make efforts to attain wealth or happiness, prolong life, and continue health, because we cannot by any effort change what is predestined. If the effort also is predestined, it is not the less our effort, made of our free will."
"Man is not to be comprehended as a starting-point, or progress as a goal, without those two great forces, Faith and Love. Prayer is sublime."
"The Bible is an indispensable part of the furniture of a Christian Lodge, only because it is the sacred book of the Christian religion. The Hebrew Pentateuch in a Hebrew Lodge, and the Koran in a Mohammedan one, belong on the Altar; and one of these, and the Square and Compass, properly understood, are the Great Lights by which a Mason must walk and work. The obligation of the candidate is always to be taken on the sacred book or books of his religion, that he may deem it more solemn and binding; and therefore it was that you were asked of what religion you were. We have no other concern with your religious creed."
"The Sun is the ancient symbol of the life-giving and generative power of the Deity. To the ancients, light was the cause of life; and God was the source from which all light flowed; the essence of Light, the Invisible Fire, developed as Flame manifested as light and splendor. The Sun was his manifestation and visible image; and the Sabæans worshipping the Light — God, seemed to worship the Sun, in whom they saw the manifestation of the Deity. The Moon was the symbol of the passive capacity of nature to produce, the female, of which the life-giving power and energy was the male. It was the symbol of Isis, Astarte, and Artemis, or Diana. The "Master of Life" was the Supreme Deity, above both, and manifested through both; Zeus, the Son of Saturn, become King of the Gods; Horus, son of Osiris and Isis, become the Master of Life; Dionusos or Bacchus, like Mithras, become the author of Light and Life and Truth."
""Thy sun," says Isaiah to Jerusalem, " shall no more go down, neither shall thy moon withdraw itself; for the Lord shall be thine everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall be ended. Thy people also shall be all righteous; they shall inherit the land forever." Such is the type of a free people. Our northern ancestors worshipped this tri-une Deity; Odin, the Almighty Father ; Frea, his wife, emblem of universal matter; and Thor, his son, the mediator. But above all these was the Supreme God, "the author of everything that existeth, the Eternal, the Ancient, the Living and Awful Being, the Searcher into concealed things, the Being that never changeth." In the Temple of Eleusis (a sanctuary lighted only by a window in the roof, and representing the universe), the images of the Sun, Moon, and Mercury, were represented."
"Work only can keep even kings respectable. And when a king is a king indeed, it is an honorable office to give tone to the manners and morals of a nation; to set the example of virtuous conduct, and restore in spirit the old schools of chivalry, in which the young manhood may be nurtured to real greatness. Work and wages will go together in men's minds, in the most royal institutions. We must ever come to the idea of real work. The rest that follows labor should be sweeter than the rest which follows rest."
"Let no Fellow-Craft imagine that the work of the lowly and uninfluential is not worth the doing. There is no legal limit to the possible influences of a good deed or a wise word or a generous effort. Nothing is really small. Whoever is open to the deep penetration of nature knows this. Although, indeed, no absolute satisfaction may be vouchsafed to philosophy, any more in circumscribing the cause than in limiting the effect, the man of thought and contemplation falls into unfathomable ecstacies in view of all the decompositions of forces resulting in unity. All works for all. Destruction is not annihilation, but regeneration."
"Phenomena are constantly folded back upon themselves. In the vast cosmical changes the universal life comes and goes in unknown quantities, enveloping' all in the invisible mystery of the emanations, losing no dream from no single sleep, sowing an animalcule here, crumbling a star there, oscillating, and winding in curves; making a force of Light, and an element of Thought; disseminated and indivisible, dissolving all save that point without length, breadth, or thickness, The Myself ; reducing everything to the Soul-atom; making everything blossom into God; entangling all activities, from the highest to the lowest, in the obscurity of a dizzying mechanism; hanging the flight of an insect upon the movement of the earth; subordinating, perhaps, if only by the identity of the law, the eccentric evolutions of the comet in the firmament, to the whirlings of the infusoria in the drop of water."
"Remember, that though life is short, Thought and the influences of what we do or say, are immortal; and that no calculus has yet pretended to ascertain the law of proportion between cause and effect. The hammer of an English blacksmith, smiting down an insolent official, led to a rebellion which came near being a revolution. The word well spoken, the deed fitly done, even by the feeblest or humblest, cannot help but have their effect. More or less, the effect is inevitable and eternal. The echoes of the greatest deeds may die away like the echoes of a cry among the cliffs, and what has been done seem to the human judgment to have been without result. The unconsidered act of the poorest of men may fire the train that leads to the subterranean mine, and an empire be rent by the explosion."
"The power of a free people is often at the disposal of a single and seemingly an unimportant individual; — a terrible and truthful power; for such a people feel with one heart, and therefore can lift up their myriad arms for a single blow. And, again, there is no graduated scale for the measurement of the influences of different intellects upon the popular mind. Peter the Hermit held no office, yet what a work he wrought!"
"From the political point of view there is but a single principle,— the sovereignty of man over himself. This sovereignty of one's self over one's self is called Liberty. Where two or several of these sovereignties associate, the State begins. But in this association there is no abdication. Each sovereignty parts with a certain portion of itself to form the common right. That portion is the same for all. There is equal contribution by all to the joint sovereignty. This identity of concession which each makes to all, is Equality. The common right is nothing more or less than the protection of all, pouring its rays on each. This protection of each by all, is Fraternity. Liberty is the summit, Equality the base. Equality is not all vegetation on a level, a society of big spears of grass and stunted oaks, a neighborhood of jealousies, emasculating each other. It is, civilly, all aptitudes having equal opportunity; politically, all votes having equal weight; religiously, all consciences having equal rights."
"Refined society requires greater minuteness of regulation; and the steps of all advancing States are more and more to be picked among the old rubbish and the new materials. The difficulty lies in discovering the right path through the chaos of confusion. The adjustment of mutual rights and wrongs is also more difficult in democracies. We do not see and estimate the relative importance of objects so easily and clearly from the level or the waving land as from the elevation of a lone peak, towering above the plain; for each looks through his own mist."
"All religious expression is symbolism; since we can describe only what we see, and the true objects of religion are The Seen . The earliest instruments of education were symbols; and they and all other religious forms differed and still differ according to external circumstances and imagery, and according to differences of knowledge and mental cultivation. All language is symbolic, so far as it is applied to mental and spiritual phenomena and action. All words have, primarily, a material sense, howsoever they may afterward get, for the ignorant, a spiritual non-sense. To "retract," for example, is to draw back, and when applied to a statement, is symbolic, as much so as a picture of an arm drawn back, to express the same thing, would he. The very word " spirit" means " breath," from the Latin verb spiro, breathe."
"To present a visible symbol to the eye of another, is not necessarily to inform him of the meaning which that symbol has to you. Hence the philosopher soon superadded to the symbols explanations addressed to the ear, susceptible of more precision, but less effective and impressive than the painted or sculptured forms which he endeavored to explain. Out of these explanations grew by degrees a variety of narrations, whose true object and meaning were gradually forgotten, or lost in contradictions and incongruities. And when these were abandoned, and Philosophy resorted to definitions and formulas, its language was but a more complicated symbolism, attempting in the dark to grapple with and picture ideas impossible to be expressed. For as with the visible symbol, so with the word: to utter it to you does not inform you of the exact meaning which it has to me; and thus religion and philosophy became to a great extent disputes as to the meaning of words. The most abstract expression for Deity, which language can supply, is but a sign or symbol for an object beyond our comprehension, and not more truthful and adequate than the images of Osiris and Vishnu, or their names, except as being less sensuous and explicit We avoid sensuousness, only by resorting to simple negation. We come at last to define spirit by saying that it is not matter. Spirit is — spirit."
"Two forms of government are favorable to the prevalence of falsehood and deceit. Under a Despotism, men are false, treacherous, and deceitful through fear, like slaves dreading the lash. Under a Democracy they are so as a means of attaining popularity and office, and because of the greed for wealth."
"When office and wealth become the gods of a people, and the most unworthy and unfit most aspire to the former, and fraud becomes the highway to the latter, the land will reek with falsehood and sweat lies and chicane. When the offices are open to all, merit and stern integrity and the dignity of unsullied honor will attain them only rarely and by accident. To be able to serve the country well, will cease to be a reason why the great and wise and learned should be selected to render service. Other qualifications, less honorable, will be more available."
"Reverence for greatness dies out, and is succeeded by base envy of greatness. Every man is in the way of many, either in the path to popularity or wealth. There is a general feeling of satisfaction when a great statesman is displaced, or a general, who has been for his brief hour the popular idol, is unfortunate and sinks from his high estate. It becomes a misfortune, if not a crime, to be above the popular level. We should naturally suppose that a nation in distress would take counsel with the wisest of its sons. But, on the contrary, great men seem never so scarce as when they are most needed, and small men never so bold to insist on infesting place, as when mediocrity and incapable pretence and sophomoric greenness, and showy and sprightly incompetency are most dangerous."
"A war for a great principle ennobles a nation. A war for commercial supremacy, upon some shallow pretext, is despicable, and more than aught else demonstrates to what immeasurable depths of baseness men and nations can descend. Commercial greed values the lives of men no more than it values the lives of ants. The slave-trade is as acceptable to a people enthralled by that greed, as the trade in ivory or spices, if the profits are as large."
"Justice in no wise consists in meting out to another that exact measure of reward or punishment which we think and decree his merit, or what we call his crime, which is more often merely his error, deserves. The justice of the father is not incompatible with forgiveness by him of the errors and offences of his child. The Infinite Justice of God does not consist in meting out exact measures of punishment for human frailties and sins. We are too apt to erect our own little and narrow notions of what is right and just, into the law of justice, and to insist that God shall adopt that as His law; to measure off something with our own little tape-line, and call it God's law of justice. Continually we seek to ennoble our own ignoble love of revenge and retaliation, by misnaming it justice."
"Justice is peculiarly indispensable to nations. The unjust State is doomed of God to calamity and ruin. This is the teaching of the Eternal Wisdom and of history."
"Justice to others and to ourselves is the same; that we cannot define our duties by mathematical lines ruled by the square, but must fill with them the great circle traced by the compasses"
"Hypocrisy is the homage that vice and wrong pay to virtue and justice."
"The duties of a Prince Ameth are, to be earnest, true, reliable, And sincere; to protect the people against illegal impositions and exactions; to contend for their political rights, and to see, as far as he may or can, that those bear the burdens who reap the benefits of the Government. You are to be true unto all men. You are to be frank and sincere in all things. You are to be earnest in doing whatever it is your duty to do. And no man must repent that he has relied upon your resolve, your profession, or your word. The great distinguishing characteristic of a Mason is sympathy with his kind. He recognizes in the human race one great family, all connected with himself by those invisible links, and that mighty net-work of circumstance, forged and woven by God."
"Masonry will do all in its power, by direct exertion and co-operation, to improve and inform as well as to protect the people; to better their physical condition, relieve their miseries, supply their wants, and minister to their necessities. Let every Mason in this, good work do all that may be in his power. For it is true now, as it always was and always will be, that to be free is the same thing as to be pious, to be wise, to be temperate and just, to be frugal and abstinent, and to be magnanimous and brave; and to be the opposite of all these is the same as to be a slave. And it usually happens, by the appointment, and, as it were, retributive justice of the Deity, that that people which cannot govern themselves, and moderate their passions, but crouch under the slavery of their lusts and vices, are delivered up to the sway of those whom they abhor, and made to submit to an involuntary servitude. And it is also sanctioned by the dictates of justice and by the constitution of Nature, that he who, from the imbecility or derangement of his intellect, is incapable of governing himself, should, like a minor, be committed to the government of another. Above all things let us never forget that mankind constitutes one great brotherhood; all born to encounter suffering and sorrow, and therefore bound to sympathize with each other. For no tower of Pride was ever yet high enough to lift its possessor above the trials and fears and frailties of humanity. No human hand ever built the wall, nor ever shall, that will keep out affliction, pain, and infirmity. Sickness and sorrow, trouble and death, are dispensations that level everything. They know none, high nor low. The chief wants of life, the great and grave necessities of the human soul, give exemption to none."
"We seem never to know what any thing means or is worth until we have lost it."
"A dim consciousness of infinite mystery and grandeur lies beneath all the commonplace of life. There is an awfulness and a majesty around us, in all our little worldliness."
"We live our little life; but Heaven is above us and all around and close to us; and Eternity is before us and behind us; and suns and stars are silent witnesses and watchers over us. We are enfolded by Infinity. Infinite Powers and Infinite spaces lie all around us. The dread arch of Mystery spreads over us, and no voice ever pierced it. Eternity is enthroned amid Heaven's myriad starry heights; and no utterance or word ever came from those far-off and silent spaces, Above, is that awful majesty; around us, everywhere, it stretches off in to infinity; and beneath it is this little struggle of life, this poor day's conflict, this busy ant-hill of Time. But from that ant-hill, not only the talk of the streets, the sounds of music and revelling, the stir and tread of a multitude, the shout of joy and the shriek of agony go up into the silent and all-surrounding Infinitude; but also, amidst the stir and noise of visible life, from the inmost bosom of the visible man, there goes up an imploring call, a beseeching cry, an asking, unuttered, and unutterable, for revelation, wailingly and in almost speechless agony praying the dread arch of mystery to break, and the stars that roll above the waves of mortal trouble, to speak; the enthroned majesty of those awful heights to find a voice; the mysterious and reserved heavens to come near; and all to tell us what they alone know; to give us information of the loved and lost; to make known to us what we are, and whither we are going."
"Man is encompassed with a dome of incomprehensible wonders. In him and about him is that which should fill his life with majesty and sacredness. Something of sublimity and sanctity has thus flashed down from heaven into the heart of every one that lives. There is no being so base and abandoned but hath some traits of that sacredness left upon him; something, so much perhaps in discordance with his general repute, that he hides it from all around him; some sanctuary in his soul, where no one may enter; some sacred inclosure, where the memory of a child is, or the image of a venerated parent, or the remembrance of a pure love, or the echo of some word of kindness once spoken to him; an echo that will never die away."
"Life is no negative, or superficial or worldly existence. Our steps are evermore haunted with thoughts, far beyond their own range, which some have regarded as the reminiscences of a preesistent state. So it is with us all, in the beaten and worn track of this worldly pilgrimage. There is more here, than the world we live in. It is not all of life to live. An unseen and infinite presence is here; a sense of something greater than we possess; a seeking, through all the void wastes of life, for a good beyond it; a crying out of the heart for interpretation; a memory of the dead, touching continually some vibrating thread in this great tissue of mystery."
"We all not only have better intimations, but are capable of better things than we know. The pressure of some great emergency would develop in us powers, beyond the worldly bias of our spirits ; and Heaven so deals with us, from time to time, as to call forth those better things. There is hardly a family so selfish in the world, but that, if one in it were doomed to die—one, to be selected by the others,—it would be utterly impossible for its members, parents and children, to choose out that victim; but that each would say, "I will die ; but I cannot choose." And in how many, if that dire extremity had come, would not one and another step forth, freed from the vile meshes of ordinary selfishness, and say, like the Roman father and son, "Let the blow fall on me!" There are greater and better things in us all, than the world takes account of, or than we take note of; if we would but find them out."
"The faculty of moral will, developed in the child, is a new element of his nature. It is a new power brought upon the scene, and a ruling power, delegated from Heaven. Never was a human being sunk so low that he had not, by God's gift, the power to rise. Because God commands him to rise. it is certain that he ran rise. Every man has the power, and should use it, to make all situations, trials, and temptations instruments to promote his virtue and happiness; and is so far from being the creature of circumstances, 'that he creates and controls them, making them to be all that they are, of evil or of good, to him as a moral being."
"Life is what we make it, and the world is what we make it. The eyes of the cheerful and of the melancholy man are fixed upon the same creation; but very different are the aspects which it bears to them. To the one, it is all beauty and gladness; the waves of ocean roll in light, and the mountains are covered with day. Life, to him, flashes, rejoicing, upon every flower and every tree that trembles in the breeze. There is more to him, everywhere, than the eye sees; a presence of profound joy, on hill and valley, and bright, dancing water. The other idly or mournfully gazes at the same scene, and everything wears a dull, dim, and sickly aspect. The murmuring of the brooks is a discord to him, the great roar of the sea has an angry and threatening emphasis, the solemn music of the pines sings the requiem of his departed happiness, the cheerful light shines garishly upon his eyes and offends him. The great train of the seasons passes before him like a funeral procession; and he sighs, and turns impatiently away. The eye makes that which it looks upon; the ear makes its own melodies and discords: the world without reflects the world within."
"Let the Mason never forget that life and the world are what we make them by our social character; by our adaptation, or want of adaptation to the social conditions, relationships, and pursuits of the world. To the selfish, the cold, and the insensible, to the haughty and presuming, to the proud, who demand more than they are likely to receive, to the jealous, ever afraid they shall not receive enough, to those who are unreasonably sensitive about the good or ill opinions of others, to all violators of the social laws, the rude, the violent, the dishonest, and the sensual, — to all these, the social condition, from its very nature, will present annoyances, disappointments, and pains, appropriate to their several characters. The benevolent affections will not revolve around selfishness ; the cold-hearted must expect to meet coldness; the proud, haughtiness; the passionate, anger; and the violent, rudenesa Those who forget the rights of others, must not be surprised if their own are forgotten; and those who stoop to the lowest embraces of sense must not wonder, if others are not concerned to find their prostrate honor, and lift it up to the remembrance and respect of the world."
"To the gentle, many will be gentle; to the kind, many will be kind. A good man will find that there is goodness in the world; an honest man will find that there is honesty in the world; and a man of principle will find principle and integrity in the hearts of others. There are no blessings which the mind may not convert into the bitterest of evils; and no trials which it may not transform into the noblest and divinest blessings. There are no temptations from which assailed virtue may not gain strength, instead of falling before them, vanquished and subdued."
"To the impure, the dishonest, the false-hearted, the corrupt and the sensual, occasions come every day, and in every scene, and through every avenue of thought and imagination. He is prepared to capitulate before the first approach is commenced; and sends out the white flag when the enemy's advance comes in sight of his walls. He makes occasions; or, if opportunities come not, evil thoughts come, and he throws wide open the gates of his heart and welcomes those bad visitors, and entertains them with a lavish hospitality. The business of the world absorbs, corrupts, and degrades one mind, while in another it feeds and nurses the noblest independency integrity, and generosity. Pleasure is a poison to some, and a healthful refreshment to others. To one. the world is a great harmony, like a noble strain of music with infinite modulations; to another, it is a huge factory, the clash and clang of whose machinery jars upon his ears and frets him to madness."
"The true Mason labors for the benefit of those that are to come after him, and for the advancement and improvement of his race. That is a poor ambition which contents itself within the limits of a single life. All men who deserve to live, desire to survive their funerals, and to live afterward in the good that they have done mankind, rather than in the fading characters written in men's memories. Most men desire to leave some work behind them that may outlast their own day and brief generation. That is an instinctive impulse, given by God, and often found in the rudest human heart; the surest proof of the soul's immortality, and of the fundamental difference between man and the wisest brutes. To plant the trees that, after we are dead, shall shelter our children, is as natural as to love the shade of those our fathers planted."
"If the Soul sees, after death, what passes on this earth, and watches over the welfare of those it loves, then must its greatest happiness consist in seeing the current of its beneficent influences widening out from age to age, as rivulets widen into rivers, and aiding to shape the destinies of individuals, families, States, the World; and its bitterest punishment, in seeing its evil influences causing mischief and misery, and cursing and afflicting men, long after the frame it dwelt in has become dust, and when both name and memory are forgotten."
"That which we say and do, if its effects last not beyond our lives, is unimportant. That which shall live when we are dead, as part of the great body of law enacted by the dead, is the only act worth doing, the only Thought worth speaking. The desire to do something that shall benefit the world, when neither praise nor obloquy will reach us where we sleep soundly in the grave, is the noblest ambition entertained by man. It is the ambition of a true and genuine Mason. Knowing the slow processes by which the Deity brings about great results, he does not expect to reap as well as sow, in a single lifetime. It is the inflexible fate and noblest destiny, with rare exceptions, of the great and good, to work, and let others reap the harvest of their labors. He who does good, only to be repaid in kind, or in thanks and gratitude, or in reputation and the world's praise, is like him who loans his money, that he may, after certain months, receive it back with interest. To be repaid for eminent services with slander, obloquy, or ridicule, or at best with stupid indifference or cold ingratitude, as it is common, so it is no misfortune, except to those who lack the wit to see or sense to appreciate the service, or the nobility of soul to thank and reward with eulogy, the benefactor of his kind. His influences live, and the great Future will obey; whether it recognize or disown the lawgiver."
"If not for slander and persecution, the Mason who would benefit his race must look for apathy and cold indifference in those whose good he seeks, in those who ought to seek the good of others. Except when the sluggish depths of the Human Mind are hroken up and tossed as with a storm, when at the appointed time a great Reformer comes, and a new Faith springs up and grows with supernatural energy, the progress of Truth is slower than the growth of oaks; and he who plants need not expect to gather. The Redeemer, at His death, had twelve disciples, and one betrayed and one deserted and denied Him. It is enough for us to know that the fruit will come in its due season. When, or who shall gather it, it does not in the least concern us to know. It is our business to plant the seed. It is God's right to give the fruit to whom He pleases; and if not to us, then is our action by so much the more noble."
"To sow, that others may reap; to work and plant for those that are to occupy the earth when we are dead; to project our influences far into the future, and live beyond our time; to rule as the Kings of Thought, over men who are yet unborn; to bless with the glorious gifts of Truth and Light and Liberty those who will neither know the name of the giver, nor care in what grave his unregarded ashes repose, is the true office of a Mason and the proudest destiny of a man."
"All the great and beneficent operations of Nature are produced by slow and often imperceptible degrees. The work of destruction and devastation only is violent and rapid."
"There are Seven Seals to be opened, that is to say, Seven mysteries to know, and Seven difficulties to overcome, Seven trumpets to sound, and Seven cups to empty. The Apocalypse is, to those who receive the nineteenth degree, the Apotheosis of that Sublime Faith which aspires to God alone, and despises all the pomps and works of Lucifer. Lucifer, the Light-bearer! Strange and mysterious name to give to the Spirit of Darkness! Lucifer, the Son of the Morning! Is it he who bears the Light, and with its splendors intolerable blinds feeble, sensual, or selfish Souls! Doubt it not! for traditions are full of Divine Revelations and Inspirations: and Inspiration is not of one Age nor of one Creed. Plato and Philo, also, were inspired."
"All that is done and said and thought and suffered upon the Earth combine together, and flow onward in one broad resistless current toward those great results to which they are determined by the will of God. We build slowly and destroy swiftly. Our Ancient Brethren who built the Temples at Jerusalem, with many myriad blows felled, hewed, and squared the cedars, and quarried the stones, and car»ed the intricate ornaments, which were to be the Temples. Stone after stone, by the combined effort and long toil of Apprentice, Fellow-Craft, and Master, the walls arose; slowly the roof was framed and fashioned ; and many years elapsed, before, at length, the Houses stood finished, all fit and ready for the Worship of God, gorgeous in the sunny splendors of the atmosphere of Palestine. So they were built. A single motion of the arm of a rude, barbarous Assyrian Spearman, or drunken Roman or Gothic Legionary of Titus, moved by a senseless impulse of the brutal will, flung in the blazing brand; and, with no further human agency, a few short hours sufficed to consume and melt each Temple to a smoking mass of black unsightly ruin. Be patient, therefore, my Brother, and wait!"
"Genuine work alone, done faithfully, is eternal, even as the Almighty Founder and Worldbuilder Himself. All work is noble: a life of ease is not for any man, nor for any God. The Almighty Maker is not like one who, in old immemorial ages, having made his machine of a Universe, sits ever since, and sees it go. Out of that belief comes Atheism. The faith in an Invisible, Unnameable, Directing Deity, present everywhere in all that we see, and work, and suffer, is the essence of all faith whatsoever."
"Whatsoever of morality and intelligence; what of patience, perseverance, faithfulness, of method, insight, ingenuity, energy; in a word, whatsoever of Strength a man has in him, will lie written in the Work he does. To work is to try himself against Nature and her unerring, everlasting laws: and they will return true verdict as to him. The noblest Epic is a mighty Empire slowly built together, a mighty series of heroic deeds, a mighty conquest over chaos. Deeds are greater than words. They have a life, mute, but undeniable; and grow. They people the vacuity of Time, and make it green and worthy. Labor is the truest emblem of God, the Architect and Eternal Maker; noble Labor, which is yet to be the King of this Earth, and sit on the highest Throne. Men without duties to do, are like trees planted on precipices; from the roots of which all the earth has crumbled. Nature owns no man who is not also a Martyr. She scorns the man who sits screened from all work, from want, danger, hardship, the victory over which is work ; and has all his work and battling done by other men; and yet there are men who pride themselves that they and theirs have done no work time out of mind. So neither have the swine."
"There is a perennial nobleness and even sacredness in work. Be he never so benighted and forgetful of his high calling, there is always hope in a man that actually and earnestly works: in Idleness alone is there perpetual Despair."
"Duty is with us ever; and evermore forbids us to be idle. To work with the hands or brain, according to our acquirements and our capacities, to do that which lies before us to do, is more honorable than rank and title."
"Almost all the noblest things that have been achieved in the world, have been achieved by poor men; poor scholars, poor professional men, poor artisans and artists, poor philosophers, poets, and men of genius."
"All hypotheses scientifically probable are the last gleams of the twilight of knowledge, or its last shadows. Faith begins where Reason sinks exhausted. Beyond the human Reason is the Divine Reason, to our feebleness the great Absurdity, the Infinite Absurd, which confounds us and which we believe. For the Master, the Compass of Faith is above the Square of Reason ; but both rest upon the Holy Scriptures and combine to form the Blazing Star of Truth. All eyes do not see alike. Even the visible creation is not, for all who look upon it, of one form and one color. Our brain is a book printed within and without, and the two writings are, with all men, more or less confused."
"Magic is that which it is; it is by itself, like the mathematics; for it is the exact and absolute science of Nature and its laws. Magic is the science of the Ancient Magi: and the Christian religion, which has imposed silence on the lying oracles, and put an end to the prestiges of the false Gods, itself reveres those Magi who came from the East, guided by a Star, to adore the Saviour of the world in His cradle."
"Science has its nights and its dawns, because it gives the intellectual world a life which has its regulated movements and its progressive phases. It is with Truths, as with the luminous rays: nothing of what is concealed is lost; but also, nothing of what is discovered is absolutely new. God has been pleased to give to Science, which is the reflection of His Glory, the Seal of His Eternity. It is not in the books of the Philosophers, but in the religious symbolism of the Ancients, that we must look for the footprints of Science, and re-discover the Mysteries of Knowledge."
"The Secret of the Occult Sciences is that of Nature itself, the Secret of the generation of the Angels and Worlds, that of the Omnipotence of God."
"To organize Anarchy, is the problem which the revolutionists have and will eternally have to resolve. It is the rock of Sisyphus that will always fall back upon them. To exist a single instant, they are and always will be by fatality reduced to improvise a despotism without other reason of existence than necessity, and which, consequently, is violent and blind as Necessity. We escape from the harmonious monarchy of Reason, only to fall under the irregular dictatorship of Folly. Sometimes superstitious enthusiasms, sometimes the miserable calculations of the materialist instinct have led astray the nations, and God at last urges the world on toward believing Reason and reasonable Beliefs. We have had prophets enough without philosophy, and philosophers without religion; the blind believers and the skeptics resemble each other, and are as far the one as the other from the eternal salvation."
