Orators

"We should never take pleasure in causing pain to others, even to those who have wronged us, but rather strive to do good to all."

"On Duties (De Officiis) 1.33 (translated by Walter Miller)"

"Equidem ad pacem hortari non desino; quae vel iniusta utilior est quam iustissimum bellum cum civibus."

"They are such fools that they seem to expect that, though the Republic is lost, their fish-ponds will be safe."

"since our leading men think themselves in a seventh heaven, if there are bearded mullets in their fish-ponds that will come to hand for food, and neglect everything else, do not you think that I am doing no mean service if I secure that those who have the power, should not have the will, to do any harm?"

"Quidem concessum est rhetoribus ementiri in historiis ut aliquid dicere possint argutius."

"Nemo enim fere saltat sobrius, nisi forte insanit."

"Etenim, iudices, cum omnibus virtutibus me adfectum esse cupio, tum nihil est quod malim quam me et esse gratum et videri. Haec enim est una virtus non solum maxima sed etiam mater virtutum omnium reliquarum."

"Silent enim leges inter arma."

"O di immortales! non intellegunt homines, quam magnum vectigal sit parsimonia."

"Vi victa vis."

"Id quod est praestantissimum, maximeque optabile omnibus sanis et bonis et beatis, cum dignitate otium."

"At vero eos et accusamus et iusto odio dignissimos ducimus, qui blanditiis praesentium voluptatum deleniti atque corrupti, quos dolores et quas molestias excepturi sint, obcaecati cupiditate non provident, similique sunt in culpa, qui officia deserunt mollitia animi, id est laborum et dolorum fuga. et harum quidem rerum facilis est et expedita distinctio. nam libero tempore, cum soluta nobis est eligendi optio, cumque nihil impedit, quo minus id, quod maxime placeat, facere possimus, omnis voluptas assumenda est, omnis dolor repellendus. temporibus autem quibusdam et aut officiis debitis aut rerum necessitatibus saepe eveniet, ut et voluptates repudiandae sint et molestiae non recusandae. itaque earum rerum hic tenetur a sapiente delectus, ut aut reiciendis voluptatibus maiores alias consequatur aut perferendis doloribus asperiores repellat."

"Est quidem vera lex recta ratio naturae congruens, diffusa in omnes, constans, sempiterna, quae vocet ad officium iubendo, vetando a fraude deterreat; quae tamen neque probos frustra iubet aut vetat nec improbos iubendo aut vetando movet. Huic legi nec obrogari fas est neque derogari ex hac aliquid licet neque tota abrogari potest, nec vero aut per senatum aut per populum solvi hac lege possumus, neque est quaerendus explanator aut interpres eius alius, nec erit alia lex Romae, alia Athenis, alia nunc, alia posthac, sed et omnes gentes et omni tempore una lex et sempiterna et immutabilis continebit, unusque erit communis quasi magister et imperator omnium deus, ille legis huius inventor, disceptator, lator; cui qui non parebit, ipse se fugiet ac naturam hominis aspernatus hoc ipso luet maximas poenas, etiamsi cetera supplicia, quae putantur, effugerit."

"quasi bonis et fortibus et magno animo praeditis ulla sit ad rem publicam adeundi causa iustior, quam ne pareant inprobis neve ab isdem lacerari rem publicam patiantur"

"Etiamne hoc adfirmare potes, Luculle, esse aliquam vim, cum prudentia et consilio scilicet, quae finxerit vel, ut tuo verbo utar, quae fabricata sit hominem? Qualis ista fabrica est? ubi adhibita? quando? cur? quo modo?"

"Omnium rerum principia parva sunt."

"Laudandum adulescentem, ornandum, tollendum."

"Si hortum in bibliotheca habes, deerit nihil."

"Una navis est iam bonorum omnium."

"Civis Romanus sum."

"Adsiduus usus uni rei deditus et ingenium et artem saepe vincit."

"non enim parum cognosse, sed in parum cognito stulte et diu perseverasse turpe est, propterea quod alterum communi hominum infirmitati alterum singulari cuiusque vitio est attributum."

"Nonne, ut ignis in aquam conjectus, continuo restinguitur et refrigeratur, sic refervens falsum crimen in purissimam et castissimam vitam collatum, statim concidit et extinguitur?"

"Sic submissa voce agam tantum ut iudices audiant; neque enim desunt qui istos in me atque in optimum quemque incitent; quos ego, quo id facilius faciant, non adiuvabo."

"cum vero id possis mutata velificatione assequi, stultum est eum tenere cum periculo cursum, quem ceperis, potius quam eo commutato quo velis tamen pervenire, sic,"

"Lex est summa ratio insita a natura, quae iubet ea, quae facienda sunt, prohibetque contraria."

"Est enim unum ius quo deuincta est hominum societas et quod lex constituit una, quae lex est recta ratio imperandi atque prohibendi. Quam qui ignorat, is est iniustus, siue est illa scripta uspiam siue nusquam."

"Quid enim foedius auaritia, quid immanius libidine, quid contemptius timiditate, quid abiectius tarditate et stultitia dici potest?"

"Nam et qui bene imperat, paruerit aliquando necesse est, et qui modeste paret, videtur qui aliquando imperet dignus esse."

"Salus populi suprema lex esto."

"Noxia poena par esto."

"Quo usque tandem abutere, Catilina, patientia nostra?"

"O tempora! O mores!"

"Quodsi ea mihi maxime inpenderet tamen hoc animo fui semper, ut invidiam virtute partam gloriam, non invidiam putarem."

"O di inmortales! ubinam gentium sumus? in qua urbe vivimus? quam rem publicam habemus? Hic, hic sunt in nostro numero, patres conscripti, in hoc orbis terrae sanctissimo gravissimoque consilio, qui de nostro omnium interitu, qui de huius urbis atque adeo de orbis terrarum exitio cogitent!"

"Prima enim sequentem honestum est in secundis tertiisque consistere. (3)"

"Nescire autem quid ante quam natus sis acciderit, id est semper esse puerum. Quid enim est aetas hominis, nisi ea memoria rerum veterum cum superiorum aetate contexitur? (120)"

"And what can be more divine than the exhalations of the earth, which affect the human soul so as to enable her to predict the future ? And could the hand of time evaporate such a virtue? Do you suppose you are talking of some kind of wine or salted meat ?"

"Sed ita a principio incohatum esse mundum, ut certis rebus certa signa praecurrerent."

"Non enim omnis error stultitia est dicenda."

"Nihil tam absurde dici potest, quod non dicatur ab aliquo philosophorum."

"Nec vero superstitione tollenda religio tollitur."

"Quibus enim nihil est in ipsis opis ad bene beateque vivendum, eis omnis aetas gravis est; qui autem omnia bona a se ipsi petunt, eis nihil potest malum videri quod naturae necessitas afferat. quo in genere est in primis senectus, quam ut adipiscantur omnes optant, eandem accusant adeptam; tanta est stultitiae inconstantia atque perversitas. obrepere aiunt eam citius quam putassent. primum quis coegit eos falsum putare? qui enim citius adulescentiae senectus quam pueritiae adulescentia obrepit? deinde qui minus gravis esset eis senectus, si octingentesimum annum agerent, quam si octogesimum? praeterita enim aetas quamvis longa, cum effluxisset, nulla consolatione permulcere posset stultam senectutem."

"Etenim, cum complector animo, quattuor reperio causas, cur senectus misera videatur: unam, quod avocet a rebus gerendis; alteram, quod corpus faciat infirmius; tertiam, quod privet fere omnibus voluptatibus; quartam, quod haud procul absit a morte."

"Maximas res publicas ab adulescentibus labefactatas, a senibus sustentatas et restitutas reperietis. ... temeritas est videlicet florentis aetatis, prudentia senescentis."

"Nemo enim est tam senex qui se annum non putet posse vivere."

"Denique isto bono utare, dum adsit, cum absit, ne requiras: nisi forte adulescentes pueritiam, paulum aetate progressi adulescentiam debent requirere. cursus est certus aetatis et una via naturae eaque simplex, suaque cuique parti aetatis tempestivitas est data, ut et infirmitas puerorum et ferocitas iuvenum et gravitas iam constantis aetatis et senectutis maturitas naturale quiddam habet, quod suo tempore percipi debeat."

"Omnia autem quae secundum naturam fiunt sunt habenda in bonis."

"Itaque adulescentes mihi mori sic videntur, ut cum aquae multitudine flammae vis opprimitur, senes autem sic, ut cum sua sponte nulla adhibita vi consumptus ignis exstinguitur; et quasi poma ex arboribus, cruda si sunt, vix evelluntur, si matura et cocta, decidunt, sic vitam adulescentibus vis aufert, senibus maturitas; quae quidem mihi tam iucunda est, ut, quo propius ad mortem accedam, quasi terram videre videar aliquandoque in portum ex longa navigatione esse venturus."

"Post mortem quidem sensus aut optandus aut nullus est. Sed hoc meditatum ab adulescentia debet esse mortem ut neglegamus, sine qua meditatione tranquillo animo esse nemo potest. Moriendum enim certe est, et incertum an hoc ipso die. Mortem igitur omnibus horis impendentem timens qui poterit animo consistere?"

"Omnino, ut mihi quidem videtur studiorum omnium satietas vitae facit satietatem. Sunt pueritiae studia certa: num igitur ea desiderant adulescentes? Sunt ineuntis adulescentiae: num ea constans iam requirit aetas, quae media dicitur? Sunt etiam eius aetatis: ne ea quidem quaeruntur in senectute. Sunt extrema quaedam studia senectutis: ergo, ut superiorum aetatum studia occidunt, sic occidunt etiam senectutis; quod cum evenit, satietas vitae tempus maturum mortis affert."

"Existunt etiam saepe iniuriae calumnia quadam et nimis callida sed malitiosa iuris interpretatione. Ex quo illud "summum ius summa iniuria" factum est iam tritum sermone proverbium."

"In primisque hominis est propria veri inquisitio atque investigatio. Itaque cum sumus necessariis negotiis curisque vacui, tum avemus aliquid videre, audire, addiscere cognitionemque rerum aut occultarum aut admirabilium ad beate vivendum necessarian! ducimus. Ex quo intellegitur, quod verum, simplex sincerumque sit, id esse naturae hominis aptissimum. Huic veri videndi cupiditati adiuncta est appetitio quaedam principatus, ut nemini parere animus bene informatus a natura velit nisi praecipienti aut docenti aut utilitatis causa iuste et legitime imperanti; ex quo magnitudo animi existit humanarumque rerum contemptio."

"Non nobis solum nati sumus ortusque nostri partem patria vindicat, partem amici."

"Nam cum sint duo genera decertandi, unum per disceptationem, alterum per vim, cumque illud proprium sit hominis, hoc beluarum, confugiendum est ad posterius, si uti non licet superiore."

"In omnibus autem negotiis priusquam adgrediare, adhibenda est praeparatio diligens."

"Parvi enim sunt foris arma, nisi est consilium domi."

"Cedant arma togae, concedat laurea laudi."

"Ludo autem et ioco uti illo quidem licet, sed sicut somno et quietibus ceteris tum, cum gravibus seriisque rebus satis fecerimus."

"Sed tamen ira procul absit, cum qua nihil recte fieri nec considerate potest."

"Appetitus rationi pareat."

"Illiberales autem et sordidi quaestus mercennariorum omnium, quorum operae, non quorum artes emuntur; est enim in illis ipsa merces auctoramentum servitutis."

"Omnium autem rerum, ex quibus aliquid adquiritur, nihil est agri cultura melius, nihil uberius, nihil dulcius, nihil homine libero dignius."

"Omnium autem rerum nec aptius est quicquam ad opes tuendas ac tenendas quam diligi nec alienius quam timeri."

"Multorum autem odiis nullas opes posse obsistere, si antea fuit ignotum, nuper est cognitum. Nec vero huius tyranni solum, quem armis oppressa pertulit civitas ac paret cum maxime mortuo interitus declarat, quantum odium hominum valeat ad pestem, sed reliquorum similes exitus tyrannorum, quorum haud fere quisquam talem interitum effugit. Malus enim est custos diuturnitatis metus contraque benivolentia fidelis vel ad perpetuitatem."

"Vera gloria radices agit atque etiam propagatur, ficta omnia celeriter tamquam flosculi decidunt nec simulatum potest quicquam esse diuturnum."

"P. Scipionem [...] dicere solitum scripsit Cato [...] numquam se minus otiosum esse, quam cum otiosus; nec minus solum, quam cum solus esset."

"Ita duae res, quae languorem afferunt ceteris, illum acuebant; otium et solitudo."