"What we have done for ourselves alone dies with us; what we have done for others and the world remains and is immortal."
"War is a series of catastrophes which result in victory."
"A man should live with his superiors as he does with his fire: not too near, lest he burn; nor too far off, lest he freeze."
"We have all the light we need, we just need to put it in practice."
"One man is equivalent to all Creation. One man is a World in miniature."
"...gezien hebben dat de bijbel in de Scholen moet gebruikt worden, zooals de wet voorschrijft."
"...de gevaare drygt aan alle kanten om een oorlog met die kaffers."
"Waarom was de mensche niet doodgeschiet toen hulle bijde eerste laager gekom het?"
"Ze waren begin geweest van den val. Van daar was de roepstem uitgegaan om protectie uit den vreemden. Die Goudvelde waren een bron geweest van ellende voor die Regering. Aan de goudvelden was het te wijten geweest dat het land in oorlog was gewikkeld worden."
"…the real truth. Now, you must have heard that the English – or as they are better known the Englishmen – took away our country, the Transvaal, or, as they say, annexed it. We then talked nicely for four years, and begged for our country. But no; when an Englishman once has your property in his hand, then is he like a monkey that has its hands full of pumpkin-seeds — if you don't beat him to death, he will never let go – and then all our nice talk for four years did not help us at all. Then the English commenced to arrest us because we were dissatisfied, and that caused the shooting and fighting. Then the English first found that it would be better to give us back our country. Now they are gone, and our country is free, …"
"The heart of my soul is bloody with sorrow. … (Nonverbatim: I have done my utmost for peace, despite England pushing the Boers out of their inheritance bit by bit, and taking advantage of us in every conference and native war. My hope till the present war had been for a South African Confederacy under English protection – the Cape, Natal, Free State and Transvaal all having equal rights and local self-government.) … But now we can only leave it to God. If it is His will that the Transvaal perish, we can only do our best."
"I liked Kruger more than I liked Joubert. The latter was Slim Piet and … I saw nothing else. The former [Kruger] has always the idea of a Boer empire, and as far as his lights went was an astute honest peasant. He is as the French peasants were in the Revolution, capable of cruelty but it would only be incidental cruelty, and due to his thinking it either necessary or unavoidable. Joubert on the other hand always strikes me as a cold schemer."
"Nothing is a greater stranger to my breast, or a sin that my soul more abhors, than that black and detestable one, ingratitude."
"Tis true, I profess myself a Votary to Love — I acknowledge that a Lady is in the Case — and further I confess, that this Lady is known to you. — Yes Madam, as well as she is to one, who is too sensible of her Charms to deny the Power, whose Influence he feels and must ever Submit to. I feel the force of her amiable beauties in the recollection of a thousand tender passages that I coud wish to obliterate, till I am bid to revive them. — but experience alas! sadly reminds me how Impossible this is. — and evinces an Opinion which I have long entertaind, that there is a Destiny, which has the Sovereign controul of our Actions — not to be resisted by the strongest efforts of Human Nature. You have drawn me my dear Madam, or rather have I drawn myself, into an honest confession of a Simple Fact — misconstrue not my meaning — ’tis obvious — doubt it not, nor expose it, — the World has no business to know the object of my Love, declard in this manner to — you when I want to conceal it — One thing, above all things in this World I wish to know, and only one person of your Acquaintance can solve me that, or guess my meaning. — but adieu to this, till happier times, if I ever shall see them."
"Discipline is the soul of an army. It makes small numbers formidable; procures success to the weak, and esteem to all."
"The General is sorry to be informed —, that the foolish and wicked practice of profane cursing and swearing, a vice heretofore little known in an American army, is growing into a fashion; — he hopes the officers will, by example as well as influence, endeavor to check it, and that both they and the men will reflect that we can have little hope of the blessing of Heaven on our arms, if we insult it by impiety and folly; added to this, it is a vice so mean and low, without any temptation, that every man of sense and character detests and despises it."
"Unhappy it is though to reflect, that a Brother's Sword has been sheathed in a Brother's breast, and that, the once happy and peaceful plains of America are either to be drenched with Blood, or Inhabited by Slaves. Sad alternative! But can a virtuous Man hesitate in his choice?"
"As to pay, Sir, I beg leave to assure the Congress that as no pecuniary consideration could have tempted me to accept this arduous employment at the expense of my domestic ease and happiness, I do not wish to make any profit from it."
"But lest some unlucky event should happen unfavorable to my reputation, I beg it may be remembered by every gentleman in the room that I this day declare with the utmost sincerity, I do not think myself equal to the command I am honored with."
"When we assumed the Soldier, we did not lay aside the Citizen."
"Every post is honorable in which a man can serve his country."
"The reflection upon my situation, and that of this army, produces many an uneasy hour, when all around me are wrapped in sleep. Few people know the predicament we are in, on a thousand accounts; fewer still will believe, if any disaster happens to these lines, from what cause it flows. I have often thought how much happier I should have been, if instead of accepting of a command under such circumstances, I had taken my musket upon my shoulders and entered the rank, or if I could have justified the measure of posterity, and my own conscience, had retired to the back country, and lived in a wigwam. If I shall be able to rise superior to these, and many other difficulties which might be enumerated, I shall most religiously believe that the finger of Providence is in it, to blind the eyes of our enemies; for surely if we get well through this month, it must be for want of their knowing the disadvantages we labor under. Could I have foreseen the difficulties which have come upon us, could I have known that such a backwardness would have been discovered in the old soldiers to the service, all the generals upon earth should not have convinced me of the propriety of delaying an attack upon Boston till this time."
"To expect … the same service from raw and undisciplined recruits, as from veteran soldiers, is to expect what never did and perhaps never will happen. Men, who are familiarized to danger, meet it without shrinking; whereas troops unused to service often apprehend danger where no danger is."
"Let us therefore animate and encourage each other, and show the whole world that a Freeman, contending for liberty on his own ground, is superior to any slavish mercenary on earth."
"The General hopes and trusts that every officer and man will endeavor to live and act as becomes a Christian soldier defending the dearest rights and liberties of his country."
"The time is now near at hand which must probably determine whether Americans are to be freemen or slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call their own; whether their houses and farms are to be pillaged and destroyed, and themselves consigned to a state of wretchedness from which no human efforts will deliver them. The fate of unborn millions will now depend, under God, on the courage and conduct of this army. Our cruel and unrelenting enemy leaves us only the choice of brave resistance, or the most abject submission. We have, therefore, to resolve to conquer or die."
"There is nothing that gives a man consequence, and renders him fit for command, like a support that renders him independent of everybody but the State he serves."
"To place any dependence upon militia, is, assuredly, resting upon a broken staff. Men just dragged from the tender scenes of domestic life - unaccustomed to the din of arms - totally unacquainted with every kind of military skill, which being followed by a want of confidence in themselves when opposed to troops regularly trained, disciplined, and appointed, superior in knowledge, and superior in arms, makes them timid and ready to fly from their own shadows."
"My brave fellows, you have done all I asked you to do, and more than can be reasonably expected; but your country is at stake, your wives, your houses and all that you hold dear. You have worn yourselves out with fatigues and hardships, but we know not how to spare you. If you will consent to stay one month longer, you will render that service to the cause of liberty, and to your country, which you probably can never do under any other circumstances."
"Parade with me my brave fellows, we will have them soon!"
"A great and lasting war can never be supported on this principle [patriotism] alone. It must be aided by a prospect of interest, or some reward."
"While we are zealously performing the duties of good citizens and soldiers, we certainly ought not to be inattentive to the higher duties of religion. To the distinguished character of Patriot, it should be our highest glory to add the more distinguished character of Christian."
"It is not a little pleasing, nor less wonderful to contemplate, that after two years' manoeuvring and undergoing the strangest vicissitudes, that perhaps ever attended any one contest since the creation, both armies are brought back to the very point they set out from, and that which was the offending party in the beginning is now reduced to the use of the spade and pickaxe for defence. The hand of Providence has been so conspicuous in all this, that he must be worse than an infidel that lacks faith, and more than wicked, that has not gratitude enough to acknowledge his obligations. But it will be time enough for me to turn preacher, when my present appointment ceases…"
"It gives me very sincere pleasure to find that there is likely to be a coalition of the Whigs in your State (a few only excepted) and that the Assembly of it, are so well disposed to second your endeavors in bringing those murderers of our cause—the Monopolizers—forestallers—& Engrossers—to condign punishment. It is much to be lamented that each State, long ’ere this, has not hunted them down as the pests of Society, & the greatest enemies we have, to the happiness of America. I would to God that one of the most attrocious in each State was hung in Gibbets, up on a gallows five times as high as the one prepared by Haman—No punishment, in my opinion, is too great for the Man, who can build “his greatness upon his Country’s ruin.”"
"In the last place, though first in importance I shall ask—is there any thing doing, or that can be done to restore the credit of our currency? The depreciation of it is got to so alarming a point—that a waggon load of money will scarcely purchase a waggon load of provision."
"Few men have virtue to withstand the highest bidder."
"Know my good friend that no distance can keep anxious lovers long asunder, and that the wonders of former ages may be revived in this — But alas! will you not remark that amidst all the wonders recorded in holy writ no instance can be produced where a young Woman from real inclination has prefered an old man — This is so much against me that I shall not be able I fear to contest the prize with you — yet, under the encouragement you have given me I shall enter the list for so inestimable a jewell."
"A slender acquaintance with the world must convince every man, that actions, not words, are the true criterion of the attachment of his friends, and that the most liberal professions of good will are very far from being the surest marks of it. I should be happy that my own experience had afforded fewer examples of the little dependence to be placed upon them."
"[F]ree Negroes who have served in this army are very much dissatisfied at being discarded. As it is to be apprehended that they may seek employ in the Ministerial Army, I have … given license for their being enlisted."
"Mrs. Phillis: Your favour of the 26th of October did not reach my hands 'till the middle of December. Time enough, you will say, to have given an answer ere this. Granted. But a variety of important occurrences, continually interposing to distract the mind and withdraw the attention, I hope will apologize for the delay, and plead my excuse for the seeming, but not real neglect."
"I thank you most sincerely for your polite notice of me, in the elegant Lines you enclosed; and however undeserving I may be of such encomium and panegyrick, the style and manner exhibit a striking proof of your great poetical Talents. In honour of which, and as a tribute justly due to you, I would have published the Poem, had I not been apprehensive, that, while I only meant to give the World this new instance of your genius, I might have incurred the imputation of Vanity. This and nothing else, determined me not to give it place in the public Prints."
"If you should ever come to Cambridge, or near Head Quarters, I shall be happy to see a person so favoured by the Muses, and to whom Nature has been so liberal and beneficent in her dispensations. I am, with great Respect, etc."
"It gives me very sincere pleasure to find that there is likely to be a coalition … so well disposed to second your endeavours in bringing those murderers of our cause (the monopolizers, forestallers, and engrossers) to condign punishment. It is much to be lamented that each State long ere this has not hunted them down as the pests of society, and the greatest Enemys we have to the happiness of America. I would to God that one of the most attrocious of each State was hung in Gibbets upons a gallows five times as high as the one prepared by Haman. No punishment in my opinion is too great for the Man who can build his greatness upon his Country's ruin."
"I am not clear that a discrimination will not render slavery more irksome to those who remain in it. Most of the good and evil things in this life are judged of by comparison; and I fear a comparison in this case will be productive of much discontent in those who are held in servitude."
"… but I am under no apprehension of a capital injury from any other source than that of the continual depreciation of our Money. This indeed is truly alarming, and of so serious a nature that every other effort is in vain unless something can be done to restore its credit. .. Where this has been the policy (in Connecticut for instance) the prices of every article have fallen and the money consequently is in demand; but in the other States you can scarce get a single thing for it, and yet it is with-held from the public by speculators, while every thing that can be useful to the public is engrossed by this tribe of black gentry, who work more effectually against us that the enemys Arms; and are a hundd. times more dangerous to our liberties and the great cause we are engaged in."
"[A]bolish the name and appearance of a Black Corps."
"Example, whether it be good or bad, has a powerful influence."
"The many remarkable interpositions of the divine government, in the hours of our deepest distress and darkness, have been too luminous to suffer me to doubt the happy issue of the present contest."
"The Commander in Chief earnestly recommends that the troops not on duty should universally attend with that seriousness of Deportment and gratitude of Heart which the recognition of such reiterated and astonishing interpositions of Providence demand of us."
"Without a decisive naval force we can do nothing definitive. And with it, everything honorable and glorious."
"I am sure there never was a people, who had more reason to acknowledge a divine interposition in their affairs, than those of the United States; and I should be pained to believe, that they have forgotten that agency, which was so often manifested during our revolution, or that they failed to consider the omnipotence of that God, who is alone able to protect them."
"Be courteous to all, but intimate with few, and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence; true friendship is a plant of slow growth, and must undergo and withstand the shocks of adversity before it is entitled to the appellation."
"Let your heart feel for the affliction, and distresses of every one—and let your hand give, in proportion to your purse—remembering always, the estimation of the Widows mite. But, that it is not every one who asketh, that deserveth charity; all however are worthy of the enquiry—or the deserving may suffer."
"Do not conceive that fine Clothes make fine Men, any more than fine feathers make fine Birds—A plain genteel dress is more admired and obtains more credit than lace & embroidery in the Eyes of the judicious and sensible."
"Happy, thrice happy shall they be pronounced hereafter, who have contributed any thing, who have performed the meanest office in erecting this stupendous fabrick of Freedom and Empire on the broad basis of Independency; who have assisted in protecting the rights of humane nature and establishing an Asylum for the poor and oppressed of all nations and religions."
"It may be laid down, as a primary position, and the basis of our system, that every citizen who enjoys the protection of a free government, owes not only a proportion of his property, but even of his personal services to the defence of it, and consequently that the Citizens of America (with a few legal and official exceptions) from 18 to 50 Years of Age should be borne on the Militia Rolls, provided with uniform Arms, and so far accustomed to the use of them, that the Total strength of the Country might be called forth at Short Notice on any very interesting Emergency."
"The scheme, my dear Marqs., which you propose as a precedent to encourage the emancipation of the black people of this Country from that state of Bondage in wch. they are held, is a striking evidence of the benevolence of your Heart. I shall be happy to join you in so laudable a work; but will defer going into a detail of the business, till I have the pleasure of seeing you."
"Arbitrary power is most easily established on the ruins of liberty abused to licentiousness."
"I now make it my earnest prayer, that God would have you, and the State over which you preside, in his holy protection; that he would incline the hearts of the citizens to cultivate a spirit of subordination and obedience to Government; to entertain a brotherly affection and love for one another, for their fellow citizens of the United States at large; and, particularly, for their brethren who have served in the Geld; and finally, that he would most graciously be pleased to dispose us all to do justice, to love mercy, and to demean ourselves with that charity, humility, and pacifick temper of the mind, which were the characteristicks of the divine Author of our blessed religion ; without an humble imitation of whose example, in these things, we can never hope to be a happy Nation."
"The bosom of America is open to receive not only the Opulent and respectable Stranger, but the oppressed and persecuted of all Nations And Religions; whom we shall wellcome to a participation of all our rights and previleges, if by decency and propriety of conduct they appear to merit the enjoyment."
"Having now finished the work assigned me, I retire from the great theatre of Action; and bidding an Affectionate farewell to this August body under whose orders I have so long acted, I here offer my commission, and take my leave of all the employments of public life."
"I am become a private citizen on the banks of the Potomac, and under the shadow of my own Vine and my own Fig-tree, free from the bustle of a camp and the busy scenes of public life, I am solacing myself with those tranquil enjoyments, of which the Soldier who is ever in pursuit of fame, the Statesman whose watchful days and sleepless nights are spent in devising schemes to promote the welfare of his own, perhaps the ruin of other countries, as if this globe was insufficient for us all, and the Courtier who is always watching the countenance of his Prince, in hopes of catching a gracious smile, can have very little conception. I am not only retired from all public employments, but I am retiring within myself; and shall be able to view the solitary walk, and tread the paths of private life with heartfelt satisfaction. Envious of none, I am determined to be pleased with all; and this my dear friend, being the order for my march, I will move gently down the stream of life, until I sleep with my Fathers."
"A people... who are possessed of the spirit of commerce, who see and who will pursue their advantages may achieve almost anything."
"[T]he motives which predominate most in human affairs is self-love and self-interest."
"Men's minds are as variant as their faces, and, where the motives of their actions are pure, the operation of the former is no more to be imputed to them as a crime, than the appearance of the latter; for both, being the work of nature, are alike unavoidable."
"Democratical States must always feel before they can see: it is this that makes their Governments slow, but the people will be right at last."
"As the complexion of European politics seems now (from letters I have received from the Marqs. de la Fayette, Chevrs. Chartellux, De la Luzerne, &c.,) to have a tendency to Peace, I will say nothing of war, nor make any animadversions upon the contending powers; otherwise, I might possibly have said that the retreat from it seemed impossible after the explicit declaration of the parties: My first wish is to see this plague to mankind banished from off the Earth, and the sons and Daughters of this world employed in more pleasing and innocent amusements, than in preparing implements and exercising them for the destruction of mankind: rather than quarrel about territory let the poor, the needy and oppressed of the Earth, and those who want Land, resort to the fertile plains of our western country, the second Promise, and there dwell in peace, fulfilling the first and great commandment."
"We are either a united people, or we are not. If the former, let us, in all matters of general concern act as a Nation, which have national objects to promote, and a national character to support. If we are not, let us no longer act a farce by pretending to it."
"My manner of living is plain. I do not mean to be put out of it. A glass of wine and a bit of mutton are always ready; and such as will be content to partake of them are always welcome. Those, who expect more, will be disappointed, but no change will be effected by it."
"There is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than I do, to see a plan adopted for the abolition of slavery."
"If you tell the Legislatures they have violated the treaty of peace and invaded the prerogatives of the confederacy they will laugh in your face. What then is to be done? Things cannot go on in the same train forever. It is much to be feared, as you observe, that the better kind of people being disgusted with the circumstances will have their minds prepared for any revolution whatever. We are apt to run from one extreme into another. To anticipate & prevent disasterous contingencies would be the part of wisdom & patriotism. What astonishing changes a few years are capable of producing! I am told that even respectable characters speak of a monarchical form of government without horror. From thinking proceeds speaking, thence to acting is often but a single step. But how irrevocable & tremendous! What a triumph for the advocates of despotism to find that we are incapable of governing ourselves, and that systems founded on the basis of equal liberty are merely ideal & falacious! Would to God that wise measures may be taken in time to avert the consequences we have but too much reason to apprehend. Retired as I am from the world, I frankly acknowledge I cannot feel myself an unconcerned spectator. Yet having happily assisted in bringing the ship into port & having been fairly discharged; it is not my business to embark again on a sea of troubles. Nor could it be expected that my sentiments and opinions would have much weight on the minds of my Countrymen — they have been neglected, tho' given as a last legacy in the most solemn manner. I had then perhaps some claims to public attention. I consider myself as having none at present."
"Altho’ I pretend to no peculiar information respecting commercial affairs, nor any foresight into the scenes of futurity; yet as the member of an infant-empire, as a Philanthropist by character, and (if I may be allowed the expression) as a Citizen of the great republic of humanity at large; I cannot help turning my attention sometimes to this subject. I would be understood to mean, I cannot avoid reflecting with pleasure on the probable influence that commerce may here after have on human manners & society in general. On these occasions I consider how mankind may be connected like one great family in fraternal ties—I endulge a fond, perhaps an enthusiastic idea, that as the world is evidently much less barbarous than it has been, its melioration must still be progressive—that nations are becoming more humanized in their policy—that the subjects of ambition & causes for hostility are daily diminishing—and in fine, that the period is not very remote when the benefits of a liberal & free commerce will, pretty generally, succeed to the devastations & horrors of war."
"If they have real grievances redress them, if possible; or acknowledge the justice of them, and your inability to do it at the moment. If they have not, employ the force of government against them at once."
"Paper money has had the effect in your State that it ever will have, to ruin commerce—oppress the honest, and open a door to every species of fraud and injustice."
"The only stipulations I shall contend for are, that in all things you shall do as you please. I will do the same; and that no ceremony may be used or any restraint be imposed on any one."
"Liberty, when it begins to take root, is a plant of rapid growth."
"Your young military men, who want to reap the harvest of laurels, don't care (I suppose) how many seeds of war are sown; but for the sake of humanity it is devoutly to be wished, that the manly employment of agriculture and the humanizing benefits of commerce, would supersede the waste of war and the rage of conquest; that the swords might be turned into plough-shares, the spears into pruning hooks, and, as the Scripture expresses it, "the nations learn war no more.""
"I hope I shall always possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain (what I consider the most enviable of all titles) the character of an honest man, as well as prove (what I desire to be considered in reality) that I am, with great sincerity & esteem, Dear Sir Your friend and Most obedient Hble Ser⟨vt⟩"
"The unfortunate condition of the persons, whose labour in part I employed, has been the only unavoidable subject of regret. To make the Adults among them as easy & as comfortable in their circumstances as their actual state of ignorance & improvidence would admit; & to lay a foundation to prepare the rising generation for a destiny different from that in which they were born; afforded some satisfaction to my mind, & could not I hoped be displeasing to the justice of the Creator."
"The blessed Religion revealed in the word of God will remain an eternal and awful monument to prove that the best Institutions may be abused by human depravity; and that they may even, in some instances be made subservient to the vilest of purposes. Should, hereafter, those who are intrusted with the management of this government, incited by the lust of power & prompted by the supineness or venality of their Constituents, overleap the known barriers of this Constitution and violate the unalienable rights of humanity: it will only serve to shew, that no compact among men (however provident in its construction & sacred in its ratification) can be pronounced everlasting and inviolable—and if I may so express myself, that no wall of words—that no mound of parchmt can be so formed as to stand against the sweeping torrent of boundless ambition on the one side, aided by the sapping current of corrupted morals on the other."
"Such being the impressions under which I have, in obedience to the public summons, repaired to the present station; it would be peculiarly improper to omit in this first official Act, my fervent supplications to that Almighty Being who rules over the Universe, who presides in the Councils of Nations, and whose providential aids can supply every human defect, that his benediction may consecrate to the liberties and happiness of the People of the United States, a Government instituted by themselves for these essential purposes: and may enable every instrument employed in its administration to execute with success, the functions allotted to his charge. In tendering this homage to the Great Author of every public and private good, I assure myself that it expresses your sentiments not less than my own; nor those of my fellow-citizens at large, less than either. No People can be bound to acknowledge and adore the invisible hand, which conducts the Affairs of men more than the People of the United States. Every step, by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation, seems to have been distinguished by some token of providential agency. And in the important revolution just accomplished in the system of their United Government, the tranquil deliberations and voluntary consent of so many distinct communities, from which the event has resulted, cannot be compared with the means by which most Governments have been established, without some return of pious gratitude along with an humble anticipation of the future blessings which the past seem to presage."
"I dwell on this prospect with every satisfaction which an ardent love for my Country can inspire: since there is no truth more thoroughly established, than that there exists in the oeconomy and course of nature, an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness, between duty and advantage, between the genuine maxims of an honest and magnanimous policy, and the solid rewards of public prosperity and felicity: Since we ought to be no less persuaded that the propitious smiles of Heaven, can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right, which Heaven itself has ordained: And since the preservation of the sacred fire of liberty, and the destiny of the Republican model of Government, are justly considered as deeply, perhaps as finally staked, on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people."
"For myself the delay may be compared with a reprieve; for in confidence I assure you, with the world it would obtain little credit that my movements to the chair of Government will be accompanied by feelings not unlike those of a culprit who is going to the place of his execution: so unwilling am I, in the evening of a life nearly consumed in public cares, to quit a peaceful abode for an Ocean of difficulties, without that competency of political skill, abilities and inclination which is necessary to manage the helm."
"In executing the duties of my present important station, I can promise nothing but purity of intentions, and, in carrying these into effect, fidelity and diligence."
"The satisfaction arising from the indulgent opinion entertained by the American People of my conduct, will, I trust, be some security for preventing me from doing any thing, which might justly incur the forfeiture of that opinion. And the consideration that human happiness and moral duty are inseparably connected, will always continue to prompt me to promote the progress of the former, by inculcating the practice of the latter."
"Impressed with a conviction that the due administration of justice is the firmest pillar of good Government, I have considered the first arrangement of the Judicial department as essential to the happiness of our Country, and to the stability of its political system; hence the selection of the fittest characters to expound the law, and dispense justice, has been an invariable object of my anxious concern."
"Gentlemen, you will permit me to put on my spectacles, for, I have grown not only gray, but almost blind in the service of my country."
"The Author of the piece, is entitled to much credit for the goodness of his Pen: and I could wish he had as much credit for the rectitude of his Heart — for, as Men see thro’ different Optics, and are induced by the reflecting faculties of the Mind, to use different means to attain the same end; the Author of the Address, should have had more charity, than to mark for Suspicion, the Man who should recommend Moderation and longer forbearance — or, in other words, who should not think as he thinks, and act as he advises. But he had another plan in view, in which candor and liberality of Sentiment, regard to justice, and love of Country, have no part; and he was right, to insinuate the darkest suspicion, to effect the blackest designs. That the Address is drawn with great art, and is designed to answer the most insidious purposes. That it is calculated to impress the Mind, with an idea of premeditated injustice in the Sovereign power of the United States, and rouse all those resentments which must unavoidably flow from such a belief. That the secret Mover of this Scheme (whoever he may be) intended to take advantage of the passions, while they were warmed by the recollection of past distresses, without giving time for cool, deliberative thinking, & that composure of Mind which is so necessary to give dignity & stability to measures, is rendered too obvious, by the mode of conducting the business, to need other proof than a reference to the proceeding."
"There might, Gentlemen, be an impropriety in my taking notice, in this Address to you, of an anonymous production — but the manner in which that performance has been introduced to the Army — the effect it was intended to have, together with some other circumstances, will amply justify my observations on the tendency of that Writing. With respect to the advice given by the Author — to suspect the Man, who shall recommend moderate measures and longer forbearance — I spurn it — as every Man, who regards that liberty, & reveres that Justice for which we contend, undoubtedly must — for if Men are to be precluded from offering their sentiments on a matter, which may involve the most serious and alarming consequences, that can invite the consideration of Mankind; reason is of no use to us — the freedom of Speech may be taken away — and, dumb & silent we may be led, like sheep, to the Slaughter."
"You will, by the dignity of your Conduct, afford occasion for Posterity to say, when speaking of the glorious example you have exhibited to Mankind, had this day been wanting, the World had never seen the last stage of perfection to which human nature is capable of attaining."
"The Citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for giving to Mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy: a policy worthy of imitation. All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship. It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights. For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens in giving it on all occasions their effectual support. May the Children of the Stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land, continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other Inhabitants; while every one shall sit under his own vine and fig tree, and there shall be none to make him afraid."
"To be prepared for war is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace."
"The advancement of agriculture, commerce and manufactures, by all proper means, will not, I trust, need recommendation. But I cannot forbear intimating to you the expediency of giving effectual encouragement as well to the introduction of new and useful inventions from abroad, as to the exertions of skill and genius in producing them at home; and of facilitating the intercourse between the distant parts of our country by a due attention to the Post Office and Post Roads."
"A free people ought not only to be armed, but disciplined; to which end a uniform and well-digested plan is requisite; and their safety and interest require that they should promote such manufactories as tend to render them independent of others for essential, particularly military, supplies."
"All see, and most admire, the glare which hovers round the external trappings of elevated office. To me there is nothing in it, beyond the lustre which may be reflected from its connection with a power of promoting human felicity."
"As mankind become more liberal they will be more apt to allow, that all those who conduct themselves as worthy members of the Community are equally entitled to the protection of civil Government. I hope ever to see America among the foremost nations in examples of justice and liberality."
"[A] good moral character is the first essential in a man, and that the habits contracted at your age are generally indelible, and your conduct here may stamp your character through life. It is therefore highly important that you should endeavor not only to be learned but virtuous."
"It is better to offer no excuse than a bad one."
"Religious controversies are always productive of more acrimony and irreconcilable hatreds than those which spring from any other cause; and I was not without hopes that the enlightened and liberal policy of the present age would have put an effectual stop to contentions of this kind."
"Of all the animosities which have existed among mankind, those which are caused by difference of sentiments in religion appear to be the most inveterate and distressing, and ought most to be deprecated. I was in hopes that the enlightened and liberal policy, which has marked the present age, would at least have reconciled Christians of every denomination so far that we should never again see the religious disputes carried to such a pitch as to endanger the peace of society."
"Flattering as it may be to the human mind, & truly honorable as it is to receive from our fellow citizens testimonies of approbation for exertions to promote the public welfare; it is not less pleasing to know that the milder virtues of the heart are highly respected by a society whose liberal principles must be founded in the immediate laws of truth and justice. To enlarge the sphere of social happiness is worthy the benevolent design of the Masonic Institution; and it is most fervently to be wished, that the conduct of every member of the fraternity, as well as those publications which discover the principles which actuate them may tend to convince Mankind that the grand object of Masonry is to promote the happiness of the human race."
"We have abundant reason to rejoice, that, in this land, the light of truth and reason has triumphed over the power of bigotry and superstition, and that every person may here worship God according to the dictates of his own heart. In this enlightened age, & in this land of equal liberty, it is our boast, that a man's religious tenets will not forfeit the protection of the laws, nor deprive him of the right of attaining & holding the highest offices that are known in the United States. Your prayers for my present and future felicity are received with gratitude; and I sincerely wish, Gentlemen, that you may in your social and individual capacities taste those blessings, which a gracious God bestows upon the righteous."
"The friends of humanity will deprecate War, wheresoever it may appear; and we have experience enough of its evils, in this country, to know, that it should not be wantonly or unnecessarily entered upon. I trust, that the good citizens of the United States will show to the world, that they have as much wisdom in preserving peace at this critical juncture, as they have hitherto displayed valor in defending their just rights."
"If we desire to avoid insult, we must be able to repel it; if we desire to secure peace, one of the most powerful instruments of our rising prosperity, it must be known that we are at all times ready for war"
"I am very glad to hear that the Gardener has saved so much of the St. foin seed, and that of the India Hemp. Make the most you can of both, by sowing them again in drills. . . Let the ground be well prepared, and the Seed (St. foin) be sown in April. The Hemp may be sown any where."
"When one side only of a story is heard and often repeated, the human mind becomes impressed with it insensibly."
"Malignity, therefore, may dart its shafts, but no earthly power can deprive me of the consolation of knowing that I have not, in the whole course of my Administration (however numerous they may have been) committed an intentional error."
"Letter to David Humphreys (12 June 1796)"
"Rise early, that by habit it may become familiar, agreeable, healthy, and profitable. It may, for a while, be irksome to do this, but that will wear off; and the practice will produce a rich harvest forever thereafter; whether in public or private walks of life."
"It is infinitely better to have a few good men than many indifferent ones."
"I have heard much of the nefarious, & dangerous plan, & doctrines of the Illuminati, but never saw the Book until you were pleased to send it to me. The same causes which have prevented my acknowledging the receipt of your letter, have prevented my reading the Book, hitherto; namely — the multiplicity of matters which pressed upon me before, & the debilitated state in which I was left after, a severe fever had been removed. And which allows me to add little more now, than thanks for your kind wishes and favourable sentiments, except to correct an error you have run into, of my Presiding over the English lodges in this Country. The fact is, I preside over none, nor have I been in one more than once or twice, within the last thirty years. I believe notwithstandings, that none of the Lodges in this Country are contaminated with the principles ascribed to the Society of the Illuminati."
"You could as soon as scrub the blackamore white, as to change the principles of a profest Democrat; and that he will leave nothing unattempted to overturn the Government of this Country."
"It was not my intention to doubt that, the Doctrines of the Illuminati, and principles of Jacobinism had not spread in the United States. On the contrary, no one is more truly satisfied of this fact than I am. The idea that I meant to convey, was, that I did not believe that the Lodges of Free Masons in this Country had, as Societies, endeavoured to propagate the diabolical tenets of the first, or pernicious principles of the latter (if they are susceptible of seperation). That Individuals of them may have done it, or that the founder, or instrument employed to found, the Democratic Societies in the United States, may have had these objects; and actually had a seperation of the People from their Government in view, is too evident to be questioned."
"So far as I am acquainted with the principles & Doctrines of Free Masonry, I conceive it to be founded in benevolence and to be exercised only for the good of mankind. If it has been a Cloak to promote improper or nefarious objects, it is a melancholly proof that in unworthy hands, the best institutions may be made use of to promote the worst designs."
"To sell the overplus I cannot, because I am principled against this kind of traffic in the human species. To hire them out, is almost as bad, because they could not be disposed of in families to any advantage, and to disperse the families I have an aversion. What then is to be done? Something must or I shall be ruined; for all the money (in addition to what I raise by Crops, and rents) that have been received for Lands, sold within the last four years, to the amount of Fifty thousand dollars, has scarcely been able to keep me a float."
"I die hard but am not afraid to go. I believed from my first attack that I should not survive it — my breath cannot last long."
"The establishment of our new government seemed to be the last great experiment for promoting human happiness by a reasonable compact in civil society. It was to be in the first instance, in a considerable degree, a government of accommodation as well as a government of laws. Much was to be done by prudence, much by conciliation, much by firmness. Few, who are not philosophical spectators, can realize the difficult and delicate part, which a man in my situation had to act. All see, and most admire, the glare which hovers round the external happiness of elevated office. To me there is nothing in it beyond the lustre, which may be reflected from its connection with a power of promoting human felicity."
"The reflection on the days of difficulty and danger which are past is rendered the more sweet, from a consciousness that they are succeeded by days of uncommon prosperity and security. If we have wisdom to make the best use of the advantages with which we are now favored, we cannot fail, under the just administration of a good Government, to become a great and happy people."
"The Citizens of the United States of America have a right to applaud themselves for having given to mankind examples of an enlarged and liberal policy: a policy worthy of imitation. All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship. It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights. For happily the , which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on all occasions their effectual support."
"May the children of the Stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land, continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other Inhabitants; while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and figtree, and there shall be none to make him afraid. May the father of all mercies scatter light and not darkness in our paths, and make us all in our several vocations useful here, and in his own due time and way everlastingly happy."
"Every day the increasing weight of years admonishes me more and more, that the shade of retirement is as necessary to me as it will be welcome. Satisfied, that, if any circumstances have given peculiar value to my services, they were temporary, I have the consolation to believe, that, while choice and prudence invite me to quit the political scene, patriotism does not forbid it."
"Interwoven as is the love of liberty with every ligament of your hearts, no recommendation of mine is necessary to fortify or confirm the attachment. The unity of Government, which constitutes you one people, is also now dear to you. It is justly so; for it is a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence, the support of your tranquillity at home, your peace abroad; of your safety; of your prosperity; of that very Liberty, which you so highly prize."
"It is of infinite moment, that you should properly estimate the immense value of your national Union to your collective and individual happiness; that you should cherish a cordial, habitual, and immovable attachment to it; accustoming yourselves to think and speak of it as of the Palladium of your political safety and prosperity; watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety; discountenancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion, that it can in any event be abandoned; and indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the various parts."
"While, then, every part of our country thus feels an immediate and particular interest in Union, all the parts combined cannot fail to find in the united mass of means and efforts greater strength, greater resource, proportionably greater security from external danger, a less frequent interruption of their peace by foreign nations; and, what is of inestimable value, they must derive from Union an exemption from those broils and wars between themselves, which so frequently afflict neighbouring countries not tied together by the same governments, which their own rivalships alone would be sufficient to produce, but which opposite foreign alliances, attachments, and intrigues would stimulate and embitter. Hence, likewise, they will avoid the necessity of those overgrown military establishments, which, under any form of government, are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be regarded as particularly hostile to Republican Liberty. In this sense it is, that your Union ought to be considered as a main prop of your liberty, and that the love of the one ought to endear to you the preservation of the other."
"One of the expedients of party to acquire influence, within particular districts, is to misrepresent the opinions and aims of other districts. You cannot shield yourselves too much against the jealousies and heart-burnings, which spring from these misrepresentations; they tend to render alien to each other those, who ought to be bound together by fraternal affection."
"To the efficacy and permanency of your Union, a Government for the whole is indispensable. No alliances, however strict, between the parts can be an adequate substitute; they must inevitably experience the infractions and interruptions, which all alliances in all times have experienced. Sensible of this momentous truth, you have improved upon your first essay, by the adoption of a Constitution of Government better calculated than your former for an intimate Union, and for the efficacious management of your common concerns."
"The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their Constitutions of Government. But the Constitution which at any time exists, till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole people, is sacredly obligatory upon all. The very idea of the power and the right of the people to establish Government presupposes the duty of every individual to obey the established Government. All obstructions to the execution of the Laws, all combinations and associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle, and of fatal tendency. They serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put, in the place of the delegated will of the nation, the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common counsels, and modified by mutual interests. However combinations or associations of the above description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people, and to usurp for themselves the reins of government; destroying afterwards the very engines, which have lifted them to unjust dominion."
"Towards the preservation of your government, and the permanency of your present happy state, it is requisite, not only that you steadily discountenance irregular oppositions to its acknowledged authority, but also that you resist with care the spirit of innovation upon its principles, however specious the pretexts. One method of assault may be to effect, in the forms of the constitution, alterations, which will impair the energy of the system, and thus to undermine what cannot be directly overthrown."
"I have already intimated to you the danger of parties in the state, with particular reference to the founding of them on geographical discriminations. Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party, generally."
"The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries, which result, gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of Public Liberty. Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind, (which nevertheless ought not to be entirely out of sight,) the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it."
"The common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it. It serves always to distract the Public Councils, and enfeeble the Public Administration. It agitates the Community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms; kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection."
"If in the opinion of the People, the distribution or modification of the Constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the Constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation; for though this, in one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed."
"Of all the dispositions and habits, which lead to political prosperity, Religion and Morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of Patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of Men and Citizens. The mere Politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connexions with private and public felicity."
"Let us with caution indulge the supposition, that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect, that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle."
"It is substantially true, that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government. The rule, indeed, extends with more or less force to every species of free government."
"Promote, then, as an object of primary importance, institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge. In proportion as the structure of a government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that public opinion should be enlightened."
"As a very important source of strength and security, cherish public credit. One method of preserving it is, to use it as sparingly as possible; avoiding occasions of expense by cultivating peace, but remembering also that timely disbursements to prepare for danger frequently prevent much greater disbursements to repel it; avoiding likewise the accumulation of debt, not only by shunning occasions of expense, but by vigorous exertions in time of peace to discharge the debts, which unavoidable wars may have occasioned, not ungenerously throwing upon posterity the burthen, which we ourselves ought to bear."
"Observe good faith and justice towards all Nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all. Religion and Morality enjoin this conduct; and can it be, that good policy does not equally enjoin it? It will be worthy of a free, enlightened, and, at no distant period, a great Nation, to give to mankind the magnanimous and too novel example of a people always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence. Who can doubt, that, in the course of time and things, the fruits of such a plan would richly repay any temporary advantages, which might be lost by a steady adherence to it? Can it be, that Providence has not connected the permanent felicity of a Nation with its Virtue?"
"In the execution of such a plan, nothing is more essential, than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular Nations, and passionate attachments for others, should be excluded; and that, in place of them, just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated. The Nation, which indulges towards another an habitual hatred, or an habitual fondness, is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest. Antipathy in one nation against another disposes each more readily to offer insult and injury, to lay hold of slight causes of umbrage, and to be haughty and intractable, when accidental or trifling occasions of dispute occur. Hence frequent collisions, obstinate, envenomed, and bloody contests."
"So likewise, a passionate attachment of one Nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite Nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest, in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter, without adequate inducement or justification. It leads also to concessions to the favorite Nation of privileges denied to others, which is apt doubly to injure the Nation making the concessions; by unnecessarily parting with what ought to have been retained; and by exciting jealousy, ill-will, and a disposition to retaliate, in the parties from whom equal privileges are withheld. And it gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens, (who devote themselves to the favorite nation,) facility to betray or sacrifice the interests of their own country, without odium, sometimes even with popularity; gilding, with the appearances of a virtuous sense of obligation, a commendable deference for public opinion, or a laudable zeal for public good, the base or foolish compliances of ambition, corruption, or infatuation."
"Real Patriots, who may resist the intrigues of the favourite, are liable to become suspected and odious; while its tools and dupes usurp the applause and confidence of the people, to surrender their interests. (Note: spelling/capitalization likely original.)."
"The great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign nations, is, in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connexion as possible. So far as we have already formed engagements, let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us stop."
"'Tis our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world; so far, I mean, as we are now at liberty to do it; for let me not be understood as capable of patronizing infidelity to existing engagements. I hold the maxim no less applicable to public than to private affairs, that honesty is always the best policy. I repeat it, therefore, let those engagements be observed in their genuine sense. But, in my opinion, it is unnecessary and would be unwise to extend them."
"There can be no greater error than to expect or calculate upon real favors from nation to nation."
"Harmony, liberal intercourse with all nations, are recommended by policy, humanity, and interest."
"In offering to you, my countrymen, these counsels of an old and affectionate friend, I dare not hope they will make the strong and lasting impression I could wish; that they will control the usual current of the passions, or prevent our nation from running the course, which has hitherto marked the destiny of nations. But, if I may even flatter myself, that they may be productive of some partial benefit, some occasional good; that they may now and then recur to moderate the fury of party spirit, to warn against the mischiefs of foreign intrigue, to guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism; this hope will be a full recompense for the solicitude for your welfare, by which they have been dictated."
"The duty of holding a neutral conduct may be inferred, without any thing more, from the obligation which justice and humanity impose on every nation, in cases in which it is free to act, to maintain inviolate the relations of peace and amity towards other nations."
"Though, in reviewing the incidents of my administration, I am unconscious of intentional error, I am nevertheless too sensible of my defects not to think it probable that I may have committed many errors. Whatever they may be, I fervently beseech the Almighty to avert or mitigate the evils to which they may tend. I shall also carry with me the hope, that my Country will never cease to view them with indulgence; and that, after forty-five years of my life dedicated to its service with an upright zeal, the faults of incompetent abilities will be consigned to oblivion, as myself must soon be to the mansions of rest."
"Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence, (I conjure you to believe me, fellow-citizens,) the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake; since history and experience prove, that Foreign Influence is one of the most baneful foes of Republican Government. But that jealousy, to be useful, must be impartial; else it becomes the instrument of the very influence to be avoided, instead of a defense against it."
"So, there lies the brave de Kalb. The generous stranger, who came from a distant land to fight our battles and to water with his blood the tree of liberty. Would to God he had lived to share its fruits!"
"Not only do I pray for it, on the score of human dignity, but I can clearly forsee that nothing but the rooting out of slavery can perpetuate the existence of our union, by consolidating it in a common bond of principle."
"Americans! let the opinion then delivered by the greatest and best of men, be ever present to your remembrance. He was collected within himself. His countenance had more than usual solemnity; his, eye was fixed, and seemed to look into futurity. "It is (said he) too probable that no plan we propose will be adopted. Perhaps another dreadful conflict is to be sustained. If to please the people, we offer what we ourselves disapprove, how can we afterwards defend our work? Let us raise a standard to which the wise and the honest can repair. The event is in the hand of God." This was the patriot voice of Washington; and this the constant tenor of his conduct. With this deep sense of duty, he gave to our Constitution his cordial assent; and has added the fame of a legislator to that of a hero."
"Associate yourself with Men of good Quality if you Esteem your own Reputation; for 'tis better to be alone than in bad Company."
"A solemn scene it was indeed... He seemed to enjoy a triumph over me. Methought I heard him think, "Ay! I am fairly out and you are fairly in! See which of us will be the happiest!""
"The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion."
"...we are persuaded that good Christians will always be good citizens, and that where righteousness prevails among individuals the Nation will be great and happy. Thus while just government protects all in their religious rights, true religion affords to government its surest support."
"I am a citizen of the greatest Republic of Mankind. I see the human race united like a huge family by brotherly ties. We have made a sowing of liberty which will, little by little, spring up across the whole world. One day, on the model of the United States of America, a United States of Europe will come into being. The United States will legislate for all its nationalities."
"Firearms stand next in importance to the Constitution itself. They are the American people’s Liberty teeth and keystone under Independence. The church, the plow, the prairie wagon, and citizens’ firearms are indelibly related. From the hour the Pilgrims landed, to the present day, events, occurrences and tendencies prove that to insure peace, security and happiness, the rifle and pistol are equally indispensable. Every corner of this Land knows firearms and more than 99 99/100 per cent of them by their silence indicate they are in safe and sane hands. The very atmosphere of firearms anywhere and everywhere restrains evil interference and they deserve a place of honor with all that’s good. When firearms go all goes, therefore we need them every hour."
"The marvel of all history is the patience with which men and women submit to burdens unnecessarily laid upon them by their governments."
"It will be found an unjust and unwise jealousy, to deny a man the liberty he hath by nature upon a supposition that he may abuse it."
"I cannot tell a lie, I did it with my little hatchet."
"What students would learn in American schools above all is the religion of Jesus Christ."
"A free people ought not only to be armed and disciplined, but they should have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain a status of independence from any who might attempt to abuse them, which would include their own government."
"It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible."
"Government is not reason, it is not eloquence,—it is force! Like fire, it is a dangerous servant, and a fearful master; never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action."
"The Jews work more effectively against us than the enemy's armies. They are a hundred times more dangerous to our liberties and the great cause we are engaged in. It is much to be lamented that each state, long ago, has not hunted them down as pests to society and the greatest enemies we have to the happiness of America."
"We had quitters during the Revolution too... we called them "Kentuckians.""
"Make sure you are doing what God wants you to do—then do it with all your strength."
"He is polite with dignity, affable without formality, distant without haughtiness, grave without austerity; modest, wise and good."
"More than all, and above all, Washington was master of himself. If there be one quality more than another in his character which may exercise a useful control over the men of the present hour, it is the total disregard of self when in the most elevated positions for influence and example."
"If I were to characterize George Washington's feelings toward his country, I should be less inclined than most people to stress what is called Washington's love of his country. What impresses me as far more important is what I should call Washington's respect for his country."
"There is nothing that will make an Englishman shit so quick as the sight of General Washington."
"The location of Washington's home is most beautiful and commanding, but, oh, the air of dilapidation and decay that everywhere meets the eye, the tottering out-buildings, the mark of slavery o'ershadow[ing] the whole. Oh, the thought that it was here, that he whose name is the pride of this nation was the Slave Master. The humorous, little buildings surrounding, or rather in [the] rear of the great house plainly tell the tale-a Slave, Woman, the cook of the present owner, Grand Nephew of Gen. Washington, told me these buildings were the Servants' Quarters. The tomb is humble indeed. It would seem that, if the profession of reverence for the "Father of his Country" were real, that this home of Washington would be rescued from the curse of slave labor, and made to blossom in the sunshine of free labor...."
"When everybody says "lesbian," a word connected with Sappho and the island of Lesbos, that automatically means that your forefathers and foremothers are European, that George Washington is the father of our country and Columbus discovered America-all false assumptions."
"George Washington was the right man at the right time – sometimes he was the first man, but sometimes he simply knew when to ride the crest of a wave or the leading edge of a trend."
"Washington wasn't born good. Only practice and habit made him so."
"You can no more love and revere the memory of the biographical George Washington than you can an isosceles triangle or a cubic foot of interstellar space. The portrait-painters began it—Gilbert Stuart and the rest of them. They idealized all the humanity out of the poor patriot's face and passed him down to the engravers as a rather sleepy-looking butcher's block. There is not a portrait of Washington extant which a man of taste and knowledge would suffer to hang on the wall of his stable. Then the historians jumped in, raping all the laurels from the brows of the man's great contemporaries and piling them in confusion upon his pate. They made him a god in wisdom, and a giant in arms; whereas, in point of ability and service, he was but little, if at all, superior to any one of a half-dozen of his now over-shadowed but once illustrious co-workers in council and camp, and in no way comparable with Hamilton. He towers above his fellows because he stands upon a pile of books."
"When the Russian diplomat Pavel Svinin came to the new United States in the first years of the 19th century, he was amazed to find busts and images everywhere. In homes, in civic spaces, in businesses, he kept running into the same image. It was not Jesus, but George Washington. "It is noteworthy that every American considers it his sacred duty to have a likeness of Washington in his home," Svinin wrote, "just as we have images of God's saints.""
"George Washington was perhaps the one indispensable man among the founders. It is hard to imagine any of the others commanding the respect needed to lead the Continental Army to victory over Great Britain, preside over the Constitutional Convention, and serve the United States as its first president. Little in Washington's early life gave a hint of the great achievements to come."
"I have learned with inexplicable joy that you have had the goodness to honor me with a treasure from Mount Vernon — the portrait of Washington, some of his venerable reliques, and one of the monuments of his glory, which are to be presented me at your hands in the name of the brothers of the Great Citizen, the First-Born Son of the New World. No words can set forth all the value that this gift and its embodying considerations, so glorious for me, hold in my heart."
"Today I have touched with my hands this inestimable present. The image of the first benefactor of the continent of Columbus, presented by the hero citizen, General Lafayette, and offered by the noble scion of that immortal family, was all that could reward the most enlightened merit of the first man in the universe. Shall I be worthy of so much glory? No; but I accept it with a joy and gratitude that will go down with the venerable reliques of the father of America to the most remote generations of my country."
"Posterity will talk of Washington as the founder of a great empire, when my name shall be lost in the vortex of revolution."
"Washington absorbed, and later came to personify what you might call the dignity code. The code was based on the same premise as the nation's Constitution — that human beings are flawed creatures who live in constant peril of falling into disasters caused by their own passions. Artificial systems have to be created to balance and restrain their desires. The dignity code commanded its followers to be disinterested — to endeavor to put national interests above personal interests. It commanded its followers to be reticent — to never degrade intimate emotions by parading them in public. It also commanded its followers to be dispassionate — to distrust rashness, zealotry, fury and political enthusiasm."
"George Washington once wrote that leading by conviction gave him "a consolation within that no earthly efforts can deprive me of." He continued: "The arrows of malevolence, however barbed and well pointed, never can reach the most vulnerable part of me." I read those words in Presidential Courage, written by historian Michael Beschloss in 2007. As I told Laura, if they're still assessing George Washington's legacy more than two centuries after he left office, this George W. doesn't have to worry about today's headlines."
"Where may the wearied eye repose, When gazing on the Great; Where neither guilty glory glows, Nor despicable state? Yes — one — the first — the last — the best— The Cincinnatus of the West. Whom envy dared not hate, Bequeath'd the name of Washington, To make man blush there was but one!"
"The schools I went to only taught yanqui history. You know stuff like George "I never told a lie" Washington, Bunker Hill, Lincoln freed the slaves. The schools were run by yanquis and discouraged the teaching of Puerto Rican history. But I had a teacher once, Carmen Maria Torres, who used to smuggle into the schools books on Puerto Rican history and she would spend time telling us about Puerto Rican heroes like Betances, and the revolution in Lares on September 23, 1968-I felt re-born."
"A degree of silence envelops Washington's actions; he moved slowly; one might say that he felt charged with future liberty, and that he feared to compromise it. It was not his own destiny that inspired this new species of hero: it was that of his country; he did not allow himself to enjoy what did not belong to him; but from that profound humility what glory emerged! Search the woods where Washington's sword gleamed: what do you find? Tombs? No; a world! Washington has left the United States behind for a monument on the field of battle. … Washington's Republic lives on; Bonaparte's empire is destroyed. Washington and Bonaparte emerged from the womb of democracy: both of them born to liberty, the former remained faithful to her, the latter betrayed her. Washington acted as the representative of the needs, the ideas, the enlightened men, the opinions of his age; he supported, not thwarted, the stirrings of intellect; he desired only what he had to desire, the very thing to which he had been called: from which derives the coherence and longevity of his work. That man who struck few blows because he kept things in proportion has merged his existence with that of his country: his glory is the heritage of civilisation; his fame has risen like one of those public sanctuaries where a fecund and inexhaustible spring flows."
"The first step was to elect a President, and General Washington, the commander of the Revolution, was the obvious choice. Disinterested and courageous, far-sighted and patient, aloof yet direct in manner, inflexible once his mind was made up, Washington possessed the gifts of character for which the situation called. He was reluctant to accept office. Nothing would have pleased him more than to remain in equable but active retirement at Mount Vernon, improving the husbandry of his estate. But, as always, he answered the summons of duty. Gouverneur Morris was right when he emphatically wrote to him, "The exercise of authority depends on personal character. Your cool, steady temper is indispensably necessary to give firm and manly tone to the new Government." There was much confusion and discussion on titles and precedence, which aroused the mocking laughter of critics. But the prestige of Washington lent dignity to the new, untried office. On April 30, 1789, in the recently opened Federal Hall in New York, he was solemnly inaugurated as the first President of the United States. A week later the French States-General met at Versailles. Another great revolution was about to burst upon a bewildered world."
"George Washington holds one of the proudest titles that history can bestow. He was the Father of his Nation. Almost alone his staunchness in the War of Independence held the American Colonies to their united purpose. His services after victory had been won were no less great. His firmness and example while first President restrained the violence of faction and postponed a national schism for sixty years. His character and influence steadied the dangerous leanings of Americans to take sides against Britain or France. He filled his office with dignity and inspired his administration with much of his own wisdom. To his terms as President are due the smooth transition of the Federal Government, the establishment of national credit, and the foundation of a foreign policy. By refusing to stand for a third term he set a tradition in American politics which has only been departed from by President Franklin Roosevelt in the Second World War. For two years Washington lived quietly at his country seat on the Potomac, riding round his plantations, as he had long wished to do. Amid the snows of the last days of the eighteenth century he took to his bed. On the evening of December 14, 1799, he turned to the physician at his side, murmuring, "Doctor, I die hard, but I am not afraid to go." Soon afterward he passed away."
"We cannot imagine an Eisenhower, a Pershing, a Lee, dancing with joy on a dock, but Washington did it."
"Muslims served in the U.S. military under the command of General George Washington, who was Commander in Chief of the Continental Army during the American War for Independence. Rosters of soldiers serving in Washington's Army lists names like Bampett Muhammad, who fought for the Virginia Line between the years 1775 and 1783. Another one of Washington's soldiers, Yusuf Ben Ali, was a North African Arab who worked as an aide to General Thomas Sumter of South Carolina. Peter Buckminster, who fought in Boston, is perhaps Washington's most distinguished Muslim American soldier. Buckminster fired the gun that killed British Major General John Pitcairn at the Battle of Bunker Hill. Years after this famous battle, Peter changed his last name to 'Salaam', the Arabic word meaning 'peace'. Peter Salaam later reenlisted in the Continental Army to serve in the Battle of Saratoga and the Battle of Stony Point. If Washington had a problem with Muslims serving in his Army, he would not have allowed Muhammad, Ali and Salaam to represent and serve non-Muslim Americans. By giving these Muslims the honor of serving America, Washington made it clear that a person did not have to be of a certain religion or have a particular ethnic background to be an American patriot."