"Here you have a man who desired to be king of the Roman people, and who accomplished his purpose. Whoever says that this desire was right, is mad; for he approves of the destruction of laws and of liberty, and deems their foul and detestable suppression glorious. But as for him who acknowledges that it is not right to usurp sovereign power in a state which was and which ought to be free, yet that it is expedient for him who can do so, by what remonstrance, or rather by what reproach, can I strive to draw him back from so grave an error? For (ye immortal gods!) can the basest and foulest parricide committed upon his country be expedient for any man, even though he who has made himself thus guilty be called parent by the citizens whom he has brought under the yoke? Expediency, then, ought to be measured by the right, and so indeed, that the two, though expressed by different names, may have to the ear the same sound. I do not accord with the opinion of the multitude who ask what can be more expedient than the possession of sovereign power; on the other hand, I find nothing more inexpedient for him who has obtained this power unjustly, when I begin to recall reason to things as they really are. For can anxieties, solicitudes, terrors by day and by night, a life crowded full of snares and of perils, be expedient for any one? Attius says,"The throne has many faithless, loyal few.""

"How long will men dare to call anything expedient that is not right? Can odium and infamy be of service to any empire, which ought to be supported by glory and by the good-will of its allies? I was often at variance even with my friend Cato. He seemed to me to guard the treasury and the revenues too obstinately, to refuse everything to the farmers of the revenue, and many things to our allies; while we ought to be generous to our allies, and to deal with the farmers of the revenue as leniently as we individually do with our own tenants, especially as the union of orders to which such a course would conduce is for the well-being of the state."

"Honesta enim bonis viris, non occulta quaeruntur."

"Si responderint se impunitate proposita facturos, quod expediat, facinorosos se esse fateantur, si negent, omnia turpia per se ipsa fugienda esse concedant."

"Nam et secundas res splendidiores facit amicitia et adversas partiens communicansque leviores."

"Ita pulcherrima illa et maxime naturali carent amicitia per se et propter se expetita nec ipsi sibi exemplo sunt, haec vis amicitiae et qualis et quanta sit. Ipse enim se quisque diligit, non ut aliquam a se ipse mercedem exigat caritatis suae, sed quod per se sibi quisque carus est. Quod nisi idem in amicitiam transferetur, verus amicus numquam reperietur; est enim is qui est tamquam alter idem."

"Virtute enim ipsa non tam multi praediti esse quam videri volunt."

"Quid tandem erat causae, cur in senatum hesterno die tam acerbe cogerer? Solusne aberam, an non saepe minus frequentes fuistis, an ea res agebatur, ut etiam aegrotos deferri oporteret? Hannibal, credo, erat ad portas, aut de Pyrrhi pace agebatur, ad quam causam etiam Appium illum et caecum et senem delatum esse memoriae proditum est."

"Vi et armis."

"Sed quo beneficio? quod me Brundisi non occideris?"

"Quod est aliud, patres conscripti, beneficium latronum, nisi ut commemorare possint iis se dedisse vitam, quibus non ademerint? Quod si esset beneficium, numquam, qui illum interfecerunt, a quo erant conservati, quos tu clarissimos viros soles appellare, tantam essent gloriam consecuti. Quale autem beneficium est, quod te abstinueris nefario scelere? Qua in re non tam iucundum mihi videri debuit non interfectum me a te quam miserum te id impune facere potuisse. Sed sit beneficium, quandoquidem maius accipi a latrone nullum potuit; in quo potes me dicere ingratum? An de interitu rei publicae queri non debui, ne in te ingratus viderer?"

"Hoc qui non videt, excors; qui, cum videt, decernit, impius est."

"Reddite igitur, patres conscripti, ei vitam, cui ademistis. Vita enim mortuorum in memoria est posita vivorum."

"M: Nam efficit hoc philosophia: medetur animis, inanes sollicitudines detrahit, cupiditatibus liberat, pellit timores."

"Quotus enim quisque philosophorum invenitur, qui sit ita moratus, ita animo ac vita constitutus, ut ratio postulat? qui disciplinam suam non ostentationem scientiae, sed legem vitae putet? qui obtemperet ipse sibi et decretis suis pareat?"

"A: Quod est enim maius argumentum nihil eam prodesse quam quosdam perfectos philosophos turpiter vivere? M: Nullum vero id quidem argumentum est. Nam ut agri non omnes frugiferi sunt qui coluntur [...] sic animi non omnes culti fructum ferunt. Atque, ut in eodem simili verser, ut ager quamvis fertilis sine cultura fructuosus esse non potest, sic sine doctrina animus; ita est utraque res sine altera debilis. Cultura autem animi philosophia est; haec extrahit vitia radicitus et praeparat animos ad satus accipiendos eaque mandat eis et, ut ita dicam, serit, quae adulta fructus uberrimos ferant."

"A: Dolorem existimo maximum malorum omnium. M: Etiamne malus quam dedecus? A: Non audeo id dicere equidem, et me pudet tam cito de sententia esse deiectam. M: Magis esset pudendum, si in sententia permaneres."

"A: Nunc rationem, quo ea me cumque ducet, sequar."

"Morbi perniciosiores pluresque sunt animi quam corporis."

"Est profecto animi medicina, philosophia; cuius auxilium non ut in corporis morbis petendum est foris, omnibusque opibus viribus, ut nosmet ipsi nobis mederi possimus, elaborandum est."

"Atque cum perturbationes animi miseriam, sedationes autem vitam efficiant beatam, duplexque ratio perturbationis sit, quod aegritudo et metus in malis opinatis, in bonorum autem errore laetitia gestiens libidoque versetur, quae omnia cum consilio et ratione pugnent, his tu tam gravibus concitationibus tamque ipsis inter se dissentientibus atque distractis quem vacuum solutum liberum videris, hunc dubitabis beatum dicere? atqui sapiens semper ita adfectus est; semper igitur sapiens beatus est."

"What! You would convict me from my own words, and bring against me what I had said or written elsewhere. You may act in that manner with those who dispute by established rules. We live from hand to mouth, and say anything that strikes our mind with probability, so that we are the only people who are really at liberty.""

"We know, that of all living beings man is the best formed, and, as the gods belong to this number, they must have a human form. ... I do not mean to say that the gods have body and blood in them; but I say that they seem as if they had bodies with blood in them. . . , Epicurus, for whom hidden things were as tangible as if he had touched them with his finger, teaches us that gods are not generally visible, but that they are intelligible; that they are not bodies having a certain solidity . . . but that we can recognize them by their passing images; that as there are atoms enough in the infinite space to produce such images, these are produced before us . . . and make us realize what are these happy, immortal beings."

"Beatus autem esse sine virtute nemo potest"

"Mala enim et impia consuetudo est contra deos disputandi, sive ex animo id fit sive simulate."

"Dico igitur providentia deorum mundum et omnes mundi partes et initio constitutas esse et omni tempore administrari."

"Nulla igitur in caelo nec fortuna nec temeritas nec erratio nec vanitas inest contraque omnis ordo veritas ratio constantia, quaeque his vacant ementita et falsa plenaque erroris, ea circum terras infra lunam, quae omnium ultima est, in terrisque versantur. caelestem ergo admirabilem ordinem incredibilemque constantiam, ex qua conservatio et salus omnium omnis oritur, qui vacare mente putat is ipse mentis expers habendus est."

"Si igitur meliora sunt ea quae natura quam illa quae arte perfecta sunt, nec ars efficit quicquam sine ratione, ne natura quidem rationis expers est habenda. Qui igitur convenit, signum aut tabulam pictam cum aspexeris, scire adhibitam esse artem, cumque procul cursum navigii videris, non dubitare, quin id ratione atque arte moveatur, aut cum solarium vel descriptum vel ex aqua contemplere, intellegere declarari horas arte, non casu, mundum autem, qui et has ipsas artes et earum artifices et cuncta conplectatur consilii et rationis esse expertem putare. [88] Quod si in Scythiam aut in Brittanniam sphaeram aliquis tulerit hanc, quam nuper familiaris noster effecit Posidonius, cuius singulae conversiones idem efficiunt in sole et in luna et in quinque stellis errantibus, quod efficitur in caelo singulis diebus et noctibus, quis in illa barbaria dubitet, quin ea sphaera sit perfecta ratione."

"Hic ego non mirer esse quemquam, qui sibi persuadeat corpora quaedam solida atque individua vi et gravitate ferri mundumque effici ornatissimum et pulcherrimum ex eorum corporum concursione fortuita? Hoc qui existimat fieri potuisse, non intellego, cur non idem putet, si innumerabiles unius et viginti formae litterarum vel aureae vel qualeslibet aliquo coiciantur, posse ex is in terram excussis annales Enni, ut deinceps legi possint, effici; quod nescio an ne in uno quidem versu possit tantum valere fortuna."

"Quibus enim oculis animi intueri potuit vester Plato fabricam illam tanti operis, qua construi a deo atque aedificari mundum facit; quae molitio, quae ferramenta, qui vectes, quae machinae, qui ministri tanti muneris fuerunt; quem ad modum autem oboedire et parere voluntati architecti aer, ignis, aqua, terra potuerunt; unde vero ortae illae quinque formae, ex quibus reliqua formantur, apte cadentes ad animum afficiendum pariendosque sensus? Longum est ad omnia, quae talia sunt, ut optata magis quam inventa videantur."

"Nos autem beatam vitam in animi securitate et in omnium vacatione munerum ponimus."

"Age et his vocabulis esse deos facimus quibus a nobis nominantur? At primum, quot hominum linguae, tot nomina deorum. Non enim, ut tu Velleius, quocumque veneris, sic idem in Italia, idem in Africa, idem in Hispania."

"Opinionis enim commenta delet dies, naturae iudicia confirmat."

"Nisi leguleius quidem cautus, et acutus præco actionum, cantor formularum, auceps syllabarum."

"Historia vero testis temporum, lux veritatis, vita memoriae, magistra vitae, nuntia vetustatis, qua voce alia nisi oratoris immortalitati commendatur?"

"Malim equidem indisertam prudentiam quam stultitiam loquacem"

"Quam cum suavissima et maxima voce legisset, admirantibus omnibus "quanto" inquit "magis miraremini, si audissetis ipsum!""

"A room without books is like a body without a soul."

"The first duty of a man is the seeking after and the investigation of truth."

"For as lack of adornment is said to become some women, so this subtle oration, though without embellishment, gives delight."

"The freedom of poetic license."

"Genius is fostered by energy."

"The following three quotes are sometimes wrongly attributed to Cicero. In fact, they come from a novel about Cicero by Taylor Caldwell, and are not found in any of Cicero's actual writings."

"Study carefully, the character of the one you recommend, lest their misconduct bring you shame."

"So live as brave men; and if fortune is adverse, front its blows with brave hearts"

"Do not blame Caesar, blame the people of Rome who have so enthusiastically acclaimed and adored him and rejoiced in their loss of freedom and danced in his path and gave him triumphal processions. Blame the people who hail him when he speaks in the Forum of the 'new, wonderful good society' which shall now be Rome, interpreted to mean 'more money, more ease, more security, more living fatly at the expense of the industrious.'"

"Diem adimere aegritudinem hominibus."

"The evil was not in bread and circuses, per se, but in the willingness of the people to sell their rights as free men for full bellies and the excitement of the games which would serve to distract them from the other human hungers which bread and circuses can never appease."

"Times are bad. Children no longer obey their parents, and everyone is writing a book."

"Corruptissima re publica plurimae leges."

"As all the ages of the world have not produced a greater statesman and philosopher united in the same character, his authority should have great weight."

"For, when Cicero tells us that he had seen the entire Iliad written on skin of such a miniature size, that it could easily be rolled up inside a nut-shell, and Pliny asserts that Nero had a ring with a small glass in it, through which he watched the performance of the gladiators at a distance—could audacity go farther? Truly, when we are told that Mauritius could see from the promontory of Sicily over the entire sea to the coast of Africa, with an instrument called nauscopite, we must either think that all these witnesses lied, or that the ancients were more than slightly acquainted with optics and magnifying glasses. p. 240"

"Aristotle maintains that this gas, or astral emanation, escaping from inside the earth, is the sole sufficient cause, acting from within outwardly for the verification of every living being and plant upon the external crust. In answer to the skeptical negators of his century, Cicero, moved by a just wrath, exclaims : "And what can be more divine than the exhalations of the earth, which affect the human soul so as to enable her to predict the future ? And could the hand of time evaporate such a virtue?"... *(Book I, Section 18 De Divinatione – On Divination) Do modem experimentalists claim to be wiser than Cicero, and say that this eternal force has evaporated, and that the springs of prophecy are dry? p. 200"

"Zoroaster, Pythagoras, Epicharmus, Empedocles, Kebes, Euripides, Plato, Euclid, Philo, Boethius, Virgil, Marcus Cicero, Plotinus, Iamblichus, Proclus, Psellus, Synesius, Origen, and, finally, Aristotle himself, far 'from denying our immortality, support it most emphatically. p. 251"

"If unwilling to seek for proof or receive information from mediaeval, hermetic philosophy, we may go still further back into antiquity, and select, out of the great body of philosophers of the pre-Christian ages, one who can least be accused of superstition and credulity—Cicero. Speaking of those whom he calls gods, and who are either human or atmospheric spirits, " We know," says the old orator, " that of all living beings man is the best formed, and, as the gods belong to this number, they must have a human form... Epicurus, for whom hidden things were as tangible as if he had touched them with his finger, teaches us that gods are not generally visible, but that they are intelligible; that they are not bodies having a certain solidity . . . but that we can recognize them by their passing images; that as there are atoms enough in the infinite space to produce such images, these are produced before us . . . and make us realize what are these happy, immortal beings." p. 280"

"If I could have known Cicero, and been his friend, and talked with him in his retirement at Tusculum (beau-ti-ful Tusculum l), I could have died contented."

"As for Cicero, when he had heard some of the verses [of Virgil's Eclogues], his piercing judgement immediately perceived that these were productions of uncommon vigor, and ordered the whole eclogue to be recited from the beginning. Having familiarized himself with its every nuance, he declared it "the second great hope of Rome" [Magnae spes altera Romae], as if he himself were the first hope of the Latin language and Maro the second. These words Virgil later inserted in the Aeneid [12.168]."

"Interestingly, Cicero saw the root of benevolence and charity in conscience, and in fact was the first scholar in history to use the word “conscience” (conscientia) in the moral sense we are familiar with. We can summarize his thought by stating that friendship is possible when two or more persons who have some common purposes in life systematically act towards each other with benevolence and charity (caritas, which is a non-erotic form of love), guided by conscience."

"I have also read again Cicero's philosophical works, and think, as I thought at twenty two, when I read him under the chestnuts at Trinity, that the De Finibus is the best, that then comes the De Natura Deorum, and that the Tusculan Disputations are the least valuable,—mere anointing for broken bones."

"But to confess the truth boldly (for once you have crossed over the barriers of impudence there is no more curb), his way of writing, and every other similar way, seems to me boring. For his prefaces, definitions, partitions, etymologies, consume the greater part of his work; what life and marrow there is, is smothered by his long-winded preparations. If I have spent an hour in reading him, which is a lot for me, and I remember what juice and substance I have derived, most of the time I find nothing but wind; for he has not yet come to the arguments that serve his purpose and the reasons that properly touch on the crux, which I am looking for."

"Quare non inmerito ab hominibus aetatis suae regnare in iudiciis dictus est, apud posteros vero id consecutus ut Cicero iam non hominis nomen sed eloquentiae habeatur. hunc igitur spectemus, hoc propositum nobis sit exemplum, ille se profecisse sciat cui Cicero valde placebit."

"... It was Seneca or it was Cicero, I don't know which, that said, "If it was not for the elders correcting the mistakes of the young, there would be no state.""

"Cicero discusses justice as the second of the four cardinal virtues (wisdom, justice, courage, and temperance) whose presence constitutes moral goodness. Justice is the virtue that holds society together and allows us to pursue the common good for whose sake society exists. ... One interesting feature is his concern with in justice... The Stoic view that morality promotes the common good implies that we must try to restore the social relationship that has been violated."

"Idque apud imperitos humanitas vocabatur, cum pars servitutis esset."

"Auferre, trucidare, rapere, falsis nominibus imperium, atque, ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant."

"Et maiores vestros et posteros cogitate."

"Proprium humani ingenii est odisse quem laeseris."

"Tu vero felix, Agricola, non vitae tantum claritate, sed etiam opportunitate mortis."

"The Germans themselves I should regard as aboriginal, and not mixed at all with other races through immigration or intercourse. For in former times, it was not by land but on shipboard that those who sought to emigrate would arrive; and the boundless and, so to speak, hostile ocean beyond us, is seldom entered by a sail from our world."

"They even say that an altar dedicated to Ulysses, with the addition of the name of his father, Laertes, was formerly discovered on the same spot, and that certain monuments and tombs with Greek inscriptions, still exist on the borders of Germany and Rhaetia."

"On the whole, one would say that their strength is in their infantry, which fights along with the cavalry; admirably adapted to the action of the latter is the swiftness of certain foot soldiers, who are picked from the entire youth of their country, and stationed in front of the line."

"Scutum reliquisse praecipuum flagitium, nec aut sacris adesse aut concilium inire ignominioso fas; multique superstites bellorum infamiam laqueo finierunt."

"Mercury is the deity whom they chiefly worship, and on certain days they deem it right to sacrifice to him even with human victims."

"Quanquam severa illic matrimonia"

"...ibi boni mores valent quam alibi bonae leges."

"No one in Germany laughs at vice, nor do they call it the fashion to corrupt and to be corrupted."

"Indeed, the crowning proof of their valour and their strength is that they keep up their superiority without harm to others."

"Dwelling on one side of the Chauci and Chatti, the Cherusci long cherished, unassailed, an excessive and enervating love of peace. This was more pleasant than safe, for to be peaceful is self-deception among lawless and powerful neighbours. Where the strong hand decides, moderation and justice are terms applied only to the more powerful; and so the Cherusci, ever reputed good and just, are now called cowards and fools, while in the case of the victorious Chatti success has been identified with prudence. The downfall of the Cherusci brought with it also that of the Fosi, a neighbouring tribe, which shared equally in their disasters, though they had been inferior to them in prosperous days."

"Their shields are black, their bodies dyed. They choose dark nights for battle, and, by the dread and gloomy aspect of their death-like host, strike terror into the foe, who can never confront their strange and almost infernal appearance."

"All this is unauthenticated, and I shall leave it open."

"Rara temporum felicitate, ubi sentire quae velis, et quae sentias dicere licet."

"Indeed, when a ruler once becomes unpopular, all his acts, be they good or bad, tell against him."

"Once killing starts, it is difficult to draw the line."

"He possessed a peculiar talent of producing effect in whatever he said or did."

"Expugnatae urbis praedam ad militem, deditae ad duces pertinere."

"Divisa inter exercitum ducesque munia: militibus cupidinem pugnandi convenire, duces providendo, consultando, cunctatione saepius quam temeritate prodesse. ut pro virili portione armis ac manu victoriam iuverit, ratione et consilio, propriis ducis artibus, profuturum."

"Some might consider him as too fond of fame; for the desire for glory clings even to the best men longer than any other passion."

"Deos fortioribus adesse."

"Vitia erunt donec homines"

"The Jews’ other customs, which are at once perverse and disgusting, owe their strength to their very badness. The most degraded out of other races, scorning their national beliefs, brought to them their contributions and presents. This augmented the wealth of the Jews, as also did the fact, that among themselves they are inflexibly honest and ever ready to shew compassion, though they regard the rest of mankind with all the hatred of enemies. They sit apart at meals, they sleep apart, and though, as a nation, they are singularly prone to lust, they abstain from intercourse with foreign women; among themselves nothing is unlawful. Circumcision was adopted by them as a mark of difference from other men. Those who come over to their religion adopt the practice, and have this lesson first instilled into them, to despise all gods, to disown their country, and set at nought parents, children, and brethren. Still they provide for the increase of their numbers. It is a crime among them to kill any newly-born infant."

"Tiberii Gaique et Claudii ac Neronis res florentibus ipsis ob metum falsae, postquam occiderant, recentibus odiis compositae sunt. inde consilium mihi pauca de Augusto et extrema tradere, mox Tiberii principatum et cetera, sine ira et studio, quorum causas procul habeo."

"Juniores post Actiacam victoriam, etiam senes plerique inter bella civium nati: quotus quisque reliquus qui rem publicam vidisset? Igitur verso civitatis statu nihil usquam prisci et integri moris: omnes exuta aequalitate iussa principis aspectare, ..."

"Pacem sine dubio post haec, verum cruentam."

"Nihil deorum honoribus relictum, cum se templis et effigie numinum per flamines et sacerdotes coli vellet."

"Ne Tiberium quidem caritate aut rei publicae cura successorem adscitum, sed quoniam adrogantiam saevitiamque eius introspexerit, comparatione deterrima sibi gloriam quaesivisse."

"So true is it that all transactions of preeminent importance are wrapt in doubt and obscurity; while some hold for certain facts the most precarious hearsays, others turn facts into falsehood; and both are exaggerated by posterity."

"For I deem it to be the chief function of history to rescue merit from oblivion, and to hold up before evil words and evil deeds the terror of the reprobation of posterity."

"Viginti clarissimarum familiarum imagines antelatae sunt, Manlii, Quinctii aliaque eiusdem nobilitatis nomina. sed praefulgebant Cassius atque Brutus eo ipso quod effigies eorum non visebantur."

"Neque femina amissa pudicitia alia abnuerit."

"Suum cuique decus posteritas rependit."

"Punitis ingeniis, gliscit auctoritas."

"He had talents equal to business, and aspired no higher."

"He upbraided Macro, in no obscure and indirect terms, "with forsaking the setting sun and turning to the rising"."

"What is today supported by precedents will hereafter become a precedent."

"Habet aliquid ex iniquo omne magnum exemplum, quod contra singulos, utilitate publica rependitus."

"non enim ignavia magna imperia contineri"

"The name [Christians] was derived from Christ, who, in the reign of Tiberius, suffered under Pontius Pilate, the procurator of Judæa. By that event the sect, of which he was the founder, received a blow, which, for a time, checked the growth of a dangerous superstition; but it revived soon after, and spread with recruited vigour, not only in Judæa, the soil that gave it birth, but even in the city of Rome, the common sink into which every thing infamous and abominable flows like a torrent from all quarters of the world."

"nisi impunitatis cupido retinuisset, magnis semper conatibus adversa."

"cupido dominandi cunctis adfectibus flagrantior est"

"Tacitus appears to have been as great an enthusiast as Petrarch for the revival of the republic and universal empire. He has exerted the vengeance of history upon the emperors, but has veiled the conspiracies against them, and the incorrigible corruption of the people which probably provoked their most atrocious cruelties. Tyranny can scarcely be practised upon a virtuous and wise people."

"Of all histories I think Tacitus simply the best."

"[Tacitus] has a higher reputation than other more learned historians, because he not only narrates events, but, so to speak, writes a commentary on his own narrative."

"The appeal of Tacitus' Germania to Englishmen as an account of their ancestors was to be a lasting one; its influence is still obvious in the high-Victorian scholarship of Stubbs, Freeman and Green... As a piece of ethnography, Tacitus' work has much charm, sowing in the mind images from heroic life: the lightly dressed warriors, bound by a touching loyalty to their chief, urged on in battle by their chaste wives; the assemblies, held in the open at new or full moon, clashing weapons as a sign of assent; the investiture of the young warrior with shield and spear; the villages of scattered houses, each surrounded by a clearing; everywhere the surrounding forest. Tacitean society is not one of absolute equality; there are important hereditary distinctions of rank. But the general impression is one of a hard, in some respects savage, but simple, spacious and independent life, and a society essentially transparent and free, bound together by intelligible, strong, yet largely voluntary loyalties."

"He represented to the life...not only outward actions...but also the most secret of thoughts."

"His bias against the dynastic system is plain; yet his accuracy, though severely probed by modern criticism, can rarely be impugned. Though sometimes an unfavourable interpreter of his facts, he will not blacken even Tiberius or Nero by crediting stupid rumours about them (Ann. 4. 1 1; 16. 6). His picture of capital and court is terrible, but its general truth is incontestable. His gaze is focused upon Rome; when he looks farther be approves the sturdy simplicity of North Italy and the provinces (Ann. 16. 5), and can pen a moving appeal for the preservation of the Empire (Hist. 4. 74). Though mistrustful of "civilization" and of its debilitating effects, he never despairs of human nature: even the Civil War produced examples of heroism, loyalty, and friendship (Hist. I. 3), and virtue is not confined to past ages (Ann. 3. 55). Napoleon called Tacitus a "traducer of humanity": from one who spent his powers in annihilating humanity this verdict is interesting, but simply untrue. In independent research and judgement, in essential truth, in the dramatic power and nobility of an enthralling style, Tacitus claims his place among the greatest historians."