"The natural equal rights of men. If Washington or Jefferson or Madison should utter upon his native soil today the opinions he entertained and expressed upon this question, he would be denounced as a fanatical abolitionist. To declare the right of all men to liberty is sectional, because slavery is afraid of liberty and strikes the mouth that speaks the word. To preach slavery is not sectional — no: because freedom respects itself and believes in itself enough to give an enemy fair play. Thus Boston asked Senator Toombs to come and say what he could for slavery. I think Boston did a good thing, but I think Senator Toombs is not a wise man, for he went. He went all the way from Georgia to show Massachusetts how slavery looks, and to let it learn what it has to say. When will Georgia ask Wendell Phillips or Charles Sumner to come down and show her how liberty looks and speaks?"
"With the sure sagacity of a leader of men, Washington at once selected, for the highest and most responsible stations, the three chief Americans who represented the three forces in the nation which alone could command success in the institution of the government. Hamilton was the head, Jefferson was the heart, and John Jay was the conscience. Washington's just and serene ascendancy was the lambent flame in which these beneficent powers were fused, and nothing less than that ascendancy could have ridden the whirlwind and directed the storm that burst around him."
"And has God been pleased to diffuse some Sparks of this Martial Fire through our Country? I hope he has: And though it has been almost extinguished by so long a Peace, and a Deluge of Luxury and Pleasure, now I hope it begins to kindle: And may I not produce you my Brethren, who are engaged in this Expedition, as instances of it? As a remarkable Instance of this, I may point out to the Public that heroic Youth Col. Washington whom I cannot but hope Providence has hitherto preferred in so signal a Manner, for some important Service to his Country."
"When George Washington dispatched Benedict Arnold on a mission to court French Canadians’ support for the American Revolution in 1775, he cautioned Arnold not to let their religion get in the way. “Prudence, policy and a true Christian Spirit,” Washington advised, “will lead us to look with compassion upon their errors, without insulting them.” (After Arnold betrayed the American cause, he publicly cited America’s alliance with Catholic France as one of his reasons for doing so.)"
"He was addressing the members of America’s oldest synagogue, the Touro Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island (where his letter is read aloud every August). In closing, he wrote specifically to the Jews a phrase that applies to Muslims as well: “May the children of the Stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land, continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other inhabitants, while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and figtree, and there shall be none to make him afraid.”"
"Men are beginning to feel that Washington stands out, not only as the leading American, but as the leading man of the race. Of men not named in Sacred Scripture, more human beings this day know and honor the name of George Washington than that of any other of the sons of men."
"A man of quiet strength, he took few friends into complete confidence. His critics mistook his dignified reserve for pomposity. Life for Washington was a serious mission, a job to be tackled soberly, unremittingly. He had little time for humor. Although basically good-natured, he wrestled with his temper and sometimes lost. He was a poor speaker and could become utterly inarticulate without a prepared text. He preferred to express himself on paper. Still, when he did speak, he was candid, direct, and looked people squarely in the eye. Biographer Douglas Southall Freeman conceded that Washington's "ambition for wealth made him acquisitive and sometimes contentious." Even after Washington established himself, Freeman pointed out, "he would insist upon the exact payment of every farthing due him" and was determined "to get everything that he honestly could." Yet neither his ambition to succeed nor his acquisitive nature ever threatened his basic integrity."
"Wake up, America. Your liberties are being stolen before your very eyes. What Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln fought for, Truman, Acheson, and McGrath are striving desperately to nullify. Wake up, Americans, and dare to think and say and do. Dare to cry: No More War!"
"Why celebrate Columbus? It was the onset of colonialism, the slave trade and dispossession of the Native people of the Americas. So, that is celebrated with a federal holiday. That’s followed then by Thanksgiving, which is a completely made-up story to say the Native people welcomed these people who were going to devastate their civilizations, which is simply a lie. And then you go to Presidents’ Days, the Founding Fathers, in February, and celebrate these slaveowners, Indian killers. George Washington headed the Virginia militia for the very purpose of killing Native people on the periphery of the colony, before, you know, when it was still a Virginia colony. And then we have the big day, the fireworks, July 4th, independence, which is probably the most tragic event in world history, because it gave us—it gave the world a genocidal regime under the guise of democracy. And that’s really the—I’m a historian, so that’s the historical context that I think we have to see Thanksgiving in, that it is a part of that mythology that attempts to cover up the real history of the United States."
"It seemed to me that Benjamin Franklin was wiser than Washington; Alexander Hamilton was more brilliant; John Adams was better read; Thomas Jefferson was more intellectually sophisticated; James Madison was more politically astute. Yet each and all of these prominent figures acknowledged that Washington was their unquestioned superior."
"The more important and less ambiguous fact is that Washington possessed a deep-seated capacity to feel powerful emotions. Some models of self-control are able to achieve their serenity easily, because the soul-fires never burned brightly to begin with. Washington became the most notorious model of self-control in all of American history, the original marble man, but he achieved this posture- and sometimes it was a posture- the same hard-earned way he learned soldiering, by direct experience with difficulty. Unlike Thomas Jefferson, he wrote no lyrical tribute to the interior struggle entitled "Dialogue Between the Head and Heart," but he lived that dialogue in a primal place deep within himself. Appearances aside, he was an intensely passionate man, whose powers of self-control eventually became massive because of the interior urges they were required to master. Nothing was more inherently chaotic or placed a higher premium on self-control than a battle. He had played a leading role in four of them; one a massacre that he oversaw; the other a massacre that he survived; one an embarrassing defeat; the other a hollow victory. Whether it was a miracle, destiny, or sheer luck, he had emerged from these traumatic experiences unscathed and with his reputation, each time, higher than before. He had shown himself to be physically brave, impetuously so at Fort Necessity, and personally proud, irrationally so in the Forbes campaign. His courage, his composure, and his self-control were all of a piece, having developed within that highly lethal environment that was the Ohio Country, where internal shields provided the only defense against dangers that came at you from multiple angles."
"A final example, his trademark decision to surrender power as commander in chief and then president, was not, as Morris insisted, a sign that he had conquered his ambitions, but rather that he fully realized that all ambitions were inherently insatiable and unconquerable. He knew himself well enough to resist the illusion that he transcended human nature. Unlike Julius Caesar and Oliver Cromwell before him, and Napoleon, Lenin, and Mao after him, he understood that the greater glory resided in posterity's judgment. If you aspire to live forever in the memory of future generations, you must demonstrate the ultimate self-confidence to leave the final judgment to them. And he did."
"George Washington is one of the beacons placed at intervals along the highroad of history. For his country he serves as a guide in time of stress and a refuge in tranquil moments; a never-failing example of true goodness; a warning to turbulent youth and a mute accusation of selfish interests."
"In all history few men who possessed unassailable power have used that power so gently and self-effacingly for what their best instincts told them was the welfare of their neighbors and all mankind."
"Washington had always taught himself from experience. He learned the lessons of the American war all the more readily because he had no conventional lessons to unlearn. … Long before the end of the war, Washington had become much more effective than any of his military opponents. But this did not mean that what he had taught himself would have made him a great general on the battlefields of Europe. Evolved not from theory but from dealing with specific problems, his preeminence was achieved through a Darwinian adaptation to environment. It was the triumph of a man who knows how to learn, not in the narrow sense of studying other people's conceptions, but in the transcendent sense of making a synthesis from the totality of experience. Among the legacies of the Revolution to the new nation, the most widely recognized and admired was a man: George Washington. He had no rivals."
"Washington's appointments, when President, were made with a view to destroy party and not to create it, his object being to gather all the talent of the country in support of the national government; and he bore many things which were personally disagreeable in an endeavor to do this."
"I frequently hear the old Generals of this martial country (who study the maps of America, and mark upon them all your operations) speak with sincere approbation and great applause of your conduct; and join in giving you the character of one of the greatest captains of the age. I must soon quit the scene, but you may live to see our country flourish; as it will, amazingly and rapidly, after the war is over."
"From the moment when he took command of the army, Washington was, indeed, "first in the hearts of his countrymen." And the student of our history cannot help remarking how providential it was that, at the outset of this struggle, Washington should come to the front. Eighty-Six years later, at the beginning of the rebellion, there was no accepted chief. Lincoln was doubted by the North and, and the army had no true leader. By a slow process Lincoln's commanding strength became known; by an equally tedious sifting of the generals the qualities of Grant, Sherman, Thomas and Meade were discovered. Only the tremendous resources of the North could have withstood the strain of such a delay. Had the same process been necessary at the outset of the Revolution, the colonies could have scarcely maintained the struggle. Had not Washington been at hand, accepted by the Congress and admired by the army, the virtual leader of both, the chances of success would have been slight. But he was Lincoln and Grant in one. Time and time again, through the long years, it was Washington alone who brought victory from defeat. Without him, the colonies might have won their independence as the result of an almost interminable guerilla warfare; but with him the fight was definite, glorious, and-for the infant republic, mercifully short."
"I often say of George Washington that he was one of the few in the whole history of the world who was not carried away by power."
"George Washington might have fought the Redcoats. But he left Barings, the great London bank in charge of his personal finances throughout the war, and Barings did not let him down."
"Eternity alone can reveal to the human race its debt of gratitude to the peerless and immortal name of Washington."
"Washington is beyond question one of the greatest men in history, one of the noblest men who ever lived. He is a towering figure in the establishment of the United States and he did more than any other man to create and preserve the Republic. Here was a man whose very strength resided in his austere sobriety, who in his own person demonstrated this soundness of America. He was a good man, not a demigod; he was an honest administrator, not a brilliant statesman; he was a military man, but never a militarist. He was touchingly proud of America, proud that it was his country that was given the historic chance of becoming a model of religious as well as political freedom. In a letter to the Hebrew Congregation of Newport, Rhode Island, whose service he once attended, he stressed that in America freedom of religious worship was one of the "inherent natural rights," where government "gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance." Washington was an exceptional man; with reason he became so merged with America that his is the most prominent name in the land."
"If there were a row of pedestals on which to place human gods, I should place Washington on that pedestal as the most fitting occupant of it, so strongly am I impressed with his moral elevation and greatness of character."
"His excellency General Washington has arrived amoungst us, universally admired. Joy was visable on every countenance."
"No nobler figure ever stood in the forefront of a nation's life. Washington was grave and courteous in address; his manners were simple and unpretending; his silence and the serene calmness of his temper spoke of a perfect self-mastery; but little there was in his outer bearing to reveal the grandeur of soul which lifts his figure with all the simple majesty of an ancient statue, out of the smaller passions, the meaner impulses of the world around him. It was only as the weary fight went on that the colonists learned, little by little, the greatness of their leader — his clear judgment, his calmness in the hour of danger or defeat; the patience with which he waited, the quickness and hardness with which he struck, the lofty and serene sense of duty that never swerved from its task through resentment or jealousy, that never, through war or peace, felt the touch of a meaner ambition; that knew no aim save that of guarding the freedom of his fellow-countrymen; and no personal longing save that of returning to his own fireside when their freedom was secured. It was almost unconsciously that men learned to cling to Washington with a trust and faith such as few other men have won, and to regard him with reverence which still hushes us in presence of his memory."
"old George Washington, who wasn't called "the father of his country" for nothing, tip-toeing around the female slave stables with his pants down."
"Within a decade of Whitefield's death, Americans did manage to evolve their union under a leader who impressed Calvinists as perhaps just as benevolent and enlightened as Whitefield. George Washington, known to all Calvinists through the "prophetic" sermon of Samuel Davies following Braddock's defeat, was, in the days of the Revolution, a glorious star, and then a luminary of "superior magnitude and splendor.""
"Washington had no smashing, stunning victories. He was not a military genius, and his tactical and strategic maneuvers were not the sort that awed men. Military glory was not the source of his reputation. Something else was involved. Washington's genius, his greatness, lay in his character. He was, as Chateubriand said, a "hero of unprecedented kind." There had never been a great many like Washington before. Washington became a great man and was acclaimed as a classical hero because of the way he conducted himself during times of temptation. It was his moral character that set him off from other men. Washington fit the 18th-century image of a great man, of a man of virtue. This virtue was not given to him by nature. He had to work for it, to cultivate it, and everyone sensed that. Washington was a self-made hero, and this impressed an 18th-century enlightened world that put great stock in men controlling both their passions and their destinies. Washington seemed to possess a self-cultivated nobility."
"Let us forget the other names of American statesmen, that have been stamped upon these hills, but still call the loftiest — WASHINGTON. Mountains are Earth's undecaying monuments. They must stand while she endures, and never should be consecrated to the mere great men of their own age and country, but to the mighty ones alone, whose glory is universal, and whom all time will render illustrious."
"The United States, for example, has never had a President as bad as George III, but neither has Britain had a king as admirable as George Washington (of whom William Thackeray rightly said that 'his glory will descend to remotest ages' while the memory of the sovereign went the other way)."
"To him the title of Excellency is applied with peculiar propriety. He is the best: and the greatest man the world ever knew. In private life, he wins the hearts and wears the love of all who are so happy as to fall within the circle of his acquaintance. In his public character, he commands universal respect and admiration. Conscious that the principles on which he acts are indeed founded in virtue and truth, he steadily pursues the arduous work with a mind neither depressed by disappointment and difficulties, nor elated with temporary success. He retreats like a General and attacks like a Hero. If there are spots in his character, they are like the spots in the Sun; only discernable by the magnifying powers of a telescope. Had he lived in the days of idolatry he had been worshipped as a God. One age cannot do justice to his merit; but the united voices of a grateful posterity shall pay a chearful tribute of undissembled praise to the great assertor of their country's freedom."
"On the hypothesis of a separation of the Union into Northern and Southern, said he had made up his mind to remove and be of the Northern."
"When the clergy addressed General Washington on his departure from the government, it was observed in their consultation that he had never on any occasion said a word to the public which showed a belief in the Christian religion and they thought they should so pen their address as to force him at length to declare publicly whether he was a Christian or not. They did so. However [Dr. Rush] observed the old fox was too cunning for them. He answered every article of their address particularly except that, which he passed over without notice. Rush observes he never did say a word on the subject in any of his public papers except in his valedictory letter to the Governors of the states when he resigned his commission in the army, wherein he speaks of the benign influence of the Christian religion. I know that Gouvemeur Morris, who pretended to be in his secrets & believed himself to be so, has often told me that General Washington believed no more of that system than he himself did."
"His mind was great and powerful, without being of the very first order; his penetration strong, though, not so acute as that of a Newton, Bacon, or Locke; and as far as he saw, no judgment was ever sounder. It was slow in operation, being little aided by invention or imagination, but sure in conclusion."
"On the whole, his character was, in its mass, perfect, in nothing bad, in few points indifferent; and it may truly be said, that never did nature and fortune combine more perfectly to make a man great, and to place him in the same constellation with whatever worthies have merited from man an everlasting remembrance. … These are my opinions of General Washington, which I would vouch at the judgment seat of God, having been formed on an acquaintance of thirty years..."
"The President was much inflamed; got into one of those passions when he cannot command himself; ran on much on the personal abuse which had been bestowed on him; defied any man on earth to produce one single act of his since he had been in the Government, which was not done on the purest motives; that he had never repented but once the having slipped the moment of resigning his office, and that was every moment since; that by God he had rather be in his grave than in his present situation; that he had rather be on his farm than to be made Emperor of the world; and yet that they were charging him with wanting to be a King. That that rascal Freneau sent him three of his papers every day, as if he thought he would become the distributor of his papers; that he could see in this, nothing but an impudent design to insult him: he ended in this high tone."
"He was incapable of fear, meeting personal dangers with the calmest unconcern. Perhaps the strongest feature in his character was prudence, never acting until every circumstance, every consideration, was maturely weighed; refraining if he saw a doubt, but, when once decided, going through with his purpose, whatever obstacles opposed. His integrity was most pure, his justice the most inflexible I have ever known, no motives of interest or consanguinity, of friendship or hatred, being able to bias his decision. He was, indeed, in every sense of the words, a wise, a good, and a great man. His temper was naturally high toned; but reflection and resolution had obtained a firm and habitual ascendancy over it. If ever, however, it broke its bonds, he was most tremendous in his wrath. In his expenses he was honorable, but exact; liberal in contributions to whatever promised utility; but frowning and unyielding on all visionary projects and all unworthy calls on his charity. His heart was not warm in its affections; but he exactly calculated every man's value, and gave him a solid esteem proportioned to it. His person, you know, was fine, his stature exactly what one would wish, his deportment easy, erect and noble; the best horseman of his age, and the most graceful figure that could be seen on horseback."
"During the French Indian War, General George Washington was convinced that his most formidable for was smallpox and he subjected his men to forced variolation to stop its spread. Many of the soldiers had only mild reactions, but some became seriously ill and died. The European press, especially among the antivaccine society, bitterly criticized Washington for forcing his men into possible harm without their consent, Hessian soldiers, who fought alongside the British, were captured and imprisoned in Frederick, Maryland where they may have been subjected to variolation experimentation-a safety precaution before Washington would order to the procedure for his own army."
"Let him who looks for a monument to Washington look around the United States. Your freedom, your independence, your national power, your prosperity, and your prodigious growth are a monument to him."
"While new American leaders such as George Washington, Patrick Henry, and Benjamin Franklin studied the Haudenosaunee government, they also engaged in land speculation over territory held by these peoples, and Mohawk lands were ceded through force, coercion, and deceit until fewer than 14,600 acres remained in New York State."
"Unsupported for the most part by the population among whom he was quartered, and incessantly thwarted by the jealousy of Congress, he kept his army together by a combination of skill, firmness, patience, and judgment which has rarely been surpassed, and he led it at last to a signal triumph. In civil as in military life, he was pre-eminent among his contemporaries for the clearness and soundness of his judgment, for his perfect moderation and self-control, for the quiet dignity and the indomitable firmness with which he pursued every path which he had deliberately chosen. Of all the great men in history he was the most invariably judicious, and there is scarcely a rash word or action or judgment recorded of him. Those who knew him well, noticed that he had keen sensibilities and strong passions; but his power of self-command never failed him, and no act of his public life can be traced to personal caprice, ambition, or resentment. In the despondency of long-continued failure, in the elation of sudden success, at times when his soldiers were deserting by hundreds and when malignant plots were formed against his reputation, amid the constant quarrels, rivalries, and jealousies of his subordinates, in the dark hour of national ingratitude, and in the midst of the most universal and intoxicating flattery, he was always the same calm, wise, just, and single-minded man, pursuing the course which he believed to be right, without fear or favour or fanaticism; equally free from the passions that spring from interest, and from the passions that spring from imagination. He never acted on the impulse of an absorbing or uncalculating enthusiasm, and he valued very highly fortune, position, and reputation; but at the command of duty he was ready to risk and sacrifice them all. He was in the highest sense of the words a gentleman and a man of honour, and he carried into public life the severest standard of private morals. It was at first the constant dread of large sections of the American people, that if the old Government were overthrown, they would fall into the hands of military adventurers, and undergo the yoke of military despotism. It was mainly the transparent integrity of the character of Washington that dispelled the fear. It was always known by his friends, and it was soon acknowledged by the whole nation and by the English themselves, that in Washington America had found a leader who could be induced by.no earthly motive to tell a falsehood, or to break an engagement, or to commit any dishonourable act."
"First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen."
"This is the one hundred and tenth anniversary of the birthday of Washington. We are met to celebrate this day. Washington's is the mightiest name of earth — long since mightiest in the cause of civil liberty; still mightiest in moral reformation. On that name no eulogy is expected. It cannot be. To add brightness to the sun, or glory to the name of Washington, is alike impossible. Let none attempt it. In solemn awe pronounce the name, and in its naked deathless splendor leave it shining on."
"Could Washington himself speak, would he cast the blame of that sectionalism upon us, who sustain his policy, or upon you who repudiate it? We respect that warning of Washington."
"Without the great moral qualities that Washington possessed his career would not have been possible; but it would have been quite as impossible if the intellect had not equalled the character. There is no need to argue the truism that Washington was a great man, for that is universally admitted. But it is very needful that his genius should be rightly understood, and the right understanding of it is by no means universal. His character has been exalted at the expense of his intellect, and his goodness has been so much insisted upon both by admirers and critics that we are in danger of forgetting that he had a great mind as well as high moral worth."
"Contrary to the frequent presentations by modern liberals, the 'three-fifths clause' of the Constitution was the anti-slavery movement's response to slave owners who wanted their slaves as property, except when it came to counting population for representation in the U.S. House of Representatives. In which case the slave owners wanted them counted as people. Thus the move to block slave owners’ power by reducing a slave to “three-fifths” of a person, with the objective of eventually phasing out slavery altogether. Alas, the birth of political factions, parties, took place rapidly, to the chagrin of President George Washington. In the battles between Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton the Democratic-Republican Party, the ancestor of today’s Democrats was born. And the pro-slavery, judge-people-by-skin-color faction became the central, and as it played out, perpetual, driving force of the Democratic Party."
"Having formed an army, Congress selected George Washington to command it. Washington had been with Braddock and Forbes's expedition to Fort Duquesne, and in between service with the regulars he had commanded the Virginia militia. As the crisis with England worsened, Washington played an active rle in Virginia's evolution from resistance to revolution, and he attended both the First and Second Continental Congress. He was the only delegate attending the deliberations in Philadelphia attired in a military uniform, perhaps symbolizing his readiness to fight for American rights. Washington was a reasonably experienced soldier, a form advocate of American liberties, impressive in looks, and articulate without being flamboyant."
""I declare with the utmost sincerity," Washington wrote the president of Congress, "I do not think myself equal to the Command I am honoured with." He probably meant it, since his frontier service had given him no opportunity to become acquainted with cavalry tactics, massed artillery, or the deployment of large forces. Yet Washington eventually embodied the Revolution, with the cause and the commander so intertwined in rebel eyes that they became synonymous."
"During the war with France, Washington had developed an aversion to militiamen and an appreciation for British professionals. He had experienced nothing but problems with the Virginia militia. They never turned out in sufficient numbers, and hose who did he considered insolent and prone to panic and desertion. His opinion did not change during the Revolution, and most Continental officers shared his conviction that "to place any dependence upon Militia is, assuredly, resting upon a broken staff." Paradoxically, Washington repeatedly depended on the militia to buttress the Continental Army during innumerable crises. If the militia dismayed Washington, British regulars impressed him, and he strove to mold the Continental Army into a mirror image of Britain's army. He insisted it should be "a respectable Army," not only well organized and disciplined but also officered by "Gentlemen, and Men of Character." He believed that the prospect of such an army endangering civilian supremacy was remote; the slight risk was necessary because the consequence of fighting without a regular army was "certain, and inevitable Ruin.""
"Considering the hypersensative fear of military ascendancy, Congress's selection of Washington was fortuitous. He repeatedly stated his belief in civil supremacy, remaining deferential to Congress even when its inefficiency threatened the army's survival. Having served in the Virginia assembly and in Congress, he understood the often maddeningly slow political process in representative governments and the nation's inadequate administrative machinery for conducting a large-scale war. By reporting to Congress on all matters great or trivial, by religiously adhering to congressional dictates, and through his immense patience in the face of nearly unbearable frustrations, Washington alleviated concern that he would capitalize on his growing military reputation and become a dictator. Although revolutions have frequently given birth to permanent presidents, kings, and emperors, Washington had no desire to become an American Cromwell. Like the men he commanded, he never forgot that he was a citizen first and only second a soldier."
"The militia and the Continental Army were two sides of a double-edged sword. Neither blade was keenly honed, and even in combination they usually did not make a lethal weapon. Washington's task was never easy, but without either army it would have been impossible."
"When Washington took command of the Continental Army on July 2, he was eager to pursue an aggressive strategy. But he could do little immediately. A severe shortage of weapons and powder prevented him from attacking the British Army, and his own army appalled him. The New Englanders struck him as "exceedingly dirty and nasty people" characterized by "an unaccountable kind of stupidity" and a lack of discipline. Knowing the eyes of the continent were upon him and expecting some momentous event, Washington found the inactivity around Boston galling, so in late summer 1775 he ordered Arnold to advance through the Maine wilderness to capture Quebec. Unknown to Washington, Congress had meanwhile ordered General Philip Schuyler to attack Montreal. Americans hoped the invasion would incite a Canadian revolt against Britain and convert the region into a fourteenth colony. Washington also struggled to discipline the army, but before he could achieve much success, that army almost disappeared. When enlistments expired at year's end, most men refused to reenlist. Washington had to discharge one army and recruit another while the enemy was only a musket shot away. He did it by calling out militiamen to fill the gaps until new Continental recruits arrived."
"You have in American history one of the great captains of all times. It might be said of him, as it was of William the Silent, that he seldom won a battle but he never lost a campaign."
"Be assured his influence carried this government; for my own part I have a boundless confidence in him, nor have I any reason to believe he will ever furnish occasion for withdrawing it."
"Washington's genius lay in his understanding of power, both military power, and political power, an understanding unmatched by that of any of his contemporaries."
"And as to you, Sir, treacherous in private friendship (for so you have been to me, and that in the day of danger) and a hypocrite in public life, the world will be puzzled to decide whether you are an apostate or an impostor; whether you have abandoned good principles, or whether you ever had any."
"His was the belief of reason and revelation; and that belief was illustrated and exemplified in all his actions. No parade accompanied its exercise, no declamation its exhibition; for it was his opinion that a man who is always boasting of his religion, is like one who continually proclaims his honesty—he would trust neither one nor the other. He was not accustomed to argue points of faith, but on one occasion, in reply to a gentleman who expressed doubts on the subject, thus gave his sentiments:—"
"One afternoon several young gentlemen, visitors at Mount Vernon, and myself were engaged in pitching the bar, one of the athletic sports common in those days, when suddenly the colonel appeared among us. He requested to be shown the pegs that marked the bounds of our efforts; then, smiling, and without putting off his coat, held out his hand for the missile. No sooner,"observed the narrator, with emphasis, "did the heavy iron bar feel the grasp of his mighty hand than it lost the power of gravitation, and whizzed through the air, striking the ground far, very far, beyond our utmost limits. We were indeed amazed, as we stood around, all stripped to the buff, with shirt sleeves rolled up, and having thought ourselves very clever fellows, while the colonel, on retiring, pleasantly observed, 'When you beat my pitch, young gentlemen, I'll try again.'"
"I bet after seeing us, George Washington would sue us for calling him "father.""
"The name of an iron man goes round the world. It takes a long time to forget an iron man."
"When George Washington was fighting for freedom in the Revolutionary War, he was fighting for the freedom of "whites only." Rich whites, at that. After the so-called Revolution, you couldn't vote unless you were a white man and you owned a plot of land. The Revolutionary War was led by some rich white boys who got tired of paying heavy taxes to the king. It didn't have anything at all to do with freedom, justice, and equality for all."