"He was most diligent in explaining motives (in consiliis explicandis) and most penetrating in enquiring into causes; no one has seen more acutely or described more faithfully the arts of princes and of those around them."

"The greatest man who has as yet given himself to the recording of human affairs is, beyond question, Cornelius Tacitus. Alone in Tacitus a serene calmness of insight was compatible with intensity of feeling. He took no side; he may have been Imperialist, he may have been Republican, but he has left no sign whether he was either: he appears to have sifted facts with scrupulous integrity; to administer his love, his scorn, his hatred, according only to individual merit: and his sentiments are rather felt by the reader in the life-like clearness of his portraits, than expressed in words by himself. Yet such a power of seeing into things was only possible to him, because there was no party left with which he could determinedly side, and no wide spirit alive in Rome through which he could feel."

"Tacitus is the only writer I know that comes up to my idea of such a philosophical historian. Even the interesting Livy himself cannot, in this sense, be compared to him. Both indeed have soared far above those ignorant compilers, who see nothing in facts but the circumstances of which they are composed: but the one has written history as a rhetorician, and the other as a philosopher. Not that either Tacitus was ignorant of the language of the passions, or Livy in that of reason; the latter, more earnest to please than instruct, conducts us step by step in the retinue of his heroes, and makes us alternately experience the effects of horrour, pity, and admiration. Tacitus employs the force of rhetoric only to display the connection between the links that form the chain of historical events, and to instruct the reader by sensible and profound reflections."

"The most civilized nations of modern Europe issued from the woods of Germany, and in the rude institutions of those barbarians, we may still distinguish the original principles of our present laws and manners. In their primitive state of simplicity and independence, the Germans were surveyed by the discerning eye, and delineated by the masterly pencil of Tacitus, the first of historians who applied the science of philosophy to the study of facts. In his incomparable treatise, which contains, perhaps, more ideas than words, he has comprehended a description of the German manners, that has formerly exercised the diligence of innumerable antiquarians, and employed the genius and penetration of the philosophic historians of our own times."

"Moral purpose...is never absent from Tacitus' mind. The sequence of events on which he chooses to focus his attention provoked the sternest moral reflections. To him, as to many others, decline and disaster seemed due to vice. Virtue and vice are continually emphasized and contrasted. As Tacitus himself says, "I regard it as the foremost task of the historian to ensure that virtues are not left unrecorded, and that evil words and deeds are made subject to the fears inspired by posterity's denunciation.""

"[I]t seems that he is not really able to believe that an autocrat can be good. For he constantly stresses the evils of rule by one man. Perhaps this conviction is the central point of his philosophy. No amount of experience, he infers, can stand up against the corrupting effects of autocratic authority. "In spite of all his experience of public affairs, Tiberius was transformed and deranged by absolute power." So it was under Tiberius that freedom suffered its most fatal losses. As these are remorselessly described we do not feel two thousand years distant."

"Human fate often looks black to Tacitus. So does human nature. Yet he is far from sceptical about the potentialities of the human spirit. Even in times of civil war and tyrannical government, he is able to point to human actions of extraordinary virtue, bravery, and pertinacity. Indeed he is a humanist, and one whose contribution to our western tradition of humanism has been immense and singularly inspiring."

"The outstanding quality of Tacitus is his brilliance as a literary artist. Racine called him "the greatest painter of antiquity". Others have compared his work not so much to a series of pictures as to a continuous frieze. But of his supreme artistic genius there can be no doubt. A large part of the artistry resides in his style – the aspect of his talent which a translator has least hope of reproducing. Now ancient readers usually recognized stylistic talent, and by no means found that it interfered with their enjoyment when history contained a strong infusion of rhetoric. But the style of Tacitus, as it had developed to its culminating point in these Annals, was indeed extraordinary. It displays a sharp, astringent contrast to the rotund periods of Cicero and to the flowing, "milky" diction of Livy."

"Cornelius Tacitus is very good at teaching subjects how to live and act prudently, just as he teaches tyrants how to establish tyranny."

"Tacitus I consider the first writer in the world without a single exception. His book is a compound of history and morality of which we have no other example."

"[Tacitus] is a great writer who is especially appropriate for great persons, that is, those who hold the tiller of the state or those who give advice and counsel to the helmsman. What part of civil and military prudence, and what emotions of men (even concealed), what fortunes or events does he not openly reveal or show under a veil? ... There is none among the Greeks or Romans, and I will confidently assert, there will never be any, who can be compared with Tacitus in the glory earned by his prudence of every sort."

"Tacitus goes beyond this common source to provide a level of detail and an acuteness of political perception that is unique to his version. Likewise, though Tacitus knew the common sources which Suetonius, Dio, and Plutarch used in their accounts of the Civil War of 69, his result is so different that we must attribute the final product to his own craft and intelligence rather than to his raw material."

"No international enterprise as yet has taken the initiative in collecting the hundred most dangerous books ever written. No doubt some time this collection will be made. When it is done, I suggest that Homer's Iliad and Tacitus' Germania should be given high priority among these hundred dangerous books. This is no reflection on Homer and Tacitus. Tacitus was a gentleman and, for all that I know, Homer was a gentleman too. But who will deny that the Iliad and the Germania raise most unholy passions in the human mind? It is fortunately not my task to speak here about the influence of Tacitus' Germania. One horror is enough for one day."

"Tacitus has written an entire work on the manners of the Germans. This work is short, but it comes from the pen of Tacitus, who was always concise, because he saw everything at a glance."

"Tacitus farther describing the nature of the Germans, shews that the Romans had run greater hazards from them than from the Samnites, Carthaginians and Parthians, and attributes their bravery to the Liberty they enjoyed; for they are, says he, neither exhausted by Tributes, nor vexed by Publicans: and lest this Liberty should be violated, the chief men consult about things of lesser moment; but the most important matters are determined by all. Whoever would know the opinion of that wise Author concerning the German Liberty, may read his excellent Treatise concerning their Manners and Customs; but I presume this may be enough to prove that they lived free under such Magistrates as they chose, regulated by such Laws as they made, and retained the principal powers of the Government in their general or particular Councils."

"If Juvenal is supreme over the poets of his time, Tacitus is as clearly monarch of the prose-writers. He was continuing the work of Livy and writing from the same republican standpoint. But for history-writing he had certainly discovered a finer style of rhetoric. Both are rhetoricians first and historians a long way after, but the packed epigrams of Tacitus say more in a line than Livy is capable of thinking in a chapter. In describing a battle, a riot, or a panic, or in painting some tragic scene, such as the death of Vitellius, Tacitus is unequalled. The freedom that was permitted to him and Suetonius in depicting the crimes and follies of the earlier Cæsars affords remarkable evidence of the freedom of letters under Nerva, Trajan, and Hadrian. Here, again, it is necessary, as in the case of Juvenal, to beware of accepting too literally the severity of his criticisms upon the preceding generation. To praise the past at the expense of the present was one of the traditions of Roman literature. But Tacitus was the last of Rome's great historians and his loss was irreparable."

"These personal statements of Tacitus' aims and beliefs seem to be, if not wholly consistent, at least candid; but even the most superficial reading of his history will bring them into question. The claim to write "sine ira et studio" has been condemned by certain critics as sheer hypocrisy, and while most scholars have thought it honest in intention, few have considered the attempt successful. The aim of moral instruction, "ne virtutes sileantur", has been dismissed as political partisanship; his wish to trace events to their causes has been thought casual or pretentious. His views on philosophy and religion have been variously called agnostic, sceptical, stoic, fatalist, superstitious, and (as a last resort) "deeply original"."

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

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

"Delivery, delivery, delivery."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Citoyens, il est à craindre que la révolution, comme Saturne, ne dévore successivement tous ses enfants et n’engendre enfin le despotisme avec les calamités qui l’accompagnent."

"...only once you give yourself permission to stop trying to do it all, to stop saying yes to everyone, can you make your highest contribution towards the things that really matter."

"To discern what is truly essential we need space to think, time to look and listen, permission to play, wisdom to sleep, and the discipline to apply highly selective criteria to the choices we make."

"Essentialists see trade-offs as an inherent part of life, not as an inherently negative part of life. Instead of asking, “What do I have to give up?” they ask, “What do I want to go big on?"

""The way of the Essentialist means living by design, not by default."

"If you don't prioritize your life, someone else will."

"...the pursuit of success can be a catalyst for failure. Put another way, success can distract us from focusing on the essential things that produce success in the first place."

"We can either make our choices deliberately or allow other people's agendas to control our lives."

"“Essentialism is not about how to get more things done; it’s about how to get the right things done. It doesn’t mean just doing less for the sake of less either. It is about making the wisest possible investment of your time and energy in order to operate at our highest point of contribution by doing only what is essential.”"

"Whatever decision or challenge or crossroads you face in your life, simply ask yourself, “What is essential?” Eliminate everything else."

"“There should be no shame in admitting to a mistake; after all, we really are only admitting that we are now wiser than we once were.”"

"“Many capable people are kept from getting to the next level of contribution because they can’t let go of the belief that everything is important.”"

"“If it isn’t a clear yes, then it’s a clear no.”"

"“What if we stopped celebrating being busy as a measurement of importance? What if instead we celebrated how much time we had spent listening, pondering, meditating, and enjoying time with the most important people in our lives?”"

"“It never ceases to amaze me how often I ask people, “What do you really want?” and they look at me blankly, unable to articulate the answer. It’s not that they don’t want things, it’s just that they don’t have a high level of clarity regarding the matter.”"

"“We live in a world where almost everything is worthless and a very few things are exceptionally valuable.”"

"“Life today is fast and full of opportunity. The complication is we think we have to do everything. The implication of this is we end up being pulled into endless distractions without pausing to really think. My position is we can make a different choice. We can discern what is really essential. We can design a life that really matters.”"

"“Here is the #1 myth that kills people's productivity: 'if you fit it all in, you can have it all.'”"

"“A hundred years from now, when people look back at this period, they will marvel at the stupidity of it all: the stress, the motion sickness, and the self-neglect we put ourselves through. So we have two choices. We can be among the last people caught up in the “more bubble” when it bursts, or we can see the madness for what it is and join the growing community of Essentialists and get more of what matters in our one precious life.”"

"“The bottom line is this: if you want to engage your employees at a whole new level, if you want to become a person of greater influence, and if you want to discover a new kind of power — listen.”"

"“To develop meaningful and mature relationships at work or at home we need to develop two filters. The first filter protects you from other people. The second filter protects other people from you.”"

"“The point I wish to emphasize is not an economic one, but a human one: if you try to say too many things, you don’t say anything at all.”"

"“If we “hire slow, fire fast” we can increase what Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix, has called the “talent density” of our organizations. It is not easy. It takes having hard conversations. It takes leadership. Still, if we can do it then, ultimately, people, teams and organizations win.”"

"“Often we try to bring about change through sheer effort and we put all of our energy into a new initiative. But you can’t beat stress using the same techniques that created the stress in the first place.”"

"“Achieving strategic clarity is hard. It takes asking tough questions about tradeoffs, deep concentration to get to the very essence of the issues and real courage to cut off competing priorities. It is worth the effort because with real clarity, people, teams and organizations can fully mobilize, break through to the next level and achieve something truly great.”"

"“If success is a catalyst for failure because it leads to the “undisciplined pursuit of more,” then one simple antidote is the disciplined pursuit of less. Not just haphazardly saying no, but purposefully, deliberately, and strategically eliminating the nonessentials.”"

"““What will we say no to?” It is that question that will reveal the real tensions in your team. It is that question that will uncover the core trade-offs in your organization. It is that question that can deliver the rare and precious clarity necessary to achieve game-changing breakthroughs in your business.”"

"“Simply put, when you invite people’s best thinking and lead like a multiplier, your team will give you more—more discretionary effort, more mental and physical energy, and more of the fresh ideas critical for long-term success.”"

"“Everything changes when we give ourselves permission to be more selective in what we choose to do.”"

"“Every time we check email, we're checking somebody else's agenda.”"

"“Say no to many good things so you can say yes to a few great things.”"

"“When we push back effectively, it shows people that our time is valuable. It distinguishes the professional from the amateur.”"

"“Saying no is its own leadership capability. It is not just a peripheral skill.”"

"“By abolishing any chance of being bored we have also lost the time we used to have to think and process.”"

"“Discern more; do less.”"

"“You can do a few things superbly well, or a lot of things averagely well.”"

"“Very successful people are absurdly selective.”"

"“Effort and results do not share a linear relationship.”"

"“There is value in NOT doing a thing.”"

"“So many smart people get snared in the death grip of the nonessential.”"