"In his famous Farewell Address of September 17, 1796, Washington said he would not serve as President for more than two terms and advised against entangling alliances with foreign countries. He had served his country so well that he could, with safety, turn over the burdens of office to the next President, John Adams. Washington wanted to spend his last years at home in the peace and quiet of private life. There was little privacy for him, however, when he did return to Mount Vernon. People from all over the United States and from foreign countries journeyed to Washington's home to pay him respect. His house was often crowded with guests. The three and a half years that he lived after he left the Presidency were busy and happy ones. On December 14, 1799, he died at Mount Vernon, and there he was buried."
"Each year, on February 22, the nation honors the birthday of a great man- George Washington. Many persons admire him for different reasons: for his leadership in a war that brought us independence, for his part in making the Constitution, for his policies as President. Everyone admires Washington for his honesty, his courage, his patience, his good judgment, his firmness, and his greatness of heart. The Commonwealth of Virginia has paid tribute to her great son. While Washington was still alive, the French sculptor Houdon made the famous statue of him which stands in the Rotunda of the Capitol at Richmond. On the Capitol grounds there is a huge figure of Washington on horseback, surrounded by other heroes of the American Revolution. And, of course, the capital of our great country, which he helped found, is on the Potomac River near his home, and is named in his honor. On Washington's death, Henry Lee, in a speech before Congress, uttered these famous words: George Washington was "First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen.""
"In 1790 the Dutch Sephardic Jews of the Touro Synagogue sent a letter of congratulations to the newly elected president George Washington and received from him a reply that included these immortal lines: "The government of the United States... gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance... May the children of the Stock of Abraham who dwell in this land continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other inhabitants, while everyone shall sit in safety under his own wine and fig tree and there shall be none to make him afraid.""
"The purest of statesman, and the most perfect of patriots. May it please Heaven that his example shall continue to serve as a beacon to our Republics in their darkest moments of doubt and adversity."
"Deists saw the core of the various religions to be essentially the same, but for some, god’s providence was the perfect operation of his physical law, and others saw god as taking a more active agency in human affairs. In this sense, George Washington was not a classic deist, for he held closely to the belief that divine providence meant that god did indeed intervene in human affairs. While serving as a general during the revolution, Washington encouraged soldiers to attend worship services and discouraged profanity among the troops, and as president, he issued two national thanksgiving proclamations."
"George Washington was a famous general who never won a battle. He was our first millionaire, and he believed in property and the dignity of those who held it, and they put together a constitution which would protect property for all time. No nonsense about democracy!"
"Gentlemen, the character of Washington is among the most cherished contemplations of my life. It is a fixed star in the firmament of great names, shining without twinkling or obscuration, with clear, steady, beneficent light."
"There is Franklin, with his first proposal of Continental union. There is James Otis, with his great argument against Writs of Assistance, and Samuel Adams, with his inexorable demand for the removal of the British regiments from Boston. There is Quincy, and there is Warren, the protomartyr of Bunker Hill. There is Jefferson, with the Declaration of Independence fresh from his pen, and John Adams close at his side. There are Hamilton and Madison and Jay bringing forward the Constitution; but, towering above them all is Washington, the consummate commander, the incomparable President, the world-renowned patriot."
"That nature has given him extraordinary military talents will hardly be controverted by his most bitter enemies; and having been early actuated with a warm passion to serve his country in the military line, he has greatly improved them by unwearied industry, and a close application to the best writers upon tactics, and by a more than common method and exactnels: and, in reality, when it comes to be considered that at first he only headed a body of men entirely unacquainted with military discipline or operations, somewhat ungovernable in temper, and who at best could only be stiled an alert and good militia, acting under very short enlistments, uncloalhed, unaccoutred, and at all times very ill supplied with ammunition and artillery; and that with such an army he withstood the ravages and progress of near forty thousand veteran troops, plentifully provided with, every necessary article, commanded by the bravest officers in Europe, and supported by a very powerful navy, which effectually prevented all movements by water; when, I say, all this comes to be impartially considered, I think I may venture to pronounce, that general Washington will be regarded by mankind as one of the greatest military ornaments of the present age, and that his name will command the veneration of the latest posterity."
"There is a remarkable air of dignity about him, with a striking degree of gracefulness: he has an excellent understanding without much quickness; is strictly just, vigilant, and generous; an affectionate husband, a faithful friend, a father to the deserving soldier; gentle in his manners, in temper rather reserved; a total stranger to religious prejudices, which have so often excited Christians of one denomination to cut the throats of those of another; in his morals irreproachable; he was never known to exceed the bounds of the most rigid temperance: in a word, all his friends and acquaintance universally allow, that no man ever united in his own person a more perfect alliance of the virtues of a philosopher with the talents of a general. Candour, sincerity, affability, and simplicity, seem to be the striking features of his character, till an occasion offers of displaying the most determined bravery and independence of spirit."
"George Washington is the only president who didn't blame the previous administration for his troubles."
"He [ George III] asked West what would Washington do were America to be declared independant. West said He believed He would retire to a private situation -- The King said if He did He would be the greatest man in the world"
"The defender of his country—the founder of liberty, The friend of man, History and tradition are explored in vain For a parallel to his character. In the annals of modern greatness He stands alone; And the noblest names of antiquity Lose their lustre in his presence. Born the benefactor of mankind, He united all the greatness necessary To an illustrious career. Nature made him great, He made himself virtuous."
"Simple and brave, his faith awoke Ploughmen to struggle with their fate; Armies won battles when he spoke, And out of Chaos sprang the state."
"While Washington's a watchword, such as ne'er Shall sink while there's an echo left to air."
"There's a star in the West that shall nerer go down Till the records of Valour decay, We must worship its light though it is not our own, For liberty burst in its ray. Shall the name of a Washington ever be heard By a freeman, and thrill not his breast? Is there one out of bondage that hails not the word, As a Bethlehem Star of the West?"
"The character, the counsels, and example of our Washington * * * they will guide us through the doubts and difficulties that beset us; they will guide our children and our children's children in the paths of prosperity and peace, while America shall hold her place in the family of nations."
"Here you would know, and enjoy, what posterity will say of Washington. For a thousand leagues have nearly the same effect with a thousand years."
"O Washington! thrice glorious name, What due rewards can man decree— Empires are far below thy aim, And scepters have no charms for thee; Virtue alone has your regards, And she must be your great reward."
"Since ancient Time began, Ever on some great soul God laid an infinite burden— The weight of all this world, the hopes of man, Conflict and pain, and fame immortal are his guerdon."
"Were an energetic and judicious system to be proposed with your signature it would be a circumstance highly honorable to your fame … and doubly entitle you to the glorious republican epithet, The Father of your Country."
"A nobleness to try for, A name to live and die for."
"First in war, first in peace, first in the hearts of his countrymen."
"First in war, first in peace, first in the hearts of his fellow citizens."
"The purely Great Whose soul no siren passion could unsphere, Thou nameless, now a power and mixed with fate."
"Oh, Washington! thou hero, patriot sage, Friend of all climes, and pride of every age!"
"Every countenance seeked to say, "Long live George Washington, the Father of the People.""
"Our common Father and Deliverer, to whose prudence, wisdom and valour we owe our Peace, Liberty and Safety, now leads and directs in the great councils of the nation … and now we celebrate an independent Government—an original Constitution! an independent Legislature, at the head of which we this day celebrate The Father of his Country—We celebrate Washington! We celebrate an Independent Empire!"
"His work well done, the leader stepped aside Spurning a crown with more than kingly pride. Content to wear the higher crown of worth, While time endures, "First citizen of earth.""
"Washington and his associates believed that it was essential to the existence of this Republic that there should never be any union of Church and State; and such union is partially accomplished wherever a given creed is aided by the State or when any public servant is elected or defeated because of his creed."
"'Twas his ambition, generous and great A life to life's great end to consecrate."
"While Washington hath left His awful memory, A light for after times."
"That name was a power to rally a nation in the hour of thick-thronging public disasters and calamities; that name shone amid the storm of war, a beacon light to cheer and guide the country's friends; it flamed too like a meteor to repel her foes."
"That name descending with all time, spreading over the whole earth, and uttered in all the languages belonging to all tribes and races of men, will forever be pronounced with affectionate gratitude by everyone in whose breast there shall arise an aspiration for human rights and liberty."
"America has furnished to the world the character of Washington! And if our American institutions had done nothing else, that alone would have entitled them to the respect of mankind."
"Inexorable as to principles, tolerant and impartial as to persons."
"The epoch of individuality is concluded, and it is the duty of reformers to initiate the epoch of association. Collective man is omnipotent upon the earth he treads."
"Art does not imitate, but interpret. It searches out the idea lying dormant in the symbol, in order to present the symbol to men in such form as to enable them to penetrate through it to the idea. Were it otherwise, what would be the use or value of art?"
"Nature is for art the garb of the Eternal. The real is the finite expression and representation of the true ; forms are the limits affixed by time and space to the power of life. Nature, reality, and form, should, all of them, be so rendered and expressed by art, as to reveal to mankind some ray of the truth — a vaster and profounder sentiment of life."
"Art is not the fancy or caprice of an individual. It is the mighty voice of God and the universe, as heard by the chosen spirit, and repeated in tones of harmony to mankind. Should that omnipotent voice strike too directly upon the mortal ear, it would stun and suspend all human action, even as Pantheism crushed the ancient Oriental world."
"Art is no isolated, unconnected, or inexplicable phenomenon. It draws its life from the life of the universe, and with the universe it ascends from epoch to epoch towards the Almighty. It owes its power over the souls of men to that collective life — even as the trees and plants draw their life from earth, the common mother; and its power would be destroyed should it attempt to forsake its source."
"Ideas grow quickly when watered with the blood of martyrs."
"The mother's first kiss teaches the child love; the first holy kiss of the woman he loves teaches man hope and faith in life."
"Every mission constitutes a pledge of duty. Every man is bound to consecrate his every faculty to its fulfilment. He will derive his rule of action from the profound conviction of that duty."
"One sole God; One sole ruler, — his Law; One sole interpreter of that law — Humanity."
"Hope nothing from foreign governments. They will never be really willing to aid you until you have shown that you are strong enough to conquer without them."
"Your first duties-first as regards importance-are, as I have already told you, towards Humanity. You are men before you are either citizens or fathers. If you do not embrace the whole human family in your affection, if you do not bear witness to your belief in the Unity of that family, consequent upon the Unity of God...if, wheresoever a fellow-creature suffers, or the dignity of human nature is violated by falsehood or tyranny-you are not ready, if able, to aid the unhappy, and do not feel called upon to combat, if able, for the redemption of the betrayed or oppressed-you violate your law of life, you comprehend not that Religion which will be the guide and blessing of the future."
"Country is not a mere zone of territory. The true country is the Idea to which it gives birth; it is the Thought of love, the sense of communion which unites in one all the sons of that territory."
"So long as a single one amongst your brothers has no vote to represent him in the development of the national life, so long as a single man, able and willing to work, languishes in poverty through want of work to do, you have no country in the sense in which country ought to exist-the country of all and for all."
"So long as you are ready to die for Humanity, the life of your country is immortal."
"The new claim on the part of the toiling multitude, the new sense of responsibility on the part of the well-to-do, arise in reality from the same source. They are in fact the same “social compunction,” and, in spite of their widely varying manifestations, logically converge into the same movement. Mazzini once preached, “the consent of men and your own conscience are two wings given you whereby you may rise to God.” It is so easy for the good and powerful to think that they can rise by following the dictates of conscience by pursuing their own ideals, leaving those ideals unconnected with the consent of their fellowmen."
"I encountered the influence of Mazzini, which was a source of great comfort to me...To me personally the celebration of the hundredth anniversary of Mazzini's birth was a matter of great interest. Throughout the world that day Italians who believed in a United Italy came together. They recalled the hopes of this man who, with all his devotion to his country, was still more devoted to humanity and who dedicated to the workingmen of Italy, an appeal so philosophical, so filled with a yearning for righteousness, that it transcended all national boundaries and became a bugle call for "The Duties of Man.""
"Mazzini despised the compromises of the "whigs" and would have no truck with the diplomacy of a Cavour. Yet he came to admit that the programme of insurrections upon which he built his faith implied the sacrifice of a generation. Disdaining immediate objects, reaching far into the future—working for all or nothing—he pointed to the reward that would be enjoyed not by his contemporaries, not by their children perhaps, but at least (let us say) by their grandchildren. Unfortunately, at this very point—in the passage from one generation to another—history seems in a particular way to intervene and to deflect the results of human endeavour; so that we may doubt whether this attempt to overreach Time itself is the proper kind of far-sightedness to have in politics. Apart from new factors that may change the course of the story, there is a process which may give efficacy to the ideas of a Mazzini precisely in so far as these ideas can be made to serve the cause of power; and it is not entirely irrelevant that though Mazzini was no Fascist he did attack the individualism of 1789, and he taught young men to sink themselves—to intoxicate themselves—in the Organic People. One of the things that may happen therefore in the transition to a new generation is the possibility that Mazzini's whole doctrine—and his glorification of nationality—when mixed with a little earth and entangled in a world of tricks and chances, will form but the raw material for the next Mussolini that may arise."
"I have the duty before the conscience of my country and to defend the vitality of my people to speak as an Italian, but I feel the responsibility and the right to speak also as an anti-fascist democrat, as a representative of the new Republic that, harmonising in itself the humanitarian aspirations of Giuseppe Mazzini ([an Italian 33rd degree Scottish Rite Freemason]), the universalist conceptions of Christianity and the internationalist hopes of the workers, is all directed towards that lasting and reconstructive peace that you seek and towards that cooperation between peoples that you have the task of establishing."
"I doubt whether any man of his generation exercised so profound an influence on the destinies of Europe as did Mazzini. The map of Europe as we see it to-day is the map of Joseph Mazzini. He was the prophet of free nationality, but free nationality based on right, based above all on duty—the rights and duties of individuals, the rights and duties of races, the rights and duties and ideals of humanity."
"The liberation movements of the last eighty years, not merely in Italy, but throughout Europe, were inspired by his fervent teaching. It was the thrill which came from his words that gave nerve and power and courage and daring to the men who were struggling for the emancipation of the oppressed nationalities of Europe. He said in one of his books, "We are on the threshold of a great age, the age of the peoples." His doctrines, his ideals, his example, fired the hearts that led the peoples across the threshold into the new age. Italy has crossed it; the oppressed nations of Turkey have been emancipated; the oppressed races of Austria and Russia, and let me frankly add, Ireland, have gained by the doctrines of Joseph Mazzini. The glittering Imperial fabric reared by Bismarck is humbled in the dust, but the dreams of this young man, who came over as an exile to England and lived in poverty here for years, dependent on the charity of friends, and armed only with a pen, have now become startling realities throughout the whole Continent. Here, after he has been lying for fifty years in the soil he loved so well, we find in the reconstruction of Europe the great principles of Mazzini—the emancipation of races on the basis of freedom—converted into a treaty and into action. He taught not merely the rights of a nation; he taught the rights of other nations; not merely the right of your own nation to be free, but the right of the next nation to be equally free. We have learned half the lesson of Mazzini, and whether this age is the "Golden Age" predicted by Mazzini depends entirely upon the extent to which we learn the other half of his lesson."
"His was an age of fierce hatreds. I wish I could say this was not an age of fierce hatreds also. Mazzini said you can build nothing that lasts upon hate. Hate, he said, will destroy ultimately the very thing that you love. Mazzini said: "I want free nations; I want a Europe of free nations; but I do not want a Europe of free nations hating each other; I want a Europe of free nations that will be a brotherhood of peoples." He is the father of the idea of the League of Nations."
"There are men who blame Mazzini for the present position of things. He is not responsible for the frenzied nationalism which is the peril of to-day, the extravagant nationalism, the nationalism which has no respect for the rights of others. Mazzini never taught that. His career was an embodiment and a symbol of the good feeling and good understanding that exists between British and Italian democracies. He called this his "second country." Here he found refuge, protection, encouragement, support, friendship."
"Lost golden ages can be a very effective tool for motivating people in the present. “Unity was and is the destiny of Italy,” Giuseppe Mazzini, the great nineteenth- century Italian nationalist, urged the divided peninsula. “The civil primacy, twice exercised by Italy—through the arms of the Caesars and the voice of the Popes—is destined to be held a third time by the people of Italy— the nation.” Mazzini was also a liberal who believed that a world filled by self-governing peoples would be a happy, democratic, and peaceful one yet there was an ominous tone to his exhortations: “They who were unable forty years ago to perceive the signs of progress toward unity made in the successive periods of Italian life, were simply blind to the light of History. But should any, in the lace of the actual glorious manifestation of our people, endeavour to lead them back to ideas of confederations, and independent provincial liberty, they would deserve to be branded as traitors to their country.” A great past can be a promise, but it can also be a terrible burden. Mussolini promised the Italians a second Roman Empire and led them to disaster in World War II."
"We who have seen Italia in the throes, Half risen but to be hurled to ground, and now, Like a ripe field of wheat where once drove plough, All bounteous as she is fair, we think of those Who blew the breath of life into her frame: Cavour, Mazzini, Garibaldi: Three: Her Brain, her Soul, her Sword; and set her free ruinous discords, with one lustrous aim."
"Of Mazzini we may truly say what he said himself of Father Paul, the historian of the Council of Trent, that he was two distinct beings. He was sower of the seed, the indefatigable organiser, the conspirator, on behalf of the idea that he had invented and brought to life, of United Italy. Besides his ceaseless industry in this vexed sphere of action, his was the moral genius that spiritualised politics, and gave a new soul to public duty in citizens and nations. As practical statesman, when we have applauded him for the exalting political conception which his energy, ardour, and fire forced upon Italy and Europe, we have perhaps said all."
"[H]e stood for the voice of conscience in modern democracy. Of all the democratic gospellers of that epoch between 1848 and 1870...it was Mazzini who went nearest to the heart and true significance of democracy. He had a moral glow, and the light of large historic and literary comprehension, that stretched it into the foremost place in the minds of men with social imagination enough to look for new ideals, and courage enough to resist the sluggard's dread of new illusions. He pressed his finger on the People's intellectual pulse and warned them against the feverish beats that came from words and phrases passed off as ideas, or, still more dangerous, from fragments of an idea treated as if they were the idea whole. He warned them that human history is not a thing of disconnected fragments, and that recollection of great moves and great men in the past is needed to keep us safe on the heights of future and present. He did more; though figuring as restorer of a single nation, he was as earnest as Kant himself in urging the moral relations between different States, and the supremacy and overlordship of cosmopolitan humanity."
"I realized that if my friends and followers were to read Mazzini’s articles that will increase their faith in our methods enormously. In 1906, I and my colleagues in Abhinav Bharat were hardly twenty to twenty-two years of age. Our leaders, both Moderates and Militants dismissed our activities as ‘childish’. They were the leaders of our society at that time. But then Mazzini and his fellow revolutionaries were similarly ridiculed as ‘childish’ and ‘absurd’ by contemporary elders in Italian society in 1830s. Mazzini had replied to such ridicule in his articles. The funny thing was that in 1906 persons like Mazzini and Garibaldi were regarded as ‘great patriots’ by Indian leaders without realizing that in their days Mazzini and Garibaldi too were being branded as ‘foolhardy’ and ‘childish’. Mazzini’s articles were going to make firm our plans of action and induce faith among people of India in our methods."
"Italy would remember for ever the wonderful hospitality accorded by the English people to the great Italian exiles who had been the principal actors in the drama of their long national struggle towards freedom and unity. Mazzini's teaching was never more applicable than in these critical days when Europe was still suffering from the consequences of the Great War and was desperately striving to find its moral, political, and economic equilibrium, and to restart towards a reconstruction, not only of its shaken financial resources, but of its fundamental spirit of peace. He was proud and happy to affirm that both their countries, in close connexion with their Allies, were determined to try to accomplish that moral and economic settlement of Europe towards which the teachings of Mazzini pointed with the religious fervour of an apostle and a prophet."
"Perhaps of all men who have ever borne a great part in politics Mazzini was most entirely patriot. Through forty years of incessant thought, teaching, and action, in hiding or at the head of a revolutionary government, an idol or a denounced fugitive, in all countries and by all roads he pressed forward towards the same object, the transfer of Italy, once more united, from its foreign or semi-foreign despots to the sway of a freely elected Sovereign Assembly, which, as he trusted or believed, would be guided by something difficult to distinguish from direct inspiration from above. That he changed his means frequently is true, and that he sometimes subordinated means to ends can hardly be denied, for he was that rare character, a practical ideologue."
"In truth, he was neither anarchist nor Jacobin, nor even Revolutionist, but a calm and serene teacher and leader, a prophet possessed with a faith and absorbed in an object, who swayed men by the force of his ideas, the holiness of his life, and the unique loftiness of his character steadily onward towards an end which was not always theirs... This influence, rising in some cases to an ascendancy such as has hardly been given to the greatest religious teachers, was employed unswervingly for his single end, and it was employed successfully. Cavour made Italy, but it was due to Mazzini, and not to Cavour, that such making was possible."
"The idea of the powerless lawyer had penetrated an entire people, and Italy stood up unfettered and alive. In modern history no man armed only with spiritual weapons, strong only in his cause, his genius, and his character, has ever performed such a feat, or made so deep a personal impression on the history of mankind... It is among the greater Popes that we must seek for the analogue of Joseph Mazzini, the serene man possessed of and by a faith, who could use all weapons, and mould all men, and disregard all circumstances; whose gentleness was as inflexible as other men’s obstinacy; to whom earthly temptations had no meaning and earthly scruples no force; who could not pause, or change, or tremble, and who therefore at once achieved the lofty success and roused the undying hatreds which attend the course of the man who lives for an idea. Unstirred by the ordinary ambitions of men and unaffected by their ordinary passions, an ascetic by habit rather than conviction, incapable of envy as of doubt, irresistible in his power over hearts, which he used only to further his great cause; personally as gentle as a woman, but for his ideas implacable as a statue; eloquent with the eloquence which can persuade an individual or a Senate, yet averse to life in public; never induced even by his own genius to swerve for a moment from his appointed course; an immovable fanatic, with all the knowledge and all the tact of a finished grandee, Joseph Mazzini was what in the Roman Catholic ideal every Pope should be."
"It is as plain now that Mazzini was the greatest moral force in Europe during the nineteenth century... We must go back to Dante to find an Italian who had, like Mazzini, the combination of vivid practical intellect with a highly sensitive, even mystical, spirituality... As Dante spoke for the medieval world, so Mazzini is thus far Europe's most authentic spokesman of the ideals and hopes of our new epoch."
"We have to announce to-day the death of a man who in his time has played a most singular part upon the theatre of European politics; one whose name has for years been regarded as the symbol of Revolution, or rather of Republicanism; one in whose personal character there were many fine and noble qualities; but still a man who was feared even more widely than he was loved, and one whose departure from the scene of action, to say the least, will be no unwelcome news to several crowned and discrowned members of the family of European Sovereigns. He was the man who ever "troubled Israel" by his ceaseless efforts in the cause of Republicanism, and now at length he is at rest."
"In our own day classics have been dethroned without being replaced. But throughout the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries our statesmen were so brought up that they thought of Rome as the hearth of their political civilization, where their predecessor Cicero had denounced Catiline; where the models of their own eloquence and statecraft, as taught them at Eton, Harrow and Winchester, had been practised and brought to perfection. And, therefore, the ruins of the Forum were as familiar, as sacred, and as moving to Russell and to Gladstone as to Mazzini and Garibaldi themselves. This was a prime fact in the history of the Risorgimento."
"He does not exalt the individual at the expense of the nation, like the disciples of Rousseau; nor the nation at the expense of the individual, as was the tendency of Hegel; nor humanity at the expense of both, as was the incurable aberration of Comte. Recognising that each of these has its peculiar function, he recognises no less fully that no one of them can put forth its energies without the others; that each of them is conditioned absolutely by the others; and that only to the most limited extent is it possible to mark off the sphere in which each operates even in partial independence of the others."
"Now it can hardly be doubted that the earliest writer to give its due place to nationality was Mazzini. He felt, as few men have felt, the force of the popular sentiment in this matter. He was alive also to its limitations. To him the nation is not, as it is to many, an end in itself. It is strictly a link in the chain between the individual on the one side and humanity on the other. He recognises, as no previous writer had done, what may be called the personality of the nation. He proclaims its right, or rather its obligation, both to defend itself against all encroachment, whether material or moral, from without, and to develop its inborn faculties to the highest possible pitch from within. He thus gives satisfaction to all that is either valid or worth having in the claims of nationality. At the same time, he marks out the limits beyond which the instinct of nationality becomes dangerous, or even harmful. He denies that it is a final and absolute principle. He persistently subordinates it to the larger claims of humanity. This at once bars out the possibility of any right to aggression as between one nation and another. It subjects all nations alike to the common ties which bind the members of one brotherhood, mankind. By the same stroke, Mazzini gives the only valid sanction to the real rights of nationality. He declares the free development of the national spirit to be essential to the true life of humanity. So far as it serves that end, it is nothing but good. As soon as it throws itself athwart that end, it becomes an enormous evil."
"I am very much moved, sir, to be in the presence of this monument. On the other side of the water we have studied the life of Mazzini with almost as much pride as if we shared in the glory of his history, and I am very glad to acknowledge that his spirit has been handed down to us of a later generation on both sides of the water. It is delightful to me to feel that I am taking some small part in accomplishing the realization of the ideals to which his life and thought were devoted. It is with a spirit of veneration, sir, and with a spirit I hope of emulation, that I stand in the presence of this monument and bring my greetings and the greetings of America with our homage to the great Mazzini."
"In a way it seems natural for an American to be a citizen of Genoa, and I shall always count it among the most delightful associations of my life that you should have conferred this honor upon me, and in taking away this beautiful edition of the works of Mazzini I hope that I shall derive inspiration from these volumes, as I have already derived guidance from the principles which Mazzini so eloquently expressed. It is very inspiring, sir, to feel how the human spirit is refreshed again and again from its original sources. It is delightful to feel how the voice of one people speaks to another through the mouth of men who have by some gift of God been lifted above the common level and seen the light of humanity, and therefore these words of your prophet and leader will, I hope, be deeply planted in the hearts of my fellow countrymen."
"[ ... ] The First World War had to be fought in order to allow the “Illuminati” to overthrow the power of the tsars in Russia and transform this country into the stronghold of atheistic communism. The differences stirred up by the agents of the “Illuminati” between the British and German empires were used to foment this war. After the war ended, communism had to be built up and used to destroy other governments and weaken religions."
"Me neither. I'm glad that we agree. Believe me, That's a big relief. Well, this place is awful crowded And this music is so loud. Would you like to go and grab a bite to eat? Me neither."
"Somewhere in my closet There's a cardboard box just sittin' on a shelf. It's full of faded memories And it's been there ever since the night you left.Oh, just forgotten photographs To remind me of the past. Oh, but I can still see everything just fine. Who needs pictures with a memory like mine? Yeah, who needs pictures with a memory like mine?"
"And then all of a sudden Oh, it seemed so strange to me, How we went from something's missing To a family. Lookin' back all I can say About all the things he did for me Is I hope I'm at least half the dad That he didn't have to be."
"And we danced; Out there on that empty hardwood floor. The chairs up and the lights turned way down low The music played, we held each other close. And we danced.Like no one else had ever danced before. I can't explain what happened on that floor. But the music played, We held each other close, And we danced. Yeah, we danced."
"Well I love her; But I love to fish. I spend all day out on this lake And hell is all I catch. Today she met me at the door Said I would have to choose. If I hit that fishin' hole today, She'd be packin' all her things, And she'd be gone by noon.Well, I'm gonna miss her When I get home. But right now I'm on this lake shore And I'm sittin' in the sun. I'm sure it'll hit me When I walk through that door tonight That I'm gonna miss her. Oh, lookie there, I've got a bite."
"I've been wrapped around her finger Since the first time we went out. Every day and every night she's all I think about. I need that girl beside me When the lights go out. I think it's time to put a ring on the finger I'm wrapped around."
"Yeah there ain't nothing not affected When two hearts get connected. All that is, will be, or ever was. Every single choice we make, Every breath we get to take, Is all because two people fell in love."
"I know you need to go, But before you do I want you to know, that I Wish you the best. And I wish you nothing less Than every thing you've ever dreamed of. And I hope that you find love along the way. But most of all, I wish you'd stay."
"'Cause it's a good night To be out there soakin' up the moonlight. Stake out a little piece of shoreline. I've got the perfect place in mind. It's in the middle of nowhere; only way to get there You got to get a little mud on the tires."
"Cause when you're a Celebrity, It's adios reality. You can act just like a fool. People think you're cool Just cause you're on TV. I can throw major fits When my latte isn't just how I like it. They say I've gone insane, I'll blame it on the fame, And the pressures that it goes with Being a Celebrity."
"I know she's not perfect but she tries so hard for me And I thank god that she isn't 'cause how boring would that be? It's the little imperfections, it's the sudden change in plans. When she misreads the directions and we're lost but holdin' hands. Yeah I live for little moments like that."
"When she's layin' on my shoulder on the sofa in the dark And about the time she falls asleep, so does my right arm. And I want so bad to move it, 'cause it's tinglin' and it's numb; But she looks so much like an angel that I don't wanna wake her up. Yeah I live for little moments When she steals my heart again and doesn't even know it. Yeah I live for little moments like that."
"To the world, You may be just another girl. But to me, Baby, you are the world."
"And since the day I left Milwaukee, Lyncheburg and Bourbon, France Been makin' a fool out of folks Just like you, And helpin' white people dance. I am medicine and I am poison. I can help you up or make you fall. You had some of the best times You'll never remember with me... Alcohol."
"I'd like to see you out in the moonlight. I'd like to kiss you way back in the sticks. I'd like to walk you through a field of wildflowers. And I'd like to check you for ticks."
"Online, I’m out in Hollywood. I’m 6 foot 5 and I look damn good. Even on a slow day, I could have a three way, Chat with two women at one time. I’m so much cooler online; Yeah, I’m cooler online."
"And oh you got so much going for you, going right. But I know at 17 it's hard to see past Friday night. I wish you'd study Spanish, I wish you'd take a typing class. I wish you wouldn't worry, let it be. I'd say have a little faith and you'll see. If I could write a letter to me."
"You're probably thinkin’ that you're gonna change me; In some ways well maybe you might. Scrub me down, dress me up. Oh but no matter what, Remember, I'm still a guy."
"Everyday is a revolution. Welcome to the future."
"Now you're my whole life; Now you're my whole world. I just can't believe The way I feel about you girl. Like a river meets the sea, Stronger than it's ever been. We've come so far since that day, And I thought I loved you then."
"All you really need this time of year Is a pair of shades And ice cold beer. And a place to sit somewhere near Water."
"And I started wondering who he was going to be And I thought heaven help us if hes anything like me. He'll probably climb a tree to tall and ride hes bike to fast; End up every summer wearin something in a cast. He's gonna throw a ball and break some glass in a window down the street. He's gonna get in trouble, oh he's gonna get in fights. I'm gonna lose my temper and some sleep. It's safe to say that I'm gonna get my payback if he's anything like me."
"You're not supposed to say the word "cancer" in a song. And tellin' folks Jesus is the answer can rub 'em wrong. It ain't hip to sing about tractors, trucks, little towns, and mama, yeah that might be true. But this is country music and we do."
"So turn it on, turn it up, and sing a long This is real; this is your life in a song. Yeah this is country music."
"She'd rather wear a pair of cut-off jeans Than an evening dress. And with the windows rolled down, And her hair blowin all around, Well, she's a hot Southern mess.She'd take a beer over white wine. A campfire over candle light. And when it comes to love, Her idea of a romantic nightIs listenin' to old Alabama And driving through Tennessee A little "Dixieland Delight" and "The Right Time of the Night", And she can't keep her hands off of me."
"You can blend in in the country; You can stand out in the fashion world Being invisible to a white tail and irresistible to a redneck girl. Camouflage, Camouflage Oh you're my favorite color Camouflage."
"We didn’t care if people stared; We’d make out in a crowd somewhere. Somebody’d tell us to get a room; It’s hard to believe that was me and you. Now we keep saying that we’re OK. But I don’t want to settle for good not great. I miss the way that it felt back then; I wanna feel that way again."
"West Virginia-born Telecaster shredder Brad Paisley is one of the most electrifying live performers in country music. His extraordinary skill on a Telecaster ranges from traditional country phrasing to some pretty out-there work, and from delicate clean-tone passages to dizzying solo flights that once earned him a description in Guitar One magazine as “Eddie Van Halen on cornbread.”"
"The most important thing we can do is inspire young minds and to advance the kind of science, math and technology education that will help youngsters take us to the next phase of space travel."
"To me, there is no greater calling … If I can inspire young people to dedicate themselves to the good of mankind, I've accomplished something."
"I don't think many people remember what life was like in those days … This was the era when the Russians were claiming superiority, and they could make a pretty good case — they put up Sputnik in '57; they had already sent men into space to orbit the earth… There was this fear that perhaps communism was the wave of the future. The astronauts, all of us, really believed we were locked in a battle of democracy versus communism, where the winner would dominate the world."
"I pray every day and I think everybody should. I don't think you can be up here and look out the window as I did the first day and look out at the Earth from this vantage point. We're not so high compared to people who went to the moon and back. But to look out at this kind of creation out here and not believe in God is, to me, impossible. It just strengthens my faith."
"Could this have just happened? . . . I can’t believe that ... Some Power put all this into orbit and keeps it there."
"Godspeed, John Glenn."
"Since the number of men is large but the earthly realm is not inexhaustible, one man can no longer profit from the labour of twenty. Moderation, contentment, and frugality must become the general morals of mankind. […] The whole earth becomes a garden, and nature has at last completed her day’s work here below, bringing permanent enlightenment, peace, and felicity together with the greatest possible number of men : she has anointed every man as his own judge, priest, and king; has turned the often-ridiculed tale of the golden age, mankind’s favorite idea of old, into a reality by discreetly removing the eternal inequality of wealth, which has been ineffectively combated by all lawgivers and has always has crept back in, and which is the source of the decay of all nations, and the root of servitude, tyranny, and disunity among men, of venality and moral corruption, making it forever impossible through the excessive growth of the human population."
"I myself brought Deism no more to Bavaria than to Rome or Italy. I found it there already; and I shall give the reasons below, just why in the most fanatical countries, and more under Catholicism than Protestantism, this sort of person is found in such a measure and multitude."
"Do you realize sufficiently what it means to rule—to rule in a secret society? Not only over the lesser or more important of the populace, but over the best of men, over men of all ranks, nations, and religions, to rule without external force, to unite them indissolubly, to breathe one spirit and soul into them, men distributed over all parts of the world?"
"Should you seek might, power, false honor, excess — seek that we would work for you to provide your temporal advantages — we will bring you as close to the throne as you wish, and then turn you over to the consequences of your folly, but our inner sanctuary remains closed to such. But should you want to learn wisdom — want to learn to make mankind more clever, better, free and happy — then be thrice welcomed by us."
"In the stage of manhood alone does the human race first appear in his dignity; only there are his principles fixed, his connections appropriate, he sees the full circumference of his sphere; there alone — after we have already learned through many detours, through long, repeated, sad experiences, what a calamity it is to arrogate the rights of others, to raise oneself over others through mere external advantages, to use his size to the detriment of others — there alone one recognizes, believes, feels what an honor, what a joy it is to be a human being."
"This first stage of the life of the whole race is savagery, raw nature:… a condition in which man enjoys the most exquisite goods, equality and freedom, in full abundance, and would also enjoy them forever, if he would follow the hint of nature and understand the art of not abusing his powers and preventing the outbreak of his excessive passions."
"In this time, when the games and abuses of secret societies were without end, I wanted to make use of this human weakness for a real and worthy goal, the welfare of mankind.… I wanted what the heads of the ecclesiastical and secular powers should do and want by virtue of their offices."
"Wishaupt seems to be an enthusiastic Philanthropist. He is among those (as you know the excellent [Richard] Price and Priestley also are) who believe in the indefinite perfectibility of man. He thinks he may in time be rendered so perfect that he will be able to govern himself in every circumstance so as to injure none, to do all the good he can, to leave government no occasion to exercise their powers over him, & of course to render political government useless."
"As Wishaupt lived under the tyranny of a despot & priests, he knew that caution was necessary even in spreading information, & the principles of pure morality.… He proposed to initiate new members into his body by gradations proportioned to his fears of the thunderbolts of tyranny. This has given an air of mystery to his views, was the foundation of his banishment, the subversion of the masonic order, & is the colour for the ravings against him of Robinson, Barruel & Morse, whose real fears are that the craft would be endangered by the spreading of information, reason, & natural morality among men."
"It has been claimed that Dr. Weishaupt was an atheist, a Cabalistic magician, a rationalist, a mystic; a democrat, a socialist, an anarchist, a fascist; a Machiavellian amoralist, an alchemist, a totalitarian and an "enthusiastic philanthropist." (The last was the verdict of Thomas Jefferson, by the way.)"
"The one safe generalization one can make is that Weishaupt's intent to maintain secrecy has worked; no two students of Illuminology have ever agreed totally about what the "inner secret" or purpose of the order actually was (or is …)."
"Ibigin mo ang iyóng Bayan nang sunód kay Bathalà, sa iyóng kapurihan, at higít sa lahat sa iyong sarili."
"Itinuturo ng katwiran, na wala tayong iba pang maaantay kundi lalu't lalong kahirapan, lalu't lalong kataksilan, lalu't lalong kaalipustaan at lalu't lalong kaalipinan. Itinuturo ng katwiran na huwag nating sayangin ang panahon sa pag-asa sa ipinangakong kaginhawaan na hindi darating at hindi mangyayari … Itinuturo ng katwiran ang tayo’y magkaisang-loób, magkaisang-isip, at akala at nang tayo’y magkalakas na maihanap ang naghaharing kasamaan sa ating Bayan."
"Itinuturo ng katwiran na tayo’y magkaisang-loob, magkaisang-isip at nang tayo’y magkalakas na maihanap ang naghaharing kasamaan sa ating Bayan. Panahon na ngayong dapat na lumitaw ang liwanag ng katotohanan; panahon ng dapat nating ipakilala na tayo’y may sariling pagdaramdam, may puri, may hiya, at may pagdadamayan."
"I was born in 1770, on April the 3rd, on the Easter Monday. The rebellion in the Peloponnese broke out in 1769. I was born under a tree on a mountain called Ramovouni, situated in old Messenia"
"Greeks, God has signed our Liberty and will not go back on his promise."
"It was not until our rising that all the Greeks were brought into communication. There were men who knew of no place beyond a mile of their own locality."
"Fire and Axe to those who submit!"
"According to my judgement, the French Revolution and the doings of Napoleon opened the eyes of the world. The nations knew nothing before and the people thought that kings were gods upon the earth and that they were bound to say that whatever they did as well done. Through this present change it is more difficult to rule the people."
"Greeks! today we are born and today we shall die for the salvation of our Homeland."
"He was the God of War."
"When we got our weapons, first we said for [Christian] Faith and then for the Nation."
"49 years I fight for the Fatherland."
"Soldiers of Verdun! It is your valour which has made this possible, for your heroic resistance was the indispensable condition to our success. Upon it still depends our future victory. Upon all the vast theatres of Europe, thanks to you, there now exists a situation out of which will spring the definite triumph of our cause. I make one more appeal to your courage, your ardour, your spirit of sacrifice, your love of country. Hold fast and strive with all your might to shatter the last desperate efforts of an enemy now at bay."
"I don't know who won the Battle of the Marne. But if it had been lost, I know who would have lost it."
"In one respect the Germans came remarkably close to their objective of annihilating the enemy. The total number of French dead by the end of December 1914 was 265,000; indeed their casualties of all types had already reached 385,000 by September 10. Not only that, but the French had lost a tenth of their field artillery and half a million rifles. Worst of all, a very substantial part of their heavy industrial capacity was now under enemy control. The puzzle is why these heavy losses did not lead to a complete collapse - as had happened in 1870 and would happen again in 1940. Some credit must certainly go to the imperturbable French Commander-in-Chief Joseph Joffre, and particularly to his ruthless purge of senescent or incompetent French commanders as the crisis unfolded. Fundamentally, however, time was against Moltke for the simple reason that the French could redeploy more swiftly than the Germans could advance once they had left their troop trains. On August 23 the three German armies on Moltke's right wing constituted twenty-four divisions, facing just seventeen and a half Entente divisions; by September 6 they were up against forty-one. The chance of a decisive victory was gone, if it had ever existed. At the Marne, the failure of Moltke's gamble was laid bare. He himself suffered a nervous breakdown."
"All the knowledge we have of nature depends upon facts; for without observations and experiments our natural philosophy would only be a science of terms and an unintelligible jargon. But then we must call in Geometry and Arithmetics, to our Assistance, unless we are willing to content ourselves with natural History and conjectural Philosophy. For, as many causes concur in the production of compound effects, we are liable to mistake the predominant cause, unless we can measure the quantity and the effect produced, compare them with, and distinguish them from, each other, to find out the adequate cause of each single effect, and what must be the result of their joint action."
"When mons. Descartes's philosophical Romance, by the Elegance of its Style and the plausible Accounts of natural Phænomena, had overthrown the Aristotelian Physics, the World received but little Advantage by the Change: For instead of a few Pedants, who, most of them, being conscious of their Ignorance, concealed it with hard Words and pompous Terms; a new Set of Philosophers started up, whose lazy Disposition easily fell in with a Philosophy, that required no Mathematicks to understand it, and who taking a few Principles for granted, without examining their Reality or Consistence with each other, fancied they could solve all Appearances mechanically by Matter and Motion; and, in their smattering Way, pretended to demonstrate such things, as perhaps Cartesius himself never believed ; his Philosophy (if he bad been in earnest) being unable to stand the test of the Geometry which he was Master of."
"It is to Sir Isaac Newton's Application of Geometry to Philosophy, that we owe the routing of this Army of Goths and Vandals in the philosophical World; which he has enriched with more and greater Discoveries, than all the Philosophers that went before him: And has laid such Foundations for future Acquisitions, that even after his Death, his Works still promote natural Knowledge. Before Sir Isaac, we had but wild Guesses at the Cause of the Motion of the Comets and Planets round the Sun', but now he has clearly deduced them from the universal Laws of Attraction (the Existence of which he has proved beyond Contradiction) and has shewn, that the seeming Irregularities of the Moon, which Astronomers were unable to express in Numbers, are but the just Consequences of the Actions of the Sun and Earth upon it, according to their different Positions. His Principles clear up all Difficulties of the various Phænomena of the Tides; and the true Figure of the Earth is now plainly shewn to be a flatted Spheroid higher at the Equator than the Poles, notwithstanding many Assertions and Conjectures to the contrary."
"But to return to the Newtonian Philosophy: Tho' its Truth is supported by Mathematicks, yet its Physical Discoveries may be communicated without. The great Mr. Locke was the first who became a Newtonian Philosopher without the help of Geometry; for having asked Mr. Huygens, whether all the mathematical Propositions in Sir Isaac's Principia were true, and being told he might depend upon their Certainty; he took them for granted, and carefully examined the Reasonings and Corollaries drawn from them, became Master of all the Physics, and was fully convinc'd of the great Discoveries contained in that Book."
"To few Freemasons of the present day, except to those who have made Freemasonry a subject of especial study, is the name of Desaguliers very familiar. But it is well that they should know that to him, perhaps, more than to any other man, are we indebted for the present existence of Freemasonry as a living Institution, for it was his learning and social position that gave a standing to the Institution, which brought to its support noblemen and men of influence so that the insignificant assemblage of four London Lodges at the Apple-Tree Tavern has expanded into an association which now shelters the entire civilized world. And the moving spirit of all this was John Theophilus Desaguliers."
"Considering how few, and how simple the Principles are, upon which the whole Art of PERSPECTIVE depends, and withal how useful, nay how absolutely necessary this Art is to all forts of Designing; I have often wonder'd, that it has still been left in so low a degree of Perfection, as it is found to be, in the Books that have been hitherto wrote upon it."
"It seems that those, who have hitherto treated of this Subject, have been more conversant in the Practice of Designing, than in the Principles of Geometry... that might have enabled them to render the Principles of it more universal, and more convenient for Practice. In this Book I have endeavour'd to do this; and have done my utmost to render the Principles of the Art as general, and as universal as may be, and to devise such Constructions, as might be the most simple and useful in Practice."
"In order to this, I found it absolutely necessary to consider this Subject entirely anew, as if it had never been treated of before; the Principles of the old Perspective being so narrow, and so confined, that they could be of no use in my Design: And I was forced to invent new Terms of Art, those already in use being so peculiarly adapted to the imperfect Notions that have hitherto been had of this Art, that I could make no use of them in explaining those general Principles I intended to establish."
"I make no difference between the Plane of the , and any other Plane whatsoever; for since Planes, as Planes, are alike in Geometry, it is most proper to consider them as so, and to explain their Properties in general, leaving the Artist himself to apply them in particular Cases, as Occasion requires."
"The true and best way of learning any Art, is not to see a great many Examples done by another Person, but to possess ones self first of the Principles of it, and then to make them familiar, by exercising ones self in the Practice. For it is Practice alone, that makes a Man perfect in any thing."
"I have endeavour'd to make every thing so plain, that a very little Skill in Geometry may be sufficient to enable one to read this Book by himself."
"And upon this occasion I would advise all my Readers, who desire to make themselves Masters of this Subject, not to be contented with the Schemes they find here; but upon every Occasion to draw new ones of their own, in all the Variety of Circumstances they can think of. This will take up a little more Time at first; but in a little while they will find the vast Benefit of it, by the extensive Notions it will give them of the Nature of these Principles."
"The Art Perspective is necessary to all Arts, where there is any occasion for Designing... but it is more particularly necessary to the Art Painting..."
"It is generally thought very ridiculous to pretend to write an Heroic Poem, or a fine Discourse upon any Subject, without understanding the Propriety of the Language wrote in; and to me it seems no less ridiculous for one to pretend to make a good Picture without understanding Perspective..."
"The Greatest Masters have been the most guilty... The great Occasion of this Fault, is certainly the wrong Method that generally is used in the Education of Persons to this Art: For the Young People are generally put immediately to Drawing, and when they have acquired a Facility in that, they are put to Colouring. And these things they learn by rote, and by Practice only; but are not at all instructed in any Rules of Art. By which means when they come to make any Designs of their own, tho' they... don't know how to govern their Inventions with Judgment, and become guilty of so many gross Mistakes, which prevent themselves, as well as others, from finding that Satisfaction, they otherwise would do in their Performances."
"I would recommend it to the Masters of the Art Painting... to establish a better Method for the Education of their Scholars, and to begin their Instructions with the Technical Parts of Painting, before they let them loose to follow the Inventions of their own uncultivated Imaginations."
"[T]he Method which ought to be follow'd in instructing a Scholar in the Executive Part of Painting; ...first have him learn the most common Effections of Practical Geometry, and the first Elements of Plain Geometry, and common Arithmetic."
"When he is sufficiently perfect in these, I would have him learn Perspective. And when he has made some progress in this, so as to have prepared his Judgment with the right Notions of the Alterations that Figures must undergo, when they come to be drawn on a Flat, he may then be put to Drawing by View, and be exercised in this along with Perspective, till he comes to be sufficiently perfect in both."
"Nothing ought to be more familiar to a Painter than Perspective; for it is the only thing that can make the Judgment correct, and will help the Fancy to invent with ten times the ease that it could do without it."
"[H]e should be instructed in the Theory of the Colours; that he should learn... their particular Properties... Relations, and... Effects that are produced by their Mixture; and that he should be made well acquainted with the Nature of the several material Colours... used in Painting."
"[[w:Opticks|[T]he Theory]] I have endeavour'd to explain in the Appendix, from Sir Isaac Newton, may be of very great use to Learners."
"There may be regular Methods also invented for teaching the Doctrine of Light and Shadow; and other Particulars relating to the Practical Part of Painting, may be improved and digested into proper Methods... But I only hint at these... recommending them to the Masters of the Art to reflect and improve upon."
"The Book it self is so short, that I need not detain the Reader any longer in the Preface..."
"Dr. Halley..., has publish'd a... compendious and useful Method of extracting the Roots of affected Equations of the common Form, in Numbers. This Method proceeds by assuming the Root desired nearly true... (...by a Geometrical Construction, or by some other convenient way) and correcting the Assumption by comparing the Difference between the true Root and the assumed, by means of a new Equation whose Root is that Difference, and which he shews how to form from the Equation proposed, by Substitution of the Value of the Root sought, partly in known and partly in unknown Terms."
"In doing this he makes use of a Table of Products (...he calls Speculum Analyticum,) by which he computes the Coefficients in the new Equation for finding the Difference mentioned. This Table, I observed, was formed in the same Manner from the Equation propos'd, as the s are, taking the Root sought for the only flowing Quantity, its Fluxion for Unity, and after every Operation dividing the Product successively by the Numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, etc."
"Hence I soon found that this Method might easily and naturally be drawn from Cor 2. Prop. 7. of my Methodus Incrementorum, and that it was capable of a further degree of Generality; it being Applicable, not only to Equations of the common Form, (viz. such as consist of Terms wherein the Powers of the Root sought are positive and integral, without any Radical Sign) but also to all Expressions in general, wherein any thing is proposed as given which by any known Method might be computed; if vice versâ, the Root were consider'd as given: such as are all Radical Expressions of Binomials, Trinomials, or of any other Nomial, which may be computed by the Root given, at least by s, whatever be the Index of the Power of that Nomial; as likewise Expressions of Logarithms, of Arches by the Sines or s, of Areas of Curves by the Abscissa's or any other Fluents, or Roots of Fluxional Equations, etc."
"z and x being two flowing Quantities (whose Relation... may be exprest by any Equation...) by [the aforesaid] Corollary, while z by flowing uniformly becomes z+v, x will becomex + \frac {\dot{x}}{1 \cdot \dot{z}}v + \frac {\ddot{x}}{1 \cdot 2 \cdot \dot{z}^2}v^2 +... etc. or"
"Hence if y be the Root of any Expression formed of y and known Quantities, and supposed equal to nothing, and z be a part of y, and x be formed of z and the known Quantities, in the same manner as the Expression made equal to nothing is formed of y; and let y be equal to z + v; the difference v will be found by Extracting the Root of this expression x + \frac {\dot{x}v}{1} + \frac {\ddot{x} v^2}{1 \cdot 2} + ... etc. = 0."
"[I]t may not be amiss to set down here two Approximations I have formerly hit upon. The one is a Series of Terms for expressing the Root of any Quadratick Equation; and the other is a particular Method of Approximating in the invention of Logarithms, which has no occasion for any of the Transcendental Methods, and is expeditious enough for making the Tables without much trouble."
"A general Series for expressing the Root of any Quadratick Equation. Any Quadratick Equation being reduc’d to this Form xx - mqx + my = 0, the Root x will be exprest by this Series of Terms. x = \frac {y}{q} + A \times \frac{1}{\frac{mq^2}{y} -2} + B \times \frac {1}{a^2 - 2} + C \times \frac {1}{b^2 - 2} +D \times \frac {1}{c^2 - 2} etc. Which must be thus interpreted. 1. ...A, B, C, etc. stand for the whole terms with their Signs, preceding those wherein they are found, as B = A \times \frac {1}{\frac{mq^2}{y} - 2} 2. ...a, b, c, etc. ...are equal to the whole Divisors of the Fraction in the Terms immediately preceding; thus b = a^2 - 2."
"A new Method of computing Logarithms. This method is founded upon... 1. That the sums of any two Numbers is the Logarithm of the Product of those two Numbers Multiplied together. 2. That the Logarithm of Unite is nothing; and consequently that the nearer any Number is to Unite, the nearer will its Logarithm be to 0. 3rdly. That the Product by Multiplication of two Numbers, whereof one is bigger, and the other less than Unite, is nearer to Unite than that of the two Numbers which is on the same side of Unite with its self; for Example the two Numbers being \frac{2}{3} and \frac{4}{3}, the Product \frac{8}{9} is less than Unite, but nearer to it than \frac{2}{3}, which is also less than Unite. Upon these Considerations, I found the present Approximation... best explain'd by an Example. ...[T]o find the Relation of the Logarithms of 2 and of 10... take two Fractions \frac{128}{100} and \frac{8}{10}, viz. \frac{2^7}{10^2} and \frac{2^3}{10^1}... one... bigger, and the other less than 1."
"Early in 1717 he returned to London, and composed three treatises, which were presented to the Royal Society, and published in the 30th volume of the Transactions. About this time his intense application had impaired his health to a considerable degree; and he was under the necessity of repairing, for relaxation and relief, to Aix-la-Chapelle. Having likewise a desire of directing his attention to subjects moral and religious speculation, he resigned his office of secretary to the Royal Society in 1718. After this he applied to subjects of a very different kind. Among his papers were found detached parts of a Treatise on the Jewish Sacrifices, and a dissertation of considerable length on the Lawfulness of eating Blood. He did not, however, wholly neglect his former subjects of study, but employed his leisure hours in combining science and art; with this view he revised and improved his treatise on Linear Perspective."
"Drawing continued to be his favourite amusement to his latest hour; and it is not improbable that his valuable life was shortened by the sedentary habits which this amusement, succeeding his severer studies, occasioned."
"The theory of perspective was taught in painting schools from the sixteenth century onward according to principles laid down by the masters... However, their treatises on perspective had on the whole been precept, rule, and ad hoc procedure; they lacked a solid mathematical basis. In the period from 1500 to 1600 artists and subsequently mathematicians put the subject on a satisfactory deductive basis, and it passed from quasi-empirical art to a true science. Definitive works on perspective were written much later by eighteenth-century mathematicians Brook Taylor and J. H. Lambert."
"Brook Taylor... in his Methodus Incrementorum Directa et Inversa (1715), sought to clarify the ideas of the calculus but limited himself to algebraic functions and algebraic differential equations. ...Taylor's exposition, based on what we would call finite differences, failed to obtain many backers because it was arithmetical in nature when the British were trying to tie the calculus to geometry or to the physical notion of velocity."
"The Gregory-Newton interpolation formula was used by Brook Taylor to develop the most powerful single method for expanding a function into an infinite series. In his Methodus Incrementorum Directa et Inversa Taylor derived the theorem... he praises Newton but makes no mention of Leibniz's work of 1673 on finite differences, though Taylor knew this work. Taylor's theorem was known to James Gregory in 1670 and was known... by Leibnez, however these two men did not pubish it. John Bernoulli did publish practically the same result in the Acta Eruditorium of 1694; and though Taylor knew his result he did not refer to it. ...Colin Maclaurin in his Treatise of Fluxions (1742) stated that... [Mclaurin's theorem] was but a special case of Taylor's result."
"I am spared the necessity of closing this biographical sketch with a prolix detail of his character: in the best acceptation of duties relative to each situation of life in which he was engaged, his own writings and the writings of those who best knew him, prove him to have been the finished Christian, gentleman, and scholar."