"“There are only two forces in the world that simplify organizations: one is failure, the other is leadership.”"

"“Making hard trade-offs is where leadership is tested.”"

"People will plateau at exactly the same level that their selectivity plateaus."

"“If you are too busy to think then you are too busy.”"

"These are not my words; they are the words of the Master who taught me. Without Him I could have done nothing, but through His help I have set my feet upon the Path. You also desire to enter the same Path, so the words which He spoke to me will help you also, if you will obey them. It is not enough to say that they are true and beautiful; a man who wishes to succeed must do exactly what is said. To look at food and say that it is good will not satisfy a starving man; he must put forth his hand and eat. So to hear the Master's words is not enough, you must do what He says, attending to every word, taking every hint. If a hint is not taken, if a word is missed, it is lost forever; for He does not speak twice. Four qualifications there are for this pathway:"

"The first of these Qualifications is Discrimination; and this is usually taken as the discrimination between the real and the unreal which leads men to enter the Path. It is this, but it is also much more; and it is to be practised, not only at the beginning of the Path, but at every step of it every day until the end. You enter the Path because you have learnt that on it alone can be found those things which are worth gaining. Men who do not know, work to gain wealth and power, but these are at most for one life only, and therefore unreal. There are greater things than these — things which are real and lasting; when you have once seen these, you desire those others no more."

"In all the world there are only two kinds of people — those who know, and those who do not know; and this knowledge is the thing which matters. What religion a man holds, to what race he belongs — these things are not important; the really important thing is this knowledge — the knowledge of God's plan for men. For God has a plan, and that plan is evolution. When once a man has seen that and really knows it, he cannot help working for it and making himself one with it, because it is so glorious, so beautiful. So, because he knows, he is on God's side, standing for good and resisting evil, working for evolution and not for selfishness. If he is on God's side he is one of us, and it does not matter in the least whether he calls himself a Hindu or a Buddhist, a Christian or a Muhammadan, whether he is an Indian or an Englishman, a Chinaman or a Russian. Those who are on His side know why they are here and what they should do, and they are trying to do it; all the others do not yet know what they should do, and so they often act foolishly, and try to invent ways for themselves which they think will be pleasant for themselves, not understanding that all are one, and that therefore only what the One wills can ever be really pleasant for any one. They are following the unreal instead of the real. Until they learn to distinguish between these two, they have not ranged themselves on God's side, and so this discrimination is the first step. But even when the choice is made, you must still remember that of the real and the unreal there are many varieties; and discrimination must still be made between the right and the wrong, the important and the unimportant, the useful and the useless, the true and the false, the selfish and the unselfish."

"There are many for whom the Qualification of Desirelessness is a difficult one, for they feel that they are their desires — that if their distinctive desires, their likings and dislikings, are taken away from them, there will be no self left. But these are only they who have not seen the Master; in the light of His holy Presence all desire dies, but the desire to be like Him."

"Hold back your mind from pride, for pride comes only from ignorance. The man who does not know thinks that he is great, that he has done this or that great thing; the wise man knows that only God is great, that all good work is done by God alone."

"Of all the Qualifications, Love is the most important, for if it is strong enough in a man, it forces him to acquire all the rest, and all the rest without it would never be sufficient. Often it is translated as an intense desire for liberation from the round of births and deaths, and for union with God. But to put it in that way sounds selfish, and gives only part of the meaning. It is not so much desire as will, resolve, determination. To produce its result, this resolve must fill your whole nature, so as to leave no room for any other feeling. It is indeed the will to be one with God, not in order that you may escape from weariness and suffering, but in order that because of your deep love for Him you may act with Him and as He does. Because He is Love, you, if you would become one with Him, must be filled with perfect unselfishness and love also. In daily life this means two things; first, that you shall be careful to do no hurt to any living thing; second, that you shall always be watching for an opportunity to help. First, to do no hurt. Three sins there are which work more harm than all else in the world — gossip, cruelty, and superstition — because they are sins against love. Against these three the man who would fill his heart with the love of God must watch ceaselessly."

"See what gossip does. It begins with evil thought, and that in itself is a crime. For in everyone and in everything there is good; in everyone and in everything there is evil. Either of these we can strengthen by thinking of it, and in this way we can help or hinder evolution; we can do the will of the Logos or we can resist Him. If you think of the evil in another, you are doing at the same time three wicked things: (1) You are filling your neighbourhood with evil thought instead of with good thought, and so you are adding to the sorrow of the world. (2) If there is in that man the evil which you think, you are strengthening it and feeding it; and so you are making your brother worse instead of better. But generally the evil is not there, and you have only fancied it; and then your wicked thought tempts your brother to do wrong, for if he is not yet perfect you may make him that which you have thought him. (3) You fill your own mind with evil thoughts instead of good; and so you hinder your own growth, and make yourself, for those who can see, an ugly and painful object instead of a beautiful and lovable one. Not content with having done all this harm to himself and to his victim, the gossip tries with all his might to make other men partners in his crime. Eagerly he tells his wicked tale to them, hoping that they will believe it; and then they join with him in pouring evil thought upon the poor sufferer. And this goes on day after day, and is done not by one man but by thousands. Do you begin to see how base, how terrible a sin this is? You must avoid it altogether."

"Then as to cruelty. This is of two kinds, intentional and unintentional. Intentional cruelty is purposely to give pain to another living being; and that is the greatest of all sins — the work of a devil rather than a man. You would say that no man could do such a thing; but men have done it often, and are daily doing it now. The inquisitors did it; many religious people did it in the name of their religion. Vivisectors do it; many schoolmasters do it habitually. All these people try to excuse their brutality by saying that it is the custom; but a crime does not cease to be a crime because many commit it. Karma takes no account of custom; and the karma of cruelty is the most terrible of all."

"Superstition is another mighty evil, and has caused much terrible cruelty. The man who is a slave to it despises others who are wiser, tries to force them to do as he does. Think of the awful slaughter produced by the superstition that animals should be sacrificed, and by the still more cruel superstition that man needs flesh for food. Think of the treatment which superstition has meted out to the depressed classes in our beloved India, and see in that how this evil quality can breed heartless cruelty even among those who know the duty of brotherhood. Many crimes have men committed in the name of the God of Love, moved by this nightmare of superstition; be very careful therefore that no slightest trace of it remains in you."

"These three great crimes you must avoid, for they are fatal to all progress, because they sin against love. But not only must you thus refrain from evil; you must be active in doing good. You must be so filled with the intense desire of service that you are ever on the watch to render it to all around you — not to man alone, but even to animals and plants. You must render it in small things every day, that the habit may be formed, so that you may not miss the rare opportunity when the great thing offers itself to be done. For if you yearn to be one with God, it is not for your own sake; it is that you may be a channel through which His love may flow to reach your fellow-men. He who is on the Path exists not for himself, but for others; he has forgotten himself, in order that he may serve them. He is as a pen in the hand of God, through which His thought may flow, and find for itself an expression down here, which without a pen it could not have. Yet at the same time he is also a living plume of fire, raying out upon the world the Divine Love which fills his heart. The wisdom which enables you to help, the will which directs the wisdom, the love which inspires the will — these are your qualifications. Will, Wisdom and Love are the three aspects of the Logos; and you, who wish to enroll yourselves to serve Him, must show forth these aspects in the world."

"Waiting the word of the Master, Watching the Hidden Light; Listening to his orders In the very midst of the fight;'Seeing His slightest signal Across the heads of the throng; Hearing His faintest whisper Above earth's loudest song."

"I maintain that Truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect. That is my point of view, and I adhere to that absolutely and unconditionally. Truth, being limitless, unconditioned, unapproachable by any path whatsoever, cannot be organized; nor should any organization be formed to lead or to coerce people along any particular path. If you first understand that, then you will see how impossible it is to organize a belief. A belief is purely an individual matter, and you cannot and must not organize it. If you do, it becomes dead, crystallized; it becomes a creed, a sect, a religion, to be imposed on others. This is what everyone throughout the world is attempting to do. Truth is narrowed down and made a plaything for those who are weak, for those who are only momentarily discontented. Truth cannot be brought down, rather the individual must make the effort to ascend to it. You cannot bring the mountain-top to the valley. If you would attain to the mountain-top you must pass through the valley, climb the steeps, unafraid of the dangerous precipices."

"I do not want to belong to any organization of a spiritual kind, please understand this. I would make use of an organization which would take me to London, for example; this is quite a different kind of organization, merely mechanical, like the post or the telegraph. I would use a motor car or a steamship to travel, these are only physical mechanisms which have nothing whatever to do with spirituality. Again, I maintain that no organization can lead man to spirituality."

"Your prejudices, your fears, your authorities, your churches new and old – all these, I maintain, are a barrier to understanding. I cannot make myself clearer than this. I do not want you to agree with me, I do not want you to follow me, I want you to understand what I am saying. “This understanding is necessary because your belief has not transformed you but only complicated you, and because you are not willing to face things as they are. You want to have your own gods – new gods instead of the old, new religions instead of the old, new forms instead of the old – all equally valueless, all barriers, all limitations, all crutches. Instead of old spiritual distinctions you have new spiritual distinctions, instead of old worships you have new worships. You are all depending for your spirituality on someone else, for your happiness on someone else, for your enlightenment on someone else; and although you have been preparing for me for eighteen years, when I say all these things are unnecessary, when I say that you must put them all away and look within yourselves for the enlightenment, for the glory, for the purification, and for the incorruptibility of the self, not one of you is willing to do it. There may be a few, but very, very few. So why have an organization?"

"You are accustomed to being told how far you have advanced, what is your spiritual status. How childish! Who but yourself can tell you if you are beautiful or ugly within? Who but yourself can tell you if you are incorruptible? You are not serious in these things. But those who really desire to understand, who are looking to find that which is eternal, without beginning and without an end, will walk together with a greater intensity, will be a danger to everything that is unessential, to unrealities, to shadows. And they will concentrate, they will become the flame, because they understand. Such a body we must create, and that is my purpose. Because of that real understanding there will be true friendship. Because of that true friendship – which you do not seem to know – there will be real cooperation on the part of each one. And this not because of authority, not because of salvation, not because of immolation for a cause, but because you really understand, and hence are capable of living in the eternal. This is a greater thing than all pleasure, than all sacrifice. So these are some of the reasons why, after careful consideration for two years, I have made this decision. It is not from a momentary impulse. I have not been persuaded to it by anyone. I am not persuaded in such things. For two years I have been thinking about this, slowly, carefully, patiently, and I have now decided to disband the Order, as I happen to be its Head. You can form other organizations and expect someone else. With that I am not concerned, nor with creating new cages, new decorations for those cages. My only concern is to set men absolutely, unconditionally free."

"And as we are — the world is. That is, if we are greedy, envious, competitive, our society will be competitive, envious, greedy, which brings misery and war. The State is what we are. To bring about order and peace, we must begin with ourselves and not with society, not with the State, for the world is ourselves … If we would bring about a sane and happy society we must begin with ourselves and not with another, not outside of ourselves, but with ourselves."

"What brings understanding is love. When your heart is full, then you will listen to the teacher, to the beggar, to the laughter of children, to the rainbow, and to the sorrow of man. Under every stone and leaf, that which is eternal exists. But we do not know how to look for it. Our minds and hearts are filled with other things than understanding of "what is". Love and mercy, kindliness and generosity do not cause enmity. When you love, you are very near truth. For, love makes for sensitivity, for vulnerability. That which is sensitive is capable of renewal. Then truth will come into being. It cannot come if your mind and heart are burdened, heavy with ignorance and animosity."

"So, a man who is really earnest must begin with himself, he must be passively aware of all his thoughts, feelings and actions. Again, this is not a matter of time. There is no end to self-knowledge. Self-knowledge is only from moment to moment, and therefore there is a creative happiness from moment to moment."

"It seems to me that the real problem is the mind itself, and not the problem which the mind has created and tries to solve. If the mind is petty, small, narrow, limited, however great and complex the problem may be, the mind approaches that problem in terms of its own pettiness. If I have a little mind and I think of God, the God of my thinking will be a little God, though I may clothe him with grandeur, beauty, wisdom, and all the rest of it. It is the same with the problem of existence, the problem of bread, the problem of love, the problem of sex, the problem of relationship, the problem of death. These are all enormous problems, and we approach them with a small mind; we try to resolve them with a mind that is very limited. Though it has extraordinary capacities and is capable of invention, of subtle, cunning thought, the mind is still petty. It may be able to quote Marx, or the Gita, or some other religious book, but it is still a small mind, and a small mind confronted with a complex problem can only translate that problem in terms of itself, and therefore the problem, the misery increases. So the question is: Can the mind that is small, petty, be transformed into something which is not bound by its own limitations?"