"I am not surprised that men are not thankful to me; but I wonder that they are not grateful to God for the good which he has made me the instrument of conveying to my fellow-creatures."
"A sincere acquiescence in the dispensations of Providence will check discomposure of mind beyond any thing. It will produce a calm in the midst of a storm."
"The highest powers in our nature are our sense of moral excellence, the principle of reason and reflection, benevolence to our creatures and our love of the Divine Being."
"It should not forgotten, however, that it was his "Observations on the natural history of the Cuckoo" (1788) that had won him membership in the Royal Society 10 years before. His work on bird migration, although done at about the same time, was not published until after his death in 1823. Both of these papers were landmarks in ornithological history, for no one prior to Jenner had approached these problems, of brood parasitism and migration, in anywhere near so comprehensive a fashion or with such searching questions."
"Never change a winning team."
"It seemed a pity so much Argentinian talent is wasted. Our best football will come against the right type of opposition—a team who come to play football, and not act as animals."
"We will win the World Cup."
"You've won it once. Now you'll have to go out there and win it again."
"US and European pre-eminence in science-based innovation cannot be taken for granted. The centre of gravity for innovation is starting to shift from west to east."
":Source: The Atlas of Ideas: How Asian innovation can benefit us all, 2007"
":Cited in: Kishore Mahbubani, The New Asian Hemisphere: The Irresistible Shift of Global Power to the East, 2010, p. 69"
"When told by a constituent that he would rather vote for the devil, Wilkes responded: "Naturally." He then added: "And if your friend decides against standing, can I count on your vote?""
"I am a fascist and will die a fascist."
"I personally have done much to have the excommunication of Freemasons removed from the new Code of Canon Law. In its time Freemasonry collaborated in ecumenical activity, then in the drafting of the Canon Code, on the concept that Christian unity also passes through those Anglican and Protestant bishops and pastors, as well as Orthodox, who are Freemasons. Freemasonry also participated in the creation of the Concordated Bible."
"Every morning I speak to my conscience and the dialogue calms me down. I look at the country, read the newspaper, and think: 'All is becoming a reality little by little, piece by piece'. To be truthful, I should have had the copyright to it. Justice, TV, public order. I wrote about this 30 years ago.... Berlusconi is an extraordinary man, a man of action. This is what Italy needs: not a man of words, but a man of action."
"It is not up to us to deliver judgments. Only God will be able to tell the truth."
"Mussolini was the son of a blacksmith, Hitler was the son of a house painter and I am the son of a miller."
"[Journalist:] So none of your plan came to fruition in your opinion? [Gelli:] mah I see on the other hand that everyone is a little watered down. Everyone took some cues from it on the other hand I can't say more. Also because he was aimed only at good. They should, I don't say, talk to me about certain rights. I don't even ask for them because it was not possible to file it with SIAE."
"The real power lies in the hands of the media owners."
"[About the P2] My Plan of Democratic Rebirth? I see that 20 years later this Bicameral [the D'Alema Bicameral Parliament Commission] is copying it piece by piece, with the Boato draft. Better late than never. They should at least give me the copyright."
"The real power lies in the hands of the holders of the Mass Media."
"We had Italy in our hands. We would never have wanted to attack, but we were like a sentinel, carefully ensuring that the Communist party should never emerge."
"[journalist:] what can you tell us about the carnages? I asked her who is behind the carnages. [Gelli:] but you see, there have always been these massacres here. And there always will be. Oh yes, because there is no order. And also in recent times, because in the early days there were no massacres. They possibly took place after '60; before 1960 they never occurred. It's from the '60s: and why am I talking about the '60s? Because in 1960 there was still a certain condition that the people had emerged from a dictatorship of fascism - call it the dictatorship of fascism - and the people had gotten used to working and had to go to work because otherwise they would have been punished and wouldn't have had to go on strike because with the strike it is not that it occurs; the strike makes people more poor."
"Would Giulio Andreotti have been the true "master" of the P2 Lodge? For heaven's sake... I had the P2, Cossiga the Gladio and Andreotti the Ring."
"With P2 we had Italy in our hands. Then there was the Army, Financial Police, Police: they were clearly commanded by all people from the P2 Masonic lodge. [...] We never wanted to attack and we couldn't attack, but we were a sentinel to prevent the Communist Party from emerging."
"Italy, it must be recorded with honesty, albeit bemusement, has produced few more remarkable individuals this century than Licio Gelli."
"I think every citizen of Bologna has a reaction to that surname. It would have been good if he had never set foot in our country and our city."
"Licio Gelli: In this country there is only one charismatic figure who can truly lead it: Silvio Berlusconi."
"Gomez: But in the meantime we know how these things go: he will end up being acquitted."
"The P2 Lodge, until its dissolution in 1982 due to the Anselmi-Spadolini law, was a regular lodge of the Grand Orient of Italy, as attested by extensive documentation that passed between the grand masters Gamberini, Salvini and Battelli on the one hand and Licio Gelli on the other."
"Cantillon has been a much neglected figure in economics. He is known primarily for his influence on Quesnay and the Physiocrats, and for developing the notion that money flows connect the different sectors of the economy. Yet the place of Cantillon in history is more important than this. His Essay can legitimately be regarded as the first real economic treatise. It envisioned the economy as an interrelated system, and explained how that system worked. For this reason, Cantillon probably deserves to be regarded as the first real economist."
"On l'a tuée à coups de chassepot A coups de mitrailleuse, Et roulée avec son drapeau Dans la terre argileuse. Et la tourbe des bourreaux gras Se croyait la plus forte. Tout ça n'empêche pas, Nicolas Qu'la Commune n'est pas morte."
"Debout, les damnés de la terre Debout, les forçats de la faim La raison tonne en son cratère C'est l'éruption de la fin Du passé faisons table rase Foule esclave, debout, debout Le monde va changer de base Nous ne sommes rien, soyons tout."
"C'est la lutte finale Groupons-nous, et demain L'Internationale Sera le genre humain."
"Il n'est pas de sauveurs suprêmes Ni Dieu, ni César, ni tribun Producteurs, sauvons-nous nous-mêmes Décrétons le salut commun Pour que le voleur rende gorge Pour tirer l'esprit du cachot Soufflons nous-mêmes notre forge Battons le fer quand il est chaud."
"L'État comprime et la loi triche L'impôt saigne le malheureux Nul devoir ne s'impose au riche Le droit du pauvre est un mot creux C'est assez, languir en tutelle L'égalité veut d'autres lois Pas de droits sans devoirs dit-elle Égaux, pas de devoirs sans droits."
"Les rois nous saoulaient de fumées Paix entre nous, guerre aux tyrans Appliquons la grève aux armées Crosse en l'air, et rompons les rangs S'ils s'obstinent, ces cannibales À faire de nous des héros Ils sauront bientôt que nos balles Sont pour nos propres généraux."
"Ouvriers, paysans, nous sommes Le grand parti des travailleurs La terre n'appartient qu'aux hommes L'oisif ira loger ailleurs Combien de nos chairs se repaissent Mais si les corbeaux, les vautours Un de ces matins disparaissent Le soleil brillera toujours."
"Let us leave nothing unmoved that will help us to become a independent people, and nothing more will be done than to ensure that our children receive a good education."
"The Government (Volksraad) of the Orange Free State, which is much smaller than that of the other states, are determined to uplift the standard of education in the Orange Free State to the same level of other wealthier states."
"We should steadily and surely strive to this goal, because if we educate the children of South Africa our influence shall reach far and wide, this influence shall bring about a unification and that is undoubtedly the calling of the Orange Free State."
"The nation of the Orange Free State stand ready for war in such circumstances where peace cannot be secured with honour, and although we recognize our shortcomings, our nation depend on the power of God to deliver us and secure us a victory. With a deep understanding of what we can expect when we place our trust in the Almighty, our nation will enter the war with courage and will fight until the bitter end to preserve the independence of our beloved fatherland"
"We must insure that future generations talk about us as hero's and patriots and not as cowards who gave away our inheritance without a fight. We must endure until the bitter end. I will do so."
"Helder, waardig en overtuigend was dit betoog, een voorbeeld van bezadigheid en zelfbeheersching, en een treffend bewijs dat Steyn zelfs onder de mees opwindinde omstandigheden zicht zelf volkome meester bleeft"
"There is no other course open to us but to fight it out. Every position must be held to the last man: there must be no retirement. With our backs to the wall, and believing in the justice of our cause, each one of us must fight on to the end. The safety of our homes and the freedom of mankind depend alike upon the conduct of each one of us at this critical moment."
"On April 11th, after a dizzying rush of wounded from the new German offensive...I stumbled up to the Sisters' quarters for lunch with the certainty that I could not go on—and saw, pinned up on the notice-board in the Mess, Sir Douglas Haig's “Special Order of the Day.” Standing there spell-bound, with fatigue and despair forgotten, I read the words which put courage into so many men and women whose need of endurance was far greater than my own. ... Although, since that date, the publication of official “revelations” has stripped from the Haig myth much of its glory, I have never been able to visualise Lord Haig as the colossal blunderer, the self-deceived optimist, of the Somme massacre in 1916. I can think of him only as the author of that Special Order, for after I had read it I knew that I should go on, whether I could or not. There was a braver spirit in the hospital that afternoon, and though we only referred briefly and brusquely to Haig's message, each one of us had made up her mind that, though enemy airmen blew up our huts and the Germans advanced upon us from Abbeville, so long as wounded men remained in Staples, there would be “no retirement.”"
"There was no conspicuous officer in the Army who seemed to be better qualified for the Highest Command than Haig. That is to say, there was no outstanding General fit for so overwhelming a position as the command of a force five times as great as the largest army ever commanded by Napoleon, and many more times the size of any army led by Alexander, Hannibal or Caesar. I have no doubt these great men would have risen to the occasion, but such highly gifted men as the British Army possessed were consigned to the mud by orders of men superior in rank but inferior in capacity, who themselves kept at a safe distance from the slime which they had chosen as the terrain where their plans were to operate."
"That the new Prime Minister is a man of remarkable originality and force of character, richly endowed with many of the higher qualities which make a great soldier, we learnt to our cost during the war. But until now we have not known that he also has some, at least, of the gifts of a statesman. He may fail, as others with those rare gifts have failed, for want of the much more commonplace but indispensable abilities which are needed for the daily routine of office; but he has proved that he has the largeness of mind which, rising above the trivialities of the day, can discern and grasp the vital factors of the future. No smaller man would have spoken with the daring candour that marks his speech. ... He spoke as the representative of the great united nation. That is the ideal of a statesman – an ideal which throughout the long struggle with General Botha and his gallant countrymen was held up to us constantly as the true goal of our efforts and our sacrifices by the men who were most resolutely bent on overthrowing the old Boer oligarchy as an insuperable barrier to its accomplishment."
"Following the Boer War came a sharp cleavage among the Boers. That great farm-bred soldier and statesman, Louis Botha, accepted the verdict and became the leader of what might be called a reconciled reconstruction. Firm in the belief that the future of South Africa was greater than the smaller and selfish issue of racial pride and prejudice, he rallied his open-minded and far-seeing countrymen around him. Out of this group developed the South African Party which remains the party of the Dutch loyal to British rule. To quote the program of principles, "Its political object is the development of a South African spirit of national unity and self-reliance through the attainment of the lasting union of the various sections of the people." ... In the years immediately following Union the genius of Botha had full play. He wrought a miracle of evolution. Under his influence the land which still bore the scars of war was turned to plenty. He was a farmer and he bent his energy and leadership to the rebuilding of the shattered commonwealths. Their hope lay in the soil. His right arm was Smuts, who became successively Minister of Finance and Minister of Public Defense."
"Anything is true, is essential to the national."
"Beautiful, moral world, created in an angelic way."
"The program of our nation is given by its history and by its racial individuality, by its modern political life and by its rights and by all that which gave rise to these rights and solemnly guaranteed them."
"The people demand of you that you be equal to these great historical times, that you sacrifice all other considerations, that you offer your utmost abilities, that you act at this time as men who are independent, who have no personal ties and obligations, men of supreme moral and national consciousness."
"These desires and these rights of the Czecho-Slovak nation get new strength and new emphasis through the progress to date of the world war, for the future of Europe is coming to have a new, democratic appearance. All our political aims likewise must be looked at from a standpoint equally elevated and freedom loving, combined with the old Bohemian honesty, unselfishness and devotion, with the ancient noble consideration for the honor of the Bohemian nation and for the verdict of the future. These great qualities the Bohemian nation manifested through the self-confident calm which it managed to preserve during the war in spite of all provocation, not needing instruction by its delegates or other political counsels. This self-confident calm, this instinct of self-preservation, were the healthiest expression of our national life. This eloquent national silence, unbroken through the severest oppression, was to continue till the end of the world struggle."
"That Hindu astronomical lore about ancient times cannot be based on later back-calculation, was also argued by Playfair’s contemporary, the French astronomer jean-Sylvain Bailly: “The motions of the stars calculated by the Hindus before some 4500 years vary not even a single minute from the [modem] tables of Cassini and Meyer. The Indian tables give the same annual variation of the moon as that discovered by Tycho Brahe - a variation unknown to the school of Alexandria and also the Arabs.”"
"The Hindu systems of astronomy are by far the oldest, and that from which the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, and even the Jews derived Hindus their knowledge."
"The motion of the stars calculated by the Hindus some 4500 years before vary not even a single minute from the modern tables of Cassini and Meyer."
"Even before Jones's announcement, Bailly stated that "the Brahmans are the teachers of Pythagoras, the instructors of Greece and through her of the whole of Europe" (51)."
"The astronomer and onetime mayor of Paris, Jean-Sylvain Bailly, in his Histoire de I'astronomie ancienne et moderne (1805), felt that "these tables of the Brahmana are perhaps five or six thousand years old" (53;). Bailly approved of the traditional date of the Kali Yuga, and seemed to have convinced at least some of his colleagues such as Laplace and Playfair of the accuracy of the Indian astronomical claims (Kay, [1924] 1981, 2). This was bitterly opposed by another astronomer, John Bentley ([1825] 1981), with a concern that we have seen was typical for the times: "If we are to believe in the antiquity of Hindu books, as he would wish us, then the Mosaic account is all a fable, or a fiction" (xxvii)."
"These observations must therefore have been made elsewhere, and one can hardly refuse to believe that they were made in India where the Chaldeans seem to have borrowed the first elements of their Astronomy."
"‘It follows, therefore, that the astronomers of Alexandria take from the Indians the primitive and fundamental knowledge of the theory of the moon.’"
"‘Mons. Bailly, the celebrated author of the History of Astronomy, may be regarded as beginning the concert of praises, upon this branch of the science of the Hindus. The grounds of his conclusions were certain astronomical tables; from which he inferred, not only advanced progress in the science, but a date so ancient as to be entirely inconsistent with the chronology of the Hebrew Scriptures. [...] Another cause of great distrust attaches to Mons. Bailly, Voltaire, and other excellent writers in France, abhorring the evils which they saw attached to catholicism, laboured to subvert the authority of the books on which it was founded. Under this impulse, they embraced [...] the tales respecting the great antiquity of the Chinese and Hindus as disproving, entirely, the Mosaic accounts of the duration of the present race of men. [...] The argument [...] by Mons. Bailly, was [...] for a time regarded as a demonstration in form of the falsehood of Christianity.’"
"An enlightened intelligence is a sanctuary where the kindness and magnificence of its Creator are better seen."
"The education of the women stimulates and elevates that of the men.. because of their influence in the family as daughter, sister, wife or mother…They are not only a balm to the hardships of life but also an element that influences and guides men along the path of virtue, perversity or cowardice."
"Where the women are virtuous, vice is timid, and dignity predominates in the popular custom. But were women are frivolous, men become immoral, vicious and forget or despise their sacred duties."
"Let us praise heaven and have faith in the future: We shall see that not even the power of our enemies will weaken our determination to promote the ideals we are fighting for."
"The Spaniards are frivolous, without ideals, with no other conviction than their own personal and momentary convenience. Believe me, chico, I came here with flattering dispositions, but each day I go on acquiring the very sad conviction of the incompatibility of this race with sentiments of honour. It is sad to acknowledge it, but we will learn nothing from this accursed race..."
"I cannot but ask myself, why should a pueblo like Bulacan... be inferior to the pueblo of Malolos? It might be true that Bulacan was not as wealthy or fashionable as Malolos, but surely, its women were not inferior in the aspiration towards knowledge, in the efforts of intellect."
"I exhort you with all the ardour of my soul. Learn, instruct, encourage love of study, and you will have fulfilled your mission on earth."
"Senor Manrique Lallave and his companions are going there to carry on some business which they will explain to you. Believing their interests to be antagonistic to those of certain monopolizers of the country, I would wish that, on your part and that of your friends, you would bestow every kind of protection on them, being assured that these gentlemen and the elements on whom they depend, with whom we are in complete understanding, are disposed to render us service in return."
"You must always remind her (Sofia) to do well at school. She should avoid those who curse; she ought not to become friendly with them nor turn them into enemies, exercising tact in her avoidance...she should appear dignified to all, and confide only to her mother. This ought never to be far from her thinking: no one can love her in the way her parents love her. If it happens that the world deceives her no one will be frank and honest with her except her parents... all her joys, all her sorrows, all her dreadful fears should be confided only to her mother."
"No doubt the friars will slander my religious sentiments in order that you may not believe my words; but you all know me, and if you do not, there is my daughter (Sofia), at an age when she can not yet dissimulate her real belief; interrogate her, scrutinise her conscience with regard to religious matters, and the judgement which you will then form will enable you to judge the religious sentiments of the father"
"If you can take advantage of the support of the Gran Familia, now is the time. For Becerra belongs to it, and besides, this oppressive measure (administrative deportation) affects its prestige and good name, since it is its own members and its friends who are subject to this persecution."
"I think we should protect ourselves from the intrigues of our enemies and the naviete of our friends. Having said this, therefore, and with the data you already possess, the circumstances now exists and the time is right for us to abandon the pen; trust me."
"It’s 5:30 in the afternoon here, while two in the morning there in the Philippines; you already have your Christmas eve mass and noche buena. Here, we spent the entire afternoon reminiscing how joyful Christmas Day there. I imagine Sofia and Anita and all the children in our neighborhood are enjoying right now. If only my will be done, I’d like to spend the next Christmas with you."
"Weyler is going to be relieved. If Burgos takes his place, Calvo y Muñoz may, perhaps, be made Director General by him. I begged the latter in that case first to introduce the bill on representation in the Cortes for the Philippine Islands. He says he will do everything possible. We shall be all right if Burgos comes with Calvo; he is a favorite of the Segundo Cabo there, and Colonel Pazos is a nephew and a right hand man of General Burgos. This Colonel Pazos is one of our collaborators in La Solidaridad and signs himself Padpyvh."
"If you have any resentment, I beg you to put it aside; if you consider me at fault, and this fault is pardonable, forgive me… We would much like that you resume writing for it; not only would we strengthen La Solidaridad but we would defeat the friar intrigue in the Philippines."
"This called for more endurance and patience on their part while peaceful processes were being carried out. But if and when revolution broke out, it was God’s will and would be a fight to the finish irrespective of consequences."
"We will limit ourselves there to precise considerations because duty demands it. In this judgement, unlegislatable right is violated. A sacred freedom is restricted: the Liberty of thought and the right to express one's opinion. Our mission and purpose is to protest, combat, and denounce the cunning politics, the constitutional attempt, the authoritarian repeal (of an ordinance), and the abuse of the Law."
"If our efforts prove useless we shall deplore our defeat; but no bitterness will torture our conscience when from it fatal consequences should emerge, as they ought to."
"Once the struggle is began, one phenomenon would be inevitable and that is, the Filipinos will fight for their right, for their reason, and for their justice irrespective of consequences."
"In the Filipino colony there should be no division, nor is there: one are the sentiments which move us, one the ideals we pursue; the abolition in the Philippines of every obstacle to our liberties, and in due time and by the proper method, the abolition of the flag of Spain as well."
"How could I allow him to attack you when I am interested in your prestige? I am sure that when Eduardo de Lete wrote the article he did not intend to allude to you and much less to molest you. He described an individual whose methods are diametrically opposed to yours."
"You will remember that, walking on the Pascode Recoletos … I told you: "Watch out, for some fine day we shall wake up quarreling without knowing why." You laughed at my witticism and so did I … that occurred to me without reason as a vague presentment."
"I have not stopped wishing for the renewal of our former ties, for I believe that slight differences in procedure are not enough to destroy our common principles, purposes, and feelings."
"For my meals I have to approach friends for loans, day after day. To be able to smoke, I have gone to the extreme of picking up cigarette butts in the streets."
"I can’t seem to forget the peso Anita sent me. I wish you had contrived somehow not to send it so that you could have bought her a pair of shoes instead. My heart bleeds every time I think of the hard life you and our children lead, and so I am very eager to return home to be able to take care of you and our children."
"I always dream that I have Anita on my lap and Sofía by her side; that I kiss them by turns and that both tell me: ‘Remain with us, papá, and don’t return to Madrid’. I awake soaked in tears, and at this very moment that I write this, I cannot contain the tears that drop from my eyes."
"Every day I prepare myself to return there. Thanks that the children are well. Tears begin to fall from my eyes every time I think of their orfandad (bereavement). But I just try to cure my sadness by invoking God, while I pray: ‘Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven’ I am the most unfortunate father because my daughters are the most unfortunate among all daughters… I cannot write more, because tears are flowing from my eyes aplenty."
"Facing the obstacles that the reactionary persecutions bring in opposition to the circulation of this newspaper in the Philippines, we have to suspend our publication for some time. Nowadays, when there are ways to curb difficulties, we will not stop working to overcome them. We are persuaded that no sacrifices are too little to win the rights and the liberty of a nation that is oppressed by slavery. We work within the law and thus will we continue publishing this newspaper whether here or abroad, depending on the exigencies of the fight wherein Filipino reactionaries have come to impress upon all Filipinos that in its soul there beats some sentiment of dignity and shame. Whether here or abroad, we will continue developing our program."
"Please tell my family that I was not able to say goodbye, but that I died with my true friends around me… Pray to God for the good fortune of our country. Continue with your work to attain the happiness and freedom of our beloved country."
"The friars control all the fundamental forces of society in the Philippines. They control the educational system, for they own the Universidad de Santo Tomás, and are the local inspectors of every primary school. They control the minds of the people because, in a dominantly Catholic country, the parish rectors can utilize the pulpit and confessionals to publicly or secretly influence the people; they control all the municipal and local authorities and the medium of communication; and they execute all the orders of the central government."
"Our stepfather, who art in the convent; cursed be thy name; thy greed depart, thy windpipe be slit on earth as it is in heaven. Return to us this day our daily bread; and make us laugh with thy horse laugh, as you laugh when you fleece us. And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from thy evil tongue. Amen."
"Hail Baria, the till of the Friar overflows with Thee; the Friar is with Thee; blessed art Thou among things and blessed is the coffer he filleth with Thee. Holy Baria, Mother of Fees, pray for us that we may not be skinned and put to Death. Amen."
"The time when they unite and awaken from slumber; on that day, the day of God, the people will demand payment... Who will pay?"
"A constitution as of forged steel; body robust and stocky; the thorax that of an invincible titan; a powerful brain enclosed in a square skull; and an intense and searching eye which emitted an irresistible current that vanquished and fascinated."
"A tireless propagandist in the political struggle, formidable in his attack, expert in his defenses, accurate in the strokes of his pen, unyielding in his arguments, whose knowledge and formidable intelligence commanded the respect even of his enemies, whom he had defeated more than one in contests of the mind."
"He has a warlike character; is foxy; has much energy and a great talent for satire; kindness; intrepid; ambitious; has no considerations when anything serious is to be done."
"The most intelligent leader, the real soul of the separatists, very superior to Rizal."
"Why don't we have a hundred Plaridels?"
"He is one of those quos acques ambit Jupiter entitled to sit at the board of the Gods and to be admitted to the beds of the goddesses."
"Del Pilar had a modern sense of mass publicity. While Rizal wrote his tremendous novels in Spanish, a language that few Filipinos could read, del Pilar flooded his native country with smuggled pamphlets written in simple Tagalog, a Tagalog that is still a model of lucidity, directness and force."
"Gradually, Bonifacio gravitated more towards del Pilar for guidance. In fact, he solicited del Pilar’s approval for the by-laws of the Katipunan. Del Pilar wrote him a letter endorsing the secret society and this served as encouragement for an all-out recruitment campaign. The extent of del Pilar’s influence could be best gauged in terms of the impact of his letters on Deodato Arellano, a brother in law, who was a co-founder of the Katipunan. It was reported that Bonifacio copied these letters faithfully because he treasured them as valuable guides for action. Del Pilar served as Bonifacio’s mentor."
"Marcelo H. del Pilar was a genius in the realm of arts and letters. Under the pen name Plaridel, he wrote fiery editorials that exposed the atrocities and injustices of the colonizers."
"You have sat here too long for any good you are doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!"
"Speak for England, Arthur!"
"Our job is not to be a "good Democrat" or a "good Republican"; it is to be a good American, and I really believe that. You know, I love this country. It has afforded me a tremendous opportunity in my life. It amazes me some days that I am a congressman and that I became a dentist. I didn't start with a whole lot in life, and I had to do it a little bit the tough way. It's extraordinary to me that a guy like me literally has had this chance, and it's because it's America. We have to keep that. So, when we are always just voting a party line—whatever that is—I don’t believe that’s healthy. I believe we have human intellect that require us to think through what is best for our district—and what is best for our country—and then you do have to think that through because it isn’t always the same"
"I believe in a strong America. I believe in America that's number one; I believe in the America that was the great republic, the greatest republic ever established on the face of the earth."
"It is related of Captain William Oldrin, one of the charter members of the lodge, that on one occasion when a British cruiser, during the war of 1812, anchored under Crane Neck, a small cannon was brought to bear on her which was sighted and discharged by him with such skill and effect that the ball cut the halyards and the sails came down by the run, which so alarmed the crew that they beat a hasty retreat."
"France is bound under the pain of humiliation and perhaps of social death to complete the French Revolution. It is the task of the nineteenth century; it is particularly the task of our generation. The centenary of 1789 must not dawn upon us without the reconquest by the people for itself and for the rest of the world of the political heritage of which it has been dispossessed since the 18th Brumaire."
"I am sorry to see that our Republican traditions are being weakened and effaced by the influence of humanitarian doctrines. We who are Republicans should no more than other Frenchmen be patient in tolerating the claim of a military and reactionary power to impose its will and preponderance upon our country and upon the rest of Europe. Danton did not refuse his aid."
"On this day, seventy-eight years ago, our fathers founded the Republic, and—while the foreign invader was profaning the sacred soil of their country—vowed to live free or to die fighting. They kept their vow; they defeated the foreigner; and the Republic of 1792 lives in the memory of men as the symbol of heroism and national greatness... May the spirit of power that inspired our forefathers breathe into our own souls, and we, too, shall conquer!"
"At this moment I have only one preoccupation: after our fruitless efforts to drive out the foreigner to try to save at least our Republican institutions."
"I have never been a subscriber to this vague and deceptive theory of a Republican United States of Europe...after the hard and severe lessons given us by recent events I absolutely reject this theory as fatal for the regeneration of France, false as a matter of general history, and dangerous for democracy and the freedom of the world."