"Without love the acquisition of knowledge only increases confusion and leads to self-destruction."

"The transformation of the world is brought about by the transformation of oneself."

"The problem that confronts most of us is whether the individual is merely the instrument of society or the end of society. Are you and I as individuals to be used, directed, educated, controlled, shaped to a certain pattern by society and government; or does society, the State, exist for the individual? Is the individual the end of society; or is he merely a puppet to be taught, exploited, butchered as an instrument of war? That is the problem that is confronting most of us. That is the problem of the world; whether the individual is a mere instrument of society, a plaything of influences to be moulded; or whether society exists for the individual."

"The questioner wants to know why, after these many years of watching, he hasn't found the deep waters. Why should he find them? Do you understand? You think that by watching your own thoughts you are going to get a reward: if you do this, you will get that. You are really not watching at all, because your mind is concerned with gaining a reward. You think that by watching, by being aware, you will be more loving, you will suffer less, be less irritable, get something beyond; so your watching is a process of buying. With this coin you are buying that, which means that your watching is a process of choice; therefore it isn't watching, it isn't attention. To watch is to observe without choice, to see yourself as you are without any movement of desire to change, which is an extremely arduous thing to do; but that doesn't mean that you are going to remain in your present state. You do not know what will happen if you see yourself as you are without wishing to bring about a change in that which you see. Do you understand?"

"Surely, the violence and the entity who says, "I must change violence into non-violence", are both the same. To recognize that fact is to put an end to all conflict, is it not? There is no longer the conflict of trying to change, because I see that the very movement of the mind not to be violent is itself the outcome of violence. So, the questioner wants to know why it is that he cannot go beyond all these superficial wrangles of the mind. For the simple reason that, consciously or unconsciously, the mind is always seeking something, and that very search brings violence, competition, the sense of utter dissatisfaction. It is only when the mind is completely still that there is a possibility of touching the deep waters."

"Despair exists only when there is hope."

"Is there a thinker apart from thought?"

"The fact is there is nothing that you can trust; and that is a terrible fact, whether you like it or not. Psychologically, there is nothing in the world that you can put your faith, your trust, or your belief in. Neither your gods, nor your science can save you, can bring you psychological certainty; and you have to accept that you can trust in absolutely nothing. That is a scientific fact, as well as a psychological fact. Because, your leaders — religious and political — and your books — sacred and profane — have all failed, and you are still confused, in misery, in conflict. So, that is an absolute, undeniable fact."

"Silence is difficult and arduous, it is not to be played with. It isn't something that you can experience by reading a book, or by listening to a talk, or by sitting together, or by retiring into a wood or a monastery. I am afraid none of these things will bring about this silence. This silence demands intense psychological work. You have to be burningly aware of your snobbishness, aware of your fears, your anxieties, your sense of guilt. And when you die to all that, then out of that dying comes the beauty of silence."

"Learning in the true sense of the word is possible only in that state of attention, in which there is no outer or inner compulsion. Right thinking can come about only when the mind is not enslaved by tradition and memory. It is attention that allows silence to come upon the mind, which is the opening of the door to creation. That is why attention is of the highest importance. Knowledge is necessary at the functional level as a means of cultivating the mind, and not as an end in itself. We are concerned, not with the development of just one capacity, such as that of a mathematician, or a scientist, or a musician, but with the total development of the student as a human being. How is the state of attention to be brought about? It cannot be cultivated through persuasion, comparison, reward or punishment, all of which are forms of coercion. The elimination of fear is the beginning of attention. Fear must exist as long as there is an urge to be or to become, which is the pursuit of success, with all its frustrations and tortuous contradictions. You can teach concentration, but attention cannot be taught just as you cannot possibly teach freedom from fear; but we can begin to discover the causes that produce fear, and in understanding these causes there is the elimination of fear. So attention arises spontaneously when around the student there is an atmosphere of well-being, when he has the feeling of being secure, of being at ease, and is aware of the disinterested action that comes with love. Love does not compare, and so the envy and torture of "becoming" cease."

"You know, in the case of most of us, the mind is noisy, everlastingly chattering to itself , soliloquizing or chattering about something, or trying to talk to itself, to convince itself of something; it is always moving, noisy. And from that noise, we act. Any action born of noise produces more noise, more confusion. But if you have observed and learnt what it means to communicate, the difficulty of communication, the non-verbalization of the mind — that is, that communicates and receives communication— , then, as life is a movement, you will, in your action, move on naturally, freely, easily, without any effort, to that state of communion. And in that state of communion, if you enquire more deeply, you will find that you are not only in communion with nature, with the world, with everything about you, but also in communion with yourself."

"You know, actually we have no love — that is a terrible thing to realize. Actually we have no love; we have sentiment; we have emotionality, sensuality, sexuality; we have remembrances of something which we have thought as love. But actually, brutally, we have no love. Because to have love means no violence, no fear, no competition, no ambition. If you had love you will never say, "This is my family." You may have a family and give them the best you can; but it will not be "your family" which is opposed to the world. If you love, if there is love, there is peace. If you loved, you would educate your child not to be a nationalist, not to have only a technical job and look after his own petty little affairs; you would have no nationality. There would be no divisions of religion, if you loved. But as these things actually exist — not theoretically, but brutally — in this ugly world, it shows that you have no love. Even the love of a mother for her child is not love. If the mother really loved her child, do you think the world would be like this? She would see that he had the right food, the right education, that he was sensitive, that he appreciated beauty, that he was not ambitious, greedy, envious. So the mother, however much she may think she loves her child, does not love the child. So we have not that love."

"To die every day to every problem, every pleasure, and not carry over any problem at all; so the mind remains tremendously attentive, active, clear."

"When all authority of every kind is put aside, denied, then you can find out for yourself."

"Conflict exists only when there are two opposing things: fear and non-fear,violence and non-violence."

"Throughout life, from childhood, from school until we die, we are taught to compare ourselves with another; yet when I compare myself with another I am destroying myself. In a school, in an ordinary school where there are a lot of boys, when one boy is compared with another who is very clever, who is the head of the class, what is actually taking place? You are destroying the boy. That’s what we are doing throughout life. Now, can I live without comparison — without comparison with anybody? This means there is no high, no low — there is not the one who is superior and the other who is inferior. You are actually what you are and to understand what you are, this process of comparison must come to an end. If I am always comparing myself with some saint or some teacher, some businessman, writer, poet, and all the rest, what has happened to me — what have I done? I only compare in order to gain, in order to achieve, in order to become — but when I don’t compare I am beginning to understand what I am. Beginning to understand what I am is far more fascinating, far more interesting; it goes beyond all this stupid comparison."

"You can look only when the mind is completely quiet."

"Knowing the cause of something is not going to help you to be free of it."

"To follow implies not only the denying of one's own clarity, investigation, integrity and honesty, but it also implies that your motive in following is reward. Truth is not a reward."

"In the denial of disorder there is order."

"We need tremendous energy to bring about a psychological change in ourselves as human beings, because we have lived far too long in a world of make-belief, in a world of brutality, violence, despair, anxiety. To live humanly, sanely, one has to change. To bring about a change within oneself and therefore within society, one needs this radical energy, for the individual is not different from society — the society is the individual and the individual is the society. And to bring about a necessary radical, essential change in the structure of society — which is corrupt, which is immoral — there must be change in the human heart and mind. To bring about that change you need great energy and that energy is denied or perverted, or twisted, when you act according to a concept; which is what we do in our daily life. The concept is based on past history, or on some conclusion, so it is not action at all, it is an approximation to a formula. So one asks if there is an action which is not based on an idea, on a conclusion formed by dead things which have been."

"Can you look at a flower without thinking?"

"There are the states of inattention and of attention. When you are completely giving your mind, your heart, your nerves, everything you have, to attend, then the old habits, the mechanical responses, do not enter into it, thought does not come into it at all. But we cannot maintain that all the time, so we are mostly in a state of inattention, a state in there is not an alert choiceless awareness. What takes place? There is inattention and rare attention and we are trying to bridge the one to the other. How can my inattention become attention or, can attention be complete, all the time?"

"Only the free mind knows what Love is."

"The society in which we live is the result of our psychological state."

"Where there is fear there is aggression."

"Can thought be silent?"

"One is never afraid of the unknown; one is afraid of the known coming to an end."

"Can't you fall in love and not have a possessive relationship? I love someone and she loves me and we get married — that is all perfectly straightforward and simple, in that there is no conflict at all. (When I say we get married I might just as well say we decide to live together — don't let's get caught up in words.) Can't one have that without the other, without the tail as it were, necessarily following? Can't two people be in love and both be so intelligent and so sensitive that there is freedom and absence of a centre that makes for conflict? Conflict is not in the feeling of being in love. The feeling of being in love is utterly without conflict. There is no loss of energy in being in love. The loss of energy is in the tail, in everything that follows — jealousy, possessiveness, suspicion, doubt, the fear of losing that love, the constant demand for reassurance and security. Surely it must be possible to function in a sexual relationship with someone you love without the nightmare which usually follows. Of course it is."

"Meditation is one of the greatest arts in life — perhaps the greatest, and one cannot possibly learn it from anybody, that is the beauty of it. It has no technique and therefore no authority. When you learn about yourself, watch yourself, watch the way you walk, how you eat, what you say, the gossip, the hate, the jealousy — if you are aware of all that in yourself, without any choice, that is part of meditation."

"Thought is matter as much as the floor, the wall, the telephone, are matter. Energy functioning in a pattern becomes matter. That is all life is … Matter and energy are interrelated. The one cannot exist without the other, and the more harmony there is between the two, the more balance, the more active the brain cells are. Thought has set up this pattern of pleasure, pain, fear, and has been functioning inside it for thousands of years and cannot break the pattern because it has created it."

"Man has throughout the ages been seeking something beyond himself, beyond material welfare — something we call truth or God or reality, a timeless state — something that cannot be disturbed by circumstances, by thought or by human corruption. Man has always asked the question: what is it all about? Has life any meaning at all? He sees the enormous confusion of life, the brutalities, the revolt, the wars, the endless divisions of religion, ideology and nationality, and with a sense of deep abiding frustration he asks, what is one to do, what is this thing we call living, is there anything beyond it?"

"In this constant battle which we call living, we try to set a code of conduct according to the society in which we are brought up, whether it be a Communist society or a so-called free society; we accept a standard of behaviour as part of our tradition as Hindus or Muslims or Christians or whatever we happen to be. We look to someone to tell us what is right or wrong behaviour, what is right or wrong thought, and in following this pattern our conduct and our thinking become mechanical, our responses automatic. We can observe this very easily in ourselves."

"For centuries we have been spoon-fed by our teachers, by our authorities, by our books, our saints. We say, "Tell me all about it — what lies beyond the hills and the mountains and the earth?" and we are satisfied with their descriptions, which means that we live on words and our life is shallow and empty. We are secondhand people. We have lived on what we have been told, either guided by our inclinations, our tendencies, or compelled to accept by circumstances and environment. We are the result of all kinds of influences and there is nothing new in us, nothing that we have discovered for ourselves; nothing original, pristine, clear."

"Throughout theological history we have been assured by religious leaders that if we perform certain rituals, repeat certain prayers or mantras, conform to certain patterns, suppress our desires, control our thoughts, sublimate our passions, limit our appetites and refrain from sexual indulgence, we shall, after sufficient torture of the mind and body, find something beyond this little life. And that is what millions of so-called religious people have done through the ages, either in isolation, going off into the desert or into the mountains or a cave or wandering from village to village with a begging bowl, or, in a group, joining a monastery, forcing their minds to conform to an established pattern. But a tortured mind, a broken mind, a mind which wants to escape from all turmoil, which has denied the outer world and been made dull through discipline and conformity — such a mind, however long it seeks, will find only according to its own distortion."

"The traditional approach is from the periphery inwards, and through time, practice and renunciation, gradually to come upon that inner flower, that inner beauty and love — in fact to do everything to make oneself narrow, petty and shoddy; peel off little by little; take time; tomorrow will do, next life will do — and when at last one comes to the centre one finds there is nothing there, because one's mind has been made incapable, dull and insensitive. Having observed this process, one asks oneself, is there not a different approach altogether — that is, is it not possible to explode from the centre?"

"The world accepts and follows the traditional approach. The primary cause of disorder in ourselves is the seeking of reality promised by another; we mechanically follow somebody who will assure us a comfortable spiritual life. It is a most extraordinary thing that although most of us are opposed to political tyranny and dictatorship, we inwardly accept the authority, the tyranny, of another to twist our minds and our way of life. So if we completely reject, not intellectually but actually, all so-called spiritual authority, all ceremonies, rituals and dogmas, it means that we stand alone and are already in conflict with society; we cease to be respectable human beings. A respectable human being cannot possibly come near to that infinite, immeasurable, reality."

"That is the first thing to learn — not to seek. When you seek you are really only window-shopping. The question of whether or not there is a God or truth or reality, or whatever you like to call it, can never be answered by books, by priests, philosophers or saviours. Nobody and nothing can answer the question but you yourself and that is why you must know yourself. Immaturity lies only in total ignorance of self. To understand yourself is the beginning of wisdom."

"I think there is a difference between the human being and the individual. The individual is a local entity, living in a particular country, belonging to a particular culture, particular society, particular religion. The human being is not a local entity. He is everywhere. If the individual merely acts in a particular corner of the vast field of life, then his action is totally unrelated to the whole. So one has to bear in mind that we are talking of the whole not the part, because in the greater the lesser is, but in the lesser the greater is not. The individual is the little conditioned, miserable, frustrated entity, satisfied with his little gods and his little traditions, whereas a human being is concerned with the total welfare, the total misery and total confusion of the world."

"We human beings are what we have been for millions of years — colossally greedy, envious, aggressive, jealous, anxious and despairing, with occasional flashes of joy and affection. We are a strange mixture of hate, fear and gentleness; we are both violence and peace. There has been outward progress from the bullock cart to the jet plane but psychologically the individual has not changed at all, and the structure of society throughout the world has been created by individuals. The outward social structure is the result of the inward psychological structure of our human relationships, for the individual is the result of the total experience, knowledge and conduct of man. Each one of us is the storehouse of all the past. The individual is the human who is all mankind."

"We are afraid of the known and afraid of the unknown. That is our daily life and in that there is no hope, and therefore every form of philosophy, every form of theological concept, is merely an escape from the actual reality of what is. All outward forms of change brought about by wars, revolutions, reformations, laws and ideologies have failed completely to change the basic nature of man and therefore of society."

"As human beings living in this monstrously ugly world, let us ask ourselves, can this society, based on competition, brutality and fear, come to an end? Not as an intellectual conception, not as a hope, but as an actual fact, so that the mind is made fresh, new and innocent and can bring about a different world altogether? It can only happen, I think, if each one of us recognises the central fact that we, as individuals, as human beings, in whatever part of the world we happen to live or whatever culture we happen to belong to, are totally responsible for the whole state of the world. We are each one of us responsible for every war because of the aggressiveness of our own lives, because of our nationalism, our selfishness, our gods, our prejudices, our ideals, all of which divide us."

"What can a human being do — what can you and I do — to create a completely different society? We are asking ourselves a very serious question. Is there anything to be done at all? What can we do? Will somebody tell us? People have told us. The so-called spiritual leaders, who are supposed to understand these things better than we do, have told us by trying to twist and mould us into a new pattern, and that hasn't led us very far; sophisticated and learned men have told us and that has led us no further. We have been told that all paths lead to truth — you have your path as a Hindu and someone else has his path as a Christian and another as a Muslim, and they all meet at the same door — which is, when you look at it, so obviously absurd. Truth has no path, and that is the beauty of truth, it is living. A dead thing has a path to it because it is static, but when you see that truth is something living, moving, which has no resting place, which is in no temple, mosque or church, which no religion, no teacher, no philosopher, nobody can lead you to — then you will also see that this living thing is what you actually are — your anger, your brutality, your violence, your despair, the agony and sorrow you live in. In the understanding of all this is the truth, and you can understand it only if you know how to look at those things in your life. And you cannot look through an ideology, through a screen of words, through hopes and fears."

"You cannot depend upon anybody. There is no guide, no teacher, no authority. There is only you — your relationship with others and with the world — there is nothing else. When you realize this, it either brings great despair, from which comes cynicism and bitterness, or, in facing the fact that you and nobody else is responsible for the world and for yourself, for what you think, what you feel, how you act, all self-pity goes. Normally we thrive on blaming others, which is a form of self-pity."

"It is important to understand from the very beginning that I am not formulating any philosophy or any theological structure of ideas or theological concepts. It seems to me that all ideologies are utterly idiotic. What is important is not a philosophy of life but to observe what is actually taking place in our daily life, inwardly and outwardly. If you observe very closely what is taking place and examine it, you will see that it is based on an intellectual conception, and the intellect is not the whole field of existence; it is a fragment, and a fragment, however cleverly put together, however ancient and traditional, is still a small part of existence whereas we have to deal with the totality of life."

"When we look at what is taking place in the world we begin to understand that there is no outer and inner process; there is only one unitary process, it is a whole, total movement, the inner movement expressing itself as the outer and the outer reacting again on the inner. To be able to look at this seems to me all that is needed, because if we know how to look, then the whole thing becomes very clear, and to look needs no philosophy, no teacher. Nobody need tell you how to look. You just look. Can you then, seeing this whole picture, seeing it not verbally but actually, can you easily, spontaneously, transform yourself? That is the real issue. Is it possible to bring about a complete revolution in the psyche?"

"Violence is not merely killing another. It is violence when we use a sharp word, when we make a gesture to brush away a person, when we obey because there is fear. So violence isn't merely organized butchery in the name of God, in the name of society or country. Violence is much more subtle, much deeper, and we are inquiring into the very depths of violence. When you call yourself an Indian or a Muslim or a Christian or a European, or anything else, you are being violent. Do you see why it is violent? Because you are separating yourself from the rest of mankind. When you separate yourself by belief, by nationality, by tradition, it breeds violence. So a man who is seeking to understand violence does not belong to any country, to any religion, to any political party or partial system; he is concerned with the total understanding of mankind."

"It's no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society."

"What does it mean to be compassionate? Not merely verbally, but actually to be compassionate? Is compassion a matter of habit, of thought, a matter of the mechanical repetition of being kind, polite, gentle, tender? Can the mind which is caught in the activity of thought with its conditioning, its mechanical repetition, be compassionate at all? It can talk about it, it can encourage social reform, be kind to the poor heathen and so on; but is that compassion? When thought dictates, when thought is active, can there be any place for compassion? Compassion being action without motive, without self-interest, without any sense of fear, without any sense of pleasure."

"The whole of Asia believes in reincarnation, in being reborn in another life. When you enquire what it is that is going to be born in the next life, you come up against difficulties. What is it? Yourself? What are you? a lot of words, a lot of opinions, attachments to your possessions, to your furniture, to your conditioning. Is all that, which you call the soul, going to be reborn in the next life? Reincarnation implies that what you are today determines what you will be again in the next life. Therefore behave! — not tomorrow, but today, because what you do today you are going to pay for in the next life. People who believe in reincarnation do not bother about behavior;t all; it is just a matter of belief, which has no value. Incarnate today, afresh not in the next life! Change it now completely, change with great passion, let the mind strip itself of everything, of every conditioning, every knowledge, of everything it thinks is "right" — empty it. Then you will know what dying means; and then you will know what love is. For love is not something of the past, of thought, of culture; it is not pleasure. A mind that has understood the whole movement of thought becomes extraordinarily quiet, absolutely silent. That silence is the beginning of the new."

"Do you decide to observe? Or do you merely observe? Do you decide and say, "I am going to observe and learn"? For then there is the question: "Who is deciding?" Is it will that says, "I must"? And when it fails, it chastises itself further and says, "I must, must, must"; in that there is conflict; therefore the state of mind that has decided to observe is not observation at all. You are walking down the road, somebody passes you by, you observe and you may say to yourself, "How ugly he is; how he smells; I wish he would not do this or that". You are aware of your responses to that passer-by, you are aware that you are judging, condemning or justifying; you are observing. You do not say, "I must not judge, I must not justify". In being aware of your responses, there is no decision at all. You see somebody who insulted you yesterday. Immediately all your hackles are up, you become nervous or anxious, you begin to dislike; be aware of your dislike, be aware of all that, do not "decide" to be aware. Observe, and in that observation there is neither the "observer" nor the "observed" — there is only observation taking place. The "observer" exists only when you accumulate in the observation; when you say, "He is my friend because he has flattered me", or, "He is not my friend, because he has said something ugly about me, or something true which I do not like." That is accumulation through observation and that accumulation is the observer. When you observe without accumulation, then there is no judgement."

"No book can teach you about yourself, no psychologist, none of the professors or philosophers. What they can teach you is what they think you are or what they think you should be."

"Is it possible to observe without the observer?"

"Thought nourishes, sustains and gives continuity to fear and pleasure."

"To learn about oneself, a living thing, you have to watch, learn anew each minute."

"Control exists only when there is action of will, positively or negatively. Will is resistance. When the mind is learning, there is no resistance."

"When you identify yourself with a group of people or a set of ideas, aren't you separating yourself?"

"Learning implies a mind that doesn't know."

"Can I live a life, daily life, without sense of self-concern?"

"Is it possible to live in this world without the operation of will?"

"Why does the brain retain the memory of the hurt from yesterday?"

"Can the mind become completely still without coercion, without compulsion, without discipline?"

"The moment I am aware that I am aware, I am not aware. Awareness means the observer is not."

"When I analyse myself and my reactions or behaviour, there is the act and the actor. There is a division between the two and that creates conflict between "what is" and "what should be"."

"Does choice exist when I see something very clearly?"

"Meditation is a state of mind in which the operation and exercise of will is not."

"When you practice meditation, the meditator becomes all-important and not the movement of meditation."

"Fear is always in relation to something; it does not exist by itself. There is fear of what happened yesterday in relation to the possibility of its repetition tomorrow; there is always a fixed point from which relationship takes place. How does fear come into this? I had pain yesterday; there is the memory of it and I do not want it again tomorrow. Thinking about the pain of yesterday, thinking which involves the memory of yesterday’s pain, projects the fear of having pain again tomorrow. So it is thought that brings about fear. Thought breeds fear; thought also cultivates pleasure. To understand fear you must also understand pleasure — they are interrelated; without understanding one you cannot understand the other. This means that one cannot say ‘I must only have pleasure and no fear’; fear is the other side of the coin which is called pleasure. Thinking with the images of yesterday’s pleasure, thought imagines that you may not have that pleasure tomorrow; so thought engenders fear. Thought tries to sustain pleasure and thereby nourishes fear. Thought has separated itself as the analyzer and the thing to be analyzed; they are both parts of thought playing tricks upon itself. In doing all this it is refusing to examine the unconscious fears; it brings in time as a means of escaping fear and yet at the same time sustains fear."

"Now, one sees all that by observing, by being aware, watching, one is aware of all this. Then out of that awareness you see there is no division between the observer and the observed. It is a trick of thought which demands security. Please don't madam, please. And by being aware it sees the observer is the observed, that violence is the observer, violence is not different from the observer. Now how is the observer to end himself and not be violent? Have you understood my question so far? I think so. Right? The observer is the observed, there is no division and therefore no conflict. And is the observer then, knowing all the intricacies of naming, linguistically caught in the image of violence, what happens to that violence? If the observer is violent, can the observer end, otherwise violence will go on? Can the observer end himself, because he is violent? Or what reality has the observer? Right sir? Is he merely put together by words, by experience, by knowledge? So is he put together by the past? So is he the past? Right? Which means the mind is living in the past. Right? obviously. You are living in the past. Right? No? As long as there is an observer there must be living in the past, obviously. And all our life is based on the past, memories, knowledge, images, according to which you react, which is your conditioning, is the past. And living has become the living of the past in the present, modified in the future. That's all, as long as the observer is living. Now does the mind see this as a truth, as a reality, that all my life is living in the past? I may paint most abstract pictures, write the most modern poems, invent the most extraordinary machinery, but I am still living in the past."

"It is utterly and irrevocably possible to empty all hurts and, therefore, to love, to have compassion. To have compassion means to have passion for all things, not just between two people, but for all human beings, for all things of the earth, the animals, the trees, everything the earth contains. When we have such compassion we will not despoil the earth as we are doing now, and we will have no wars."

"Truth does not belong to an individual."

"Is there an observation which is not the instrument of thought?"

"What is correct action in a deteriorating world?"

"The world is me and I am the world."

"Goodness is not the pursuit of conformity. If you conform to a belief, to a concept, to an idea, to a principle, that is not good, because it creates conflict. Goodness cannot flower through another, through a religious figure, through dogma, through belief; it can only flower in the soil of total attention in which there is no authority. The essence of goodness is a mind that is not in conflict. And goodness implies great responsibility. You can't be good and allow wars to take place. So a person who is really good is totally responsible for his whole life."