"There will be no peace and no order until all classes of society shall have been given a share in the benefits of civilisation and science, and can regard their Government as the legitimate offspring of their own sovereign power, rather than as an exacting and greedy master. Until that day, if we pursue our present fatal path, you will drive the ignorant to support coups d'état at one moment, and swell the forces of street rioters at the next, and we shall be left exposed to the pitiless fury of irresponsible mobs...trying to avenge themselves by looting among the ruins."
"I would have him able, not only to think, read and reason, but also to act and fight. Everywhere we must have, side by side with the schoolmaster, the athlete and the military instructor. [These two forms of education] must be carried on side by side. Otherwise your schools will turn out literary men, but never patriots. The whole world should be made to understand that when a French citizen is born, he is born a soldier."
"I have never been a very keen supporter of the ideas and principles of cosmopolitanism. There is about them something that is too vague, too idealistic, despite the appearance of a certain brilliance and speciousness. I believe that their most assured result is to efface, or reduce too greatly, the love of one's country and one's sense of civic responsibility. In the present situation of our country, what matters, on the contrary, is that our hearts attach themselves more than ever to the principles dictated by a devotion to the national cause, and that they find their inspiration in the French idea. I love my country too much to sacrifice any part whatever of its prosperity or strength to a system, however generous it may be, or appear to be."
"What we have lacked is what people who have allowed themselves to be enslaved for too long always lack: faith in themselves and a proper hatred of the foreigner. Let us never speak of the foreigner, but let it be clear that we always think of him. Thus you will be on the road to revenge."
"I want to make it a platform from which we shall demand each day before Europe our rights and our ravished provinces. France is at the mercy of Germany. We are in a state of latent war; neither peace nor freedom nor progress is any longer possible in Europe."
"If, amid our misfortunes, the Republican form of government has appeared the only one possible, it is because no other was in a position to confront the danger. At the time of the catastrophe there was no thought of any other Government. Where were the claimants to the throne?"
"Never let us deny the poverty and suffering of a section of the democracy. But let us also beware of the Utopias of those who believe that a panacea or a formula can make the world happy. There is no social remedy, because there is not one social question, but a whole series of problems to be solved and difficulties are to be overcome. These problems must be solved one by one and not by means of any single formula. There is no panacea."
"Paris, the cradle of our civilisation, the buckler of our public liberties, the teacher and guide of the national genius, Paris that may be made a mark for the imbecile hatred of a few rustic boors, but can never be downtrodden nor dishonoured."
"Tenacity is one of the characteristics of your race. It is for that reason that our dear Alsace was especially necessary to French unity; it represented that unquenchable energy which exists among us, side by side with a fickleness and levity which at times, unfortunately, mar our national character. Until Alsace comes back into the family circle there will be no France and no Europe. Let us not speak of revenge, let us utter no rash word, let us think over the matter calmly and soberly. For my part, I have no other ambition than faithfully to observe the mandate you have given me, a mandate that I look upon as my greatest honour, the ruling principle of my life."
"A man's first duty is to fight for his country."
"The unity that was attained on July 14, 1789, must be restored. Every effort has been made to sow divisions between peasant and artisan, between artisan and bourgeois; these elements must once more be welded together. Let your fields, your religious festivals, your meetings, your markets, your fairs, serve as opportunities for political discussion and education."
"Wherever there is a French mother, she should bring up her children to show a religious love for France. If there is anything to console us amid the sorrow and shame of our bereaved country, it is the thought that the mothers and the patriots of France will supply her future champions and avengers. But before we think of the future we must make sure of the present, and establish once and for all a Government founded on justice and equality, not an envious and grudging equality, but that equality of rights and duties which recognises no other distinctions between man and man than those arising from character, intelligence and energy in the battle of life."
"The Republic should not mean the privileged rule of a few; it should be a tool that all may handle... Let us shelve the discussion of theories and keep for the time being to questions of conduct, let us tend the Republic with all possible care while it is still in the bud, let us watch over the young tree with loving devotion."
"France has seen a portion of her inheritance wrested from her; she must recover her loss. That is the work we have to do: let us think of it always, but speak of it—never!"
"Go into your places of worship, believe, affirm, pray. What I demand is liberty, an equal liberty for you and for me, for my philosophy and for your religious beliefs. We are not the foes of religion; we want to see it set on a firm basis, free and inviolable."
"Yes, I foresee...I announce the arrival and the presence on the political scene of a new social class which has been active in the affairs of the country for nearly eighteen months, and which is certainly far from inferior to its predecessors... What do you expect? There are in France some social classes which have found it difficult for forty-five years to face up not only to the French revolution, but also to its consequences... And it is in this lack of decision and courage of a notable part of the French bourgeoisie that I find the origin and explanation of all our misfortunes, our shortcomings, of all that is still uncertain, vague and unhealthy in today's politics. One asks oneself, in all conscience, how these men can close their eyes to a spectacle that ought to be obvious to them. Have they not since the fall of the Empire witnessed the arrival of a new generation, intelligent, fit to take part in government, anxious for all its right? ... Is this not a typical warning that the country, after having tried many forms of government, wants at last to call on another social class, to try the republican way?"
"Ah, they never trafficked in their blood, those two beloved provinces: it was their children whose breasts were the first to be pierced! Noble provinces, always heart and soul for France, always looking towards her flag.—"Yes, we suffer," they said, "but it is for our country's sake that we suffer, the very life-blood of the nation courses through our veins! ..." Gentlemen, I cannot go on, I cannot... It is... those provinces..."
"It is well to weigh our words carefully when we speak of France's heritage. France, as you say with justice, will be all the more attractive when her destinies are controlled by all her citizens, and not swayed by the caprice of one. Yes, France in all her glory, France, under the auspices of the Republic, once more at the head of civilisation, offering to the world her legions of artists and workmen, of peasants, traders and professional men—yes, it is worth while to belong to such a France as that, and there is no man who would not then be proud to say, in his turn, "I am a French citizen!" But there is another France that I cherish no less, another France just as dear to me—the France that has been vanquished, overwhelmed, humbled in the dust. Yes, I adore that France as a mother; it is to that France that we must sacrifice our lives, our love of self, our personal enjoyment; it is of that France that we must say, "Where France is, there is our country!""
"What, what, I ask you, would be the value in these formidable elections of an exclusively republican policy, excessively ardent, incisive in its programme, alarming in its doctrines, compromising in its representatives? It would be swept away like straw before the wind, and all we should have left to console us for the blindness of the multitudes would be sterile oratory."
"Yes, everything for the country, we must love it absolutely and be ready to sacrifice everything for it, down to our most private preferences. And this is a little more difficult than offering one's carcass or fortune. I prize nothing more than that beautiful title: Patriot before all else."
"I must confess I am driven to distraction by our everlasting squabbles over personal matters, the perpetual clash of private interests. How can I do anything for my country's good when my hands are tied like this? What a time for petty wrangling! We are in a state of utter chaos; everything is at sixes and sevens. All this time, Germany is growing stronger and Bismarck has the whip-hand. You will notice, too, that every time he cracks his whip it is just after some piece of diplomatic bungling on our part. We are always at the mercy of some "incident." What would become of us if we had not learnt to dodge these blows, if we were as innocent as when we fell into the trap of the forged telegram from Ems?"
"Those who imagine that it is the duty, or that it lies within the power, of the Government to secure the happiness of all, are pursuing a mirage. Strictly speaking, there is only one thing that a Government owes to all, and that is, justice. Every man being his own master, it rests with him to make himself happy or unhappy by using his freedom to good or bad purpose. The State does no more than guarantee an equality of rights to everyone, be he rich or poor, high or low. What we want is not an aristocratic or a middle-class or a proletarian Republic, but a national Republic."
"I am only saddened by the help foreigners obtain from my electoral opponents at home. It is very sad to see the extreme (radical) republican party losing even the notion of patriotism."
"I found myself unable to tolerate such a lowering of republican France before Europe and I intervened. In a few minutes I made them ratify a firm policy, one of national pride."
"As time goes on, the Republic, with its tendency to decentralisation, and its democratic prejudices pushed to extremes, will see its strength and its resources in soldiers melt away. Equality, for the army, means indiscipline and lack of cohesion; liberty means criticism pushed to the point of denigration and calumny against leaders...; fraternity is cosmopolitanism, humanitarianism, international stupidity; all these will doom us and, after a few years, they will throw us, an easy prey, under the feet of the Teutons, united with the Latins from across the Alps... We are slipping on to the slope of the South American republics... And what becomes of France in all this? That is the least concern of this degenerate race."
"Gambetta, like Danton, was first and foremost the man of energy, the eloquent tribune who kindled the spirit of national resistance, and supplied an indispensable moral driving force... [T]here was no one else at the time who could have done it as well, no one who had the confidence, the energy, and the prestige necessary to carry the country with him as did Gambetta. Badly, indeed, he did conduct the war in many ways... But, despite all this, and despite its apparent fruitlessness, Gambetta's work had a real significance; for, in so far as it was conducted well, it revealed new possibilities, and it had a genuine moral value."
"If, as Renan said, he destroyed the legend of 1792, nevertheless, despite the defects of his administration, he showed the immense possibilities of a well-organised national defence, and of the systematic resistance of a whole people to a foreign invader. And Europe, and, most important of all, in Europe Germany, was impressed by that demonstration. There was no more eloquent tribute to its effectiveness than the wish expressed by von der Goltz that should Germany ever suffer such defeat as France in 1870, she should find a man like Gambetta to kindle resistance to the uttermost."
"He had helped to restore the self-respect of the French people, to save its honour, and by identifying every citizen with the national defence to revive the idea of the "Patrie" in all its full significance. Even after his programme of war to the knife had proved impracticable, the idea had value. By it and by his protest against the treaty of Frankfurt, Gambetta personified the conception of the essential unity and indivisibility of France."
"He was a foreigner, who relied greatly on the sonorousness of his voice, from which, however, he obtained striking effects. Not many ideas. He had conducted the war—both well and badly, but more badly than well—but he certainly did conduct it, and as well as he could. And he had profoundly generous impulses—his philosophy was beautiful and noble. I liked Gambetta, and respected him. He didn't know very well where he was going, but he went with ardour."
"[Gambetta is] one of the few orators of our time, perhaps the only one, who could make an audience experience that divine shudder which tightens the throat and makes one's hair stand on end."
"Gambetta was dearly loved in his lifetime, and is still loved no less dearly. His name is a part of France's religion: what more glorious dream could a great soul cherish? In the blaze of that sunlight, his faults, his mistakes, his inconsistencies disappear from view. France no longer sees aught but this—that when everything had crashed into ruin, when all seemed lost, there arose one man who bore up the flag, with indomitable faith, to the end. She loves him vanquished no less than if he had been victorious. Vanquished, do I say? Nay, he is victorious. Yes, he is victorious to-day by our side. It is because he held out in 1870 that France did not lose the world's esteem or her own self-respect, that she kept her rank in the human family, that she raised herself and fulfilled the destiny that he had planned."
"There can be no great nation or great man without a great idea. A nation like France does not own itself finally beaten because of three defeats: that is what he felt, that is what he proclaimed with irresistible force, with deathless eloquence. From 1914 to 1918 his soul fought in company with our heroes. His ideal, the union of all Frenchmen in a victorious Republic, has proved a reality. In the hour when France signed the peace of Right he was present in our midst and took part in the ceremony."
"On December 9, 1918, when we entered Strasburg, we read, on a house in the Grand-Rue, the following scrawl, an artless and touching effusion of popular feeling: "Sleep in peace, Gambetta! At last the glorious dawn of the day you dreamed of has arisen for us!" France, Alsace and Lorraine have always given themselves freely to those who loved them well and never doubted that they were sound."
"I cannot but remember that we are all saddened to-night by the death of a great man—the greatest of all Frenchmen of his time... All, I think, of whatever party, have admired the magnitude of his courage, his tremendous energy, his splendid oratory, and, those who knew him in private, his unmatched gaiety and sparkling wit. These have made him, I repeat, the first Frenchman of his day."
"It seems difficult to speak of "moral" power about Gambetta. His kind of power was almost purely physical; it was a power of courage, energy, and oratory."
"Much as I loved his society, I did not think him a loss to the Republic, for he was too dictatorial and too little inclined to let other men do important work to suit that form of government, except, indeed, in time of war. It is quite true that his was the only strong personality of which France could boast, and it was possible that, so long as he was there, the people would not be likely in a panic to hunt in other camps for a saviour; but great as was his power—physical power, power of courage and of oratory—and terrible as was the hole in France made by his death, nevertheless the smaller men were perhaps more able to conduct the Republic to prosperity and to general acceptance by the people."
"Gambetta (puisque vous me demandez mon opinion sur le dit sieur) m'a paru, au premier abord, grotesque, puis raisonnable, puis agréable el finalement charmant (le mot n'est pas trop fort); nous avons causé seul à seul pendant vingt minutes et nous nous connaissons comme si nous nous étions vus cent fois. Ce qui me plaît en lui c'est qu'il ne donne dans aucun poncif et je le crois humain."
"Gambetta (since you ask my opinion of the aforementioned gentleman) struck me, at first glance, as grotesque, then reasonable, then agreeable, and finally charming (the word is not too strong); we spoke alone for twenty minutes and we know each other as if we had met a hundred times. What I like about him is that he doesn't resort to any clichés, and I believe him to be humane."
"W. E. G. speaking of Gambetta said he belonged to that class of Liberals whose creed had nothing whatever to do with liberty, but only consisted of a war ag. everything that existed: the older and better established, the greater reason for its being uprooted."
"Gambetta was autoritaire; I do not feel as if he were a true liberal in the old and best sense. I cannot forget how hostile he was to the movement for freedom in the Balkans."
"All Bismarck's anxieties so far as Gambetta was concerned came suddenly to an end with the unexpected death of the French politician at the end of the year 1883. Lord Ampthill reported that the tone of the Berlin Press, “official and officious” was “kind, tactful and appreciative, and calculated to give no offence to France.” In contrast to this attitude of the Press, public feeling was relieved at the death of one whose name had become identified with the “war of revenge.” This contrast was shown in the reactions of the Emperor and Bismarck. On receiving the army deputation on New Year’s Day the Emperor said, “Gentlemen, I have good news to give you on the commencement of the New Year. Gambetta is dead, and with him the threatened war of revenge. You can unsaddle your horses, and look forward to long peace.” But this speech displeased Bismarck. Officers were ordered not to repeat it, and the Press instructed to ignore it, friendly articles being sent to them instead. Bismarck realized, now that Gambetta was dead, that he stood for the stability of the republic, and who could tell whether his death might not mean a struggle for power of pretenders of every hue?"
"M. Gambetta, to whom I am giving this letter for you, is what we call in France a Republican. But he has more intellect and sound sense and true wisdom than many of the most enlightened Conservatives, and I only wish that most of the party leaders had as much. No one knows the inside of Paris better than he, or could give you fresher and more accurate news of it."
"Are we not going to take an example from the civilized nations? Let us cast a glance at the achievement of others. By effort, they have achieved the final degree of knowledge and the peak of elevation. For us too all the means are ready, and there remains no obstacle to our progress. Only laziness, stupidity, and ignorance are obstacles to [our] advance."
"Let martial note in triumph float And liberty extend its mighty hand A flag appears 'mid thunderous cheers, The banner of the Western land. The emblem of the brave and true Its folds protect no tyrant crew; The red and white and starry blue Is freedom's shield and hope."
"Hurrah for the flag of the free! May it wave as our standard forever, The gem of the land and the sea, The banner of the right. Let tyrants remember the day When our fathers with mighty endeavor Proclaimed as they marched to the fray That by their might and by their right It waves forever."
"In this year [1824] the aborigines of the Island began to annoy the settlers to a degree that required some active measures of the Government to allay the outraged feelings of this ill-fated race of human beings. These poor bewildered creatures had been treated worse than were any of the American tribes by the Spaniards. Easy, quiet, good-natured, and well-disposed towards the white population, they could no longer brook the treatment they received from the invaders of their country. Their hunting grounds were taken from them, and they themselves were driven like trespassers from the favorite spots for which their ancestors had bled, and had claimed by conquest. The various tribes which formerly were at war with each other, about this time seemed to forget their private differences, and their great aim was to protect themselves from slaughter, and to be revenged! The stock-keepers may be considered as the destroyers of nearly the whole of the aborigines—the proper, the legitimate owners of the soil: these miscreants so imposed upon their docility, that at length they thought little or nothing of destroying the men for the sake of carrying to their huts the females of the tribes; and, if it were possible in a work like this to record but a tithe of the murders committed on these poor harmless creatures, it would make the reader's blood run cold at the bare recital. In self-defence were these poor harmless creatures driven to desperate means, their fine kangaroo grounds were taken from them, and thus were they in want of their customary food; and when every other means of obtaining a livelihood was debarred to them, necessity compelled them to seek food of their despoilers."
"They proceeded, not with the sword, but with the olive branch."
"The Uzbeks manage all their affairs by means of slaves, who are chiefly brought from Persia by the Toorkmuns. Here these poor wretches are exposed for sale, and occupy thirty or forty stalls, where they are examined like cattle, only with this difference, that they are able to give an account of themselves vivâ voce. On the morning I visited the bazar, there were only six unfortunate beings, and I witnessed the manner in which they are disposed of. They are first interrogated regarding their parentage and capture, and if they are Mahommedans, that is, Soonees [Sunni]. The question is put in that form, for the Uzbeks do not consider a Shiah to be a true believer; with them, as with the primitive Christians, a sectary is more odious than an unbeliever. After the intended purchaser is satisfied of the slave being an infidel (kaffir), he examines his body, particularly noting if he be free from leprosy, so common in Toorkistan, and then proceeds to bargain for his price. Three of the Persian boys were for sale at thirty tillas of gold apiece; and it was surprising to see how contented the poor fellows sat under their lot. I heard one of them telling how he had been seized south of Meshid, while tending his flocks. There was one unfortunate girl, who had been long in service, and was now exposed for sale by her master, because of his poverty. I felt certain that many a tear had been shed in the court where I surveyed the scene; but I was assured from every quarter that slaves are kindly treated; and the circumstance of so many of them continuing in the country after they have been manumitted, seems to establish this fact. The bazars of Bokhara are chiefly supplied from Orgunje. Russian and Chinese are also sold, but rarely. The feelings of an European revolt at this most odious traffic; but the Uzbeks entertain no such notions, and believe that they are conferring a benefit on a Persian when they purchase him, and see that he renounces his heretical opinions."
"From the slave-market I passed on that morning to the great bazar, and the very first sight which fell under my notice was the offenders against Mahommedanism of the preceding Friday. They consisted of four individuals, who had been caught asleep at prayer time, and a youth, who had been smoking in public. They were all tied to each other, and the person who had been found using tobacco led the way, holding the hookah, or pipe, in his hand. The officer of police followed with a thick thong, and chastised them as he went, calling aloud, ‘Ye followers of Islam, behold the punishment of those who violate the law!’ Never, however, was there such a series of contradiction and absurdity as in the practice and theory of religion in Bokhara. You may openly purchase tobacco and all the most approved apparatus for inhaling it; yet if seen smoking in public you are straightway dragged before the Cazee [Kazi], punished by stripes, or paraded on a donkey, with a blackened face, as a warning to others. If a person is caught flying pigeons on a Friday, he is sent forth with the dead bird round his neck, seated on a camel. If seen in the streets at the time of prayers, and convicted of such habitual neglect, fines and imprisonment follow; yet there are bands of the most abominable wretches, who frequent the streets at evening for purposes as contrary to the Koran as to nature. Every thing, indeed, presents a tissue of contrarieties; and none were more apparent to me than the punishment of the culprits who were marching, with all the pomp of publicity, past the very gateway of the court where human beings were levelled with the brutes of the earth, no doubt against the laws of humanity, but as certainly against the laws of Mahommed."
"The Hindoos of Bokhara courted our society, for that people seem to look upon the English as their natural superiors. They visited us in every country we passed, and would never speak any other language than Hindoostanee, which was a bond of union between us and them. In this country they appeared to enjoy a sufficient degree of toleration to enable them to live happily. An enumeration of their restrictions might make them appear a persecuted race. They are not permitted to build temples, nor set up idols, nor walk in procession: they do not ride within the walls of the city, and must wear a peculiar dress. They pay the ‘jizyu,’ or poll-tax, which varies from four to eight rupees a year; but this they only render in common with others, not Mahommedans. They must never abuse or ill-use a Mahommedan. When the king passes their quarter of the city, they must draw up, and wish him health and prosperity; when on horseback outside the city, they must dismount if they meet his majesty or the Cazee [Kazi]. They are not permitted to purchase female slaves, as an infidel would defile a believer; nor do any of them bring their families beyond the Oxus. For these sacrifices the Hindoos in Bokhara live unmolested, and, in all trials and suits, have equal justice with the Mahommedans. I could hear of no forcible instance of conversion to Islam, though three or four individuals had changed their creed in as many years. The deportment of these people is most sober and orderly; — one would imagine that the tribe had renounced laughter, if he judged by the gravity of their countenances. They themselves, however, speak highly of their privileges, and are satisfied at the celerity with which they can realise money, though it be at the sacrifice of their prejudices. There are about 300 Hindoos in Bokhara, living in a caravansary of their own. They are chiefly natives of Shikarpoor in Sinde, and their number has of late years rather increased. The Uzbeks, and, indeed, all the Mahommedans, find themselves vanquished by the industry of these people, who will stake the largest sums of money for the smallest gain."
"Among the Hindoos we had a singular visiter in a deserter from the Indian army at Bombay. He had set out on a pilgrimage to all the shrines of the Hindoo world, and was then proceeding to the fire temples on the shores of the Caspian! I knew many of the officers of the regiment (the 24th N. I.) to which he had belonged, and felt pleased at hearing names which were familiar to me in this remote city. I listened with interest to the man’s detail of his adventures and travels, nor was he deterred by any fear that I would lodge information against him, and secure his apprehension. I looked upon him as a brother in arms, and he amused me with many a tale of my friend Moorad Beg of Koondooz, whom he had followed in his campaigns, and served as a bombardier. This man, when he first showed himself, was disguised in the dress of a pilgrim; but the carriage of a soldier is not to be mistaken, even if met at Bokhara."
"He always said "Good mornin'," An' emphasized the "good," As if he’d make it happy For each one, if he could. "Good mornin'!" Just "Good mornin'" To ev'ryone he met; He said it with a twinkle That no one could forget."
"Your flag and my flag— And how it flies to-day! In your land and my land, And half the world away! Rose-red and blood-red, The stripes forever gleam; Snow-white and soul-white— The good forefathers' dream; Sky-blue and true-blue, with stars to shine aright— The gloried guidon of the day, a shelter through the night."
"Who hath a book Hath friends at hand, And gold and gear At his command; And rich estates, If he but look, Are held by him Who hath a book. Who hath a book Hath but to read And he may be A king, indeed. His kingdom is His inglenook— All this is his Who hath a book."
"Forever on Thanksgiving Day, The heart will find the pathway home."
"The thing that goes the farthest towards making life worthwhile, That costs the least and does the most is just a pleasant smile."
"Proud Queen of isles! Thou sittest vast, alone, A host of vassals bending round thy throne: Like some fair swan that skims the silver tide, Her silken cygnets strew'd on every side, So floatest thou, thy Polynesian brood Dispers'd around thee on thy Ocean flood, While ev'ry surge that doth thy bosom lave, Salutes thee "Empress of the Southern Wave.""
"And, oh Britannia! should'st thou cease to ride Despotic Empress of old Ocean's tide;— Should thy tam'd Lion—spent his former might— No longer roar, the terror of the fight:— Should e'er arrive that dark, disastrous hour, When, bow'd by luxury, thou yield'st to pow'r; When thou, no longer freest of the free, To some proud victor bend'st the vanquish'd knee;— May all thy glories in another sphere Relume, and shine more brightly still than here; May this—thy last-born —then arise, To glad thy heart, and greet thy eyes; And float, with flag unfurl'd, A new in another world!"
"Andreotti did everything and the opposite of everything; Forlani did nothing and the opposite of nothing."
"Craxi's politics have the present, they have the future, they have eternity."
"[When asked if he had ever experienced homosexual feelings] Certainly. And more than once. I experience friendship in a very strong way, even in these terms. After all, I believe that homosexuality can be a Christian fact [...] The Church can admit that two people of the same sex exchange affection and use purely erotic terminology [...] Pope Paul VI in the document Persona humana defines homosexuality as a ‘disordered condition’, not a sinful one. What does ‘disordered condition’ mean? This needs to be discussed."
"I have always noticed that the only figure defined as "unjust" in the Gospel is that of a judge: and it seemed to me an apt definition. Fascism was less hateful than this robed bureaucracy that used violence in the name of justice. In the history of Italy, if freedom had prevailed, as I now believe to be certain, the names of the magistrates of Milan, Antonio Di Pietro, Borrelli, Davigo, and Boccassini would have been forever signati nigro lapillo as figures to be remembered with horror, those of the unjust judge."
"The Islamic God has nothing in common with man: he is a Presence without measure, blending personality and impersonality in himself. [...] For the Christian, it is clear here what the Trinity means to him, namely that God is a relationship between persons, that is, intrinsically human. [...] The Christian God is a person and can only be understood as a relationship between persons."
"In the 20th century, Christian Democracy performed the function that the States of the Church had performed for fourteen hundred years"
"(About the cultural roots of Umberto Bossi) A little bit of right-wing Fascism, a little bit of Marxism in slang."
"On the front of anti-clericalism and aversion to the Church, we are witnessing a real drift, parallel to certain political battles. There is an anti-Christian tide rising in Europe, an anti-Catholic sentiment. It is difficult to predict exactly what will happen. Violence no longer affects only politics but also the symbolic part of society. Therefore, it also affects the Church. :*Quoted in Roberto Zuccolini, Baget Bozzo: è il segno dell' anticlericalismo dilagante (Baget Bozzo: it is a sign of rampant anticlericalism), Corriere della sera”', 30 April 2007, p. 3."
"I don't like Costanzo. We argued in 1994 when he presented Berlusconi with an audience of hostile people. Vespa, on the other hand, created Porta a Porta, a masterpiece. He has been more useful than Costanzo. “'Porta a Porta”' is the most useful thing there is for the centre-right."
"(About the possible successor to Silvio Berlusconi) The issue has not yet arisen, for the moment. However, the two most likely candidates are currently Gianfranco Fini and Giulio Tremonti. They are neck and neck. [...] I do not see any women as future leaders; no one in Forza Italia is ready, nor indeed in the entire centre-right."
"The transformation of the electorate into a television audience has raised the quality of democracy and brought direct democracy closer to parliamentary democracy, thus bringing Western democracy closer to its model, Athenian democracy, the original form of direct democracy."
"Between us and the left lies the blood of Craxi, which cries out for vengeance before God."
"The West has lost its faith but not the wisdom and hope of faith [...], the Christian roots of the West appear precisely when they are no longer recognised."
"The primacy of personal freedom – writes Don Gianni, referring to the social order – indicates the transcendence of the person over society... this idea is a Christian legacy: it is divine life communicated to the person by the Incarnate Word, Jesus Christ: every person has become an end in relation to society because of the primacy of Jesus Christ as a person who lives in other people. (p. 136)"
"Europe has received from the United States the imprint of Christianity in freedom. (p. 137)"
"The West, the concept born in the struggle against Nazism and Communism [...] is the secular and liberal version of Christianity, thanks above all to the United States [...] by opposing the United States at all levels, the Church is fighting against the Christianity of which the West is the fruit."
"We are pleased to publish this article by Gianni Baget Bozzo, a member of the Christian Democracy party in the 1950s, now a priest and historian of the Catholic party."