"Knowledge is necessary to act in the sense of my going home from here to the place I live; I must have knowledge for this; I must have knowledge to speak English; I must have knowledge to write a letter and so on. Knowledge as function, mechanical function, is necessary. Now if I use that knowledge in my relationship with you, another human being, I am bringing about a barrier, a division between you and me, namely the observer. That is, knowledge, in relationship, in human relationship, is destructive. That is knowledge which is the tradition, the memory, the image, which the mind has built about you, that knowledge is separative and therefore creates conflict in our relationship."

"How is the mind which functions on knowledge — how is the brain which is recording all the time — to end, to see the importance of recording and not let it move in any other direction? Very simply: you insult me, you hurt me, by word, gesture, by an actual act; that leaves a mark on the brain which is memory. That memory is knowledge, that knowledge is going to interfere in my meeting you next time — obviously."

"The only thing that really matters is that there be an action of goodness, love and intelligence in living. Is goodness individual or collective, is love personal or impersonal, is intelligence yours, mine or somebody else? If it is yours or mine then it is not intelligence, or love, or goodness. If goodness is an affair of the individual or of the collective, according to one's particular preference or decision, then it is no longer goodness."

"Goodness is not in the backyard of the individual nor in the open field of the collective; goodness flowers only in freedom from both."

"The brain is the source of thought. The brain is matter and thought is matter. Can the brain — with all its reactions and its immediate responses to every challenge and demand — can the brain be very still? It is not a question of ending thought, but of whether the brain can be completely still? This stillness is not physical death. See what happens when the brain is completely still."

"The first step is the last step. The first step is to perceive, perceive what you are thinking, perceive your ambition, perceive your anxiety, your loneliness, your despair, this extraordinary sense of sorrow, perceive it, without any condemnation, justification, without wishing it to be different. Just to perceive it, as it is. When you perceive it as it is, then there is a totally different kind of action taking place, and that action is the final action. Right? That is, when you perceive something as being false or as being true, that perception is the final action, which is the final step. Now listen to it. I perceive the falseness of following somebody else, somebody else’s instruction — Krishna, Buddha, Christ, it does not matter who it is. I see, there is the perception of the truth that following somebody is utterly false. Because your reason, your logic and everything points out how absurd it is to follow somebody. Now that perception is the final step, and when you have perceived, you leave it, forget it, because the next minute you have to perceive anew, which is again the final step."

"So you must ask this question, put this question to yourself, whether your mind can be empty of all its past and yet retain the technological knowledge, your engineering knowledge, your linguistic knowledge, the memory of all that, and yet function from a mind that is completely empty. The emptying of that mind comes about naturally, sweetly without bidding, when you understand yourself, when you understand what you are. What you are is the memory, bundle of memories, experiences, thoughts. When you understand that, look at it, observe it; and when you observe it, see in that observation that there is no duality between the observer and the observed; then when you see that, you will see that your mind can be completely empty, attentive, and in that attention you can act wholly, without any fragmentation."

"In seeking there are several things involved: there is the seeker and the thing that he seeks after. When the seeker finds what he thinks is truth, is God, is enlightenment, he must be able to recognize it. He must recognize it, right? Recognition implies previous knowledge, otherwise you cannot recognize. I cannot recognize you if I had not met you yesterday. Therefore when I say this is truth, I have already known it and therefore it is not truth. So a man who is seeking truth lives a life of hypocrisy, because his truth is the projection of his memory, of his desire, of his intentions to find something other than "what is", a formula. So seeking implies duality — the one who seeks and the thing sought after — and where there is duality there is conflict. There is wastage of energy. So you can never find it, you can never invite it."

"A mind that is in meditation is concerned only with meditation, not with the meditator. The meditator is the observer, the senser, the thinker, the experiencer, and when there is the experiencer, the thinker, then he is concerned with reaching out, gaining, achieving, experiencing. And that thing which is timeless cannot be experienced. There is no experience at all. There is only that which is not nameable. ...You know, in all this there are various powers like clairvoyance, reading somebody’s thought — which is the most disgusting thing to do: it is like reading letters that are private. There are various powers. You know what I am talking about, don’t you? You call them siddhis, don’t you? Do you know that all these things are like candles in the sun? When there is no sun there is darkness, and then the candle and the light of the candle become very important. But when there is the sun, the light, the beauty, the clarity, then all these powers, these siddhis — developing various centres, chakras, kundalini, you know all that business — are like candlelight; they have no value at all. And when you have that light, you don’t want anything else."

"Now, can one die every day to everything that one knows — except, of course, the technological knowledge, the direction where your home is, and so on; that is, to end, psychologically, every day, so that the mind remains fresh, young and innocent? That is death. And to come upon that there must be no shadow of fear. To give up without argument, without any resistance. That is dying. Have you ever tried it? To give up without a murmur, without restraint, without resistance, the thing that gives you most pleasure (the things that are painful, of course, one wants to give up in any case). Actually to let go. Try it. Then, if you do it, you will see that the mind becomes extraordinarily alert, alive and sensitive, free and unburdened. Old age then takes on quite a different meaning, not something to be dreaded."

"Thought itself must deny itself. Thought itself sees what it is doing and therefore thought itself realizes that it has to come of itself to an end. There is no other factor than itself. Therefore when thought realizes that whatever it does, any movement that it makes, is disorder (we are taking that as an example) then there is silence."

"One can go on endlessly reading, discussing, piling up words upon words, without ever doing anything about it. It is like a man that is always ploughing, never sowing, and therefore never reaping. Most of us are in that position. And words, ideas, theories, have become much more important than actual living, which is acting, doing. I do not know if you have ever wondered why, throughout the world, ideas, formulas, concepts, have tremendous significance, not only scientifically but also theologically."

"Life as we live it is obviously very brutal, and makes us insensitive, dull, heavy, stupid, and so we may hope through ideas,through ideational mentation, to bring about a certain quality of sensitivity.… But even when we are sharpened and quickened intellectually by argument, by discussion, by reading, this does not actually bring about that quality of sensitivity. And you know all those people who are erudite, who read, who theorize, who can discuss brilliantly, are extraordinarily dull people. So I think sensitivity, which destroys mediocrity, is very important to understand. Because most of us are becoming, I am afraid, more mediocre. We are not using that word in any derogative sense at all, but merely observing the fact of mediocrity in the sense of being average, fairly well educated, earning a livelihood and perhaps capable of clever discussion; but this leaves us still bourgeois, mediocre, not only in our attitudes but in our activities."

"How can one be free of the images that one has? First of all, I must find out how these images come into being, what is the mechanism that creates them. You can see that at the moment of actual relationship, that is, when you are talking, when there are arguments, when there are insults and brutality, if you are not completely attentive at that moment, then the mechanism of building an image starts. That is, when the mind is not completely attentive at the moment of action, then the mechanism of building images is set in motion. When you say something to me which I do not like — or which I like — if at that moment I am not completely attentive, then the mechanism starts. If I am attentive, aware, then there is no building of images."

"What is important in meditation is the quality of the mind and the heart.It is not what you achieve, or what you say you attain, but rather the quality of a mind that is innocent and vulnerable."

"If there is no meditation, then you are like a blind man in a world of great beauty, light and colour."

"There's a great and unutterable beauty in all this."

"Thought shattering itself against its own nothingness is the explosion of meditation."

"Woke up early this morning with an enormous sense of power, beauty and incorruptibility…in which nothing could exist that could become corrupt, deteriorate. It was too immense for the brain to grasp…limitless, untouchable, impenetrable. Because of its incorruptibility, there was in it beauty. Not the beauty that fades… One felt that in its presence all essence exists and so it was sacred. It was a life in which nothing could perish…With it all there was a sense of power – strength as solid as that mountain. (...) Yesterday, driving through the narrow valley … there was this benediction. It was very strong and everything was bathed in it.The noise of the stream was part of it and the high waterfall… It was like the gentle rain … and one became utterly vulnerable; the body seemed to have become light as a leaf, exposed and trembling. This went on … talk became monosyllabic. The beauty of it seemed incredible."

"Man, in order to escape his conflicts, has invented many forms of meditation. These have been based on desire, will, and the urge for achievement, and imply conflict and a struggle to arrive. This conscious, deliberate striving is always within the limits of a conditioned mind, and in this there is no freedom. All effort to meditate is the denial of meditation. Meditation is the ending of thought. It is only then that there is a different dimension which is beyond time."

"Meditation is the emptying of the mind of all thought, for thought and feeling dissipate energy. They are repetitive, producing mechanical activities which are a necessary part of existence. But they are only part, and thought and feeling cannot possibly enter into the immensity of life. Quite a different approach is necessary, not the path of habit, association and the known; there must be freedom from these. Meditation is the emptying of the mind of the known. It cannot be done by thought or by the hidden prompting of thought, nor by desire in the form of prayer, nor through the self-effacing hypnotism of words, images, hopes, and vanities. All these have to come to an end, easily, without effort and choice, in the flame of awareness."

"Can the mind resolve a psychological problem immediately?"

"Psychological knowledge has made us dull."

"The individuality is the name, the form and superficial culture he acquires from tradition and environment. The uniqueness of man does not lie in the superficial but in complete freedom from the content of his consciousness, which is common to all humanity."

"It is man’s pretence that because he has choice he is free. Freedom is pure observation without direction, without fear of punishment and reward. Freedom is without motive; freedom is not at the end of the evolution of man but lies in the first step of his existence."

"When man becomes aware of the movement of his own thoughts, he will see the division between the thinker and thought, the observer and the observed, the experiencer and the experience. He will discover that this division is an illusion. Then only is there pure observation which is insight without any shadow of the past or of time. This timeless insight brings about a deep, radical mutation in the mind."

"And the brain has been trained to record because then in that recording there is safety, there is security, there is strength, a vitality, and therefore in that recording the mind creates the image about oneself. Right? And that image will constantly get hurt. So is it possible to live without a single image? Go into it, sir. Don't please go to sleep. Single image about yourself, about your husband, wife, children, friend and so on, about the politicians, about the priests, about the ideals, not a single shadow of an image? We are saying it is possible, must be, otherwise you will always be getting hurt, always living in a pattern. In that there is no freedom. And when you call me an idiot, to be so attentive at that moment. Right? When you give complete attention there is no recording. It is only when there is not attention, inattention, you record. I wonder if you capture this. Is it getting too difficult? Too abstract? That is, you flatter me. I like it. The liking at that moment is inattention. In that moment there is no attention. Therefore recording takes place. But when you flatter me, instead of calling me an idiot, now you have gone to the other extreme, flatter me, to listen to it so completely, without any reaction, then there is no centre which records."

"The very word "sorrow" colours the fact of sorrow, the pain of it."

"The understanding of relationship, fear, pleasure and sorrow is to bring order in our house. Without order you cannot possibly meditate. Now the speaker puts meditation at the end of the talks because there is no possibility of right meditation if you have not put your house, your psychological house, in order. If the psychological house is in disorder, if what you are is in disorder, what is the point of meditating? It is just an escape. It leads to all kinds of illusions."

"If you are not at all concerned with the world but only with your personal salvation, following certain beliefs and superstitions, following gurus, then I am afraid it will be impossible for you and the speaker to communicate with each other. …We are not concerned at all with private personal salvation but we are concerned, earnestly, seriously, with what the human mind has become, what humanity is facing. We are concerned as human beings, human beings who are not labelled with any nationality. We are concerned at looking at this world and what a human being living in this world has to do, what is his role?"

"The Flame of Attention (1984), p. 10 . J.Krishnamurti Online, Serial No. 320"

"The questioner says, how can the conditioned brain grasp the unlimited, which is beauty, love, and truth? What is the ground of compassion and intelligence, and can it come upon us — each one of us? Are you inviting compassion? Are you inviting intelligence? Are you inviting beauty, love, and truth? Are you trying to grasp it? I am asking you. Are you trying to grasp the quality of intelligence, compassion, the immense sense of beauty, the perfume of love and that truth which has no path to it? Is that what you are grasping — wanting to find out the ground upon which it dwells? Can the limited brain grasp this? You cannot possibly grasp it, hold it. You can do all kinds of meditation, fast, torture yourself, become terribly austere, having one suit, or one robe. All this has been done. The rich cannot come to the truth, neither the poor. Nor the people who have taken a vow of celibacy, of silence, of austerity. All that is determined by thought, put together sequentially by thought; it is all the cultivation of deliberate thought, of deliberate intent."

"Desire, which has been the driving force in man, has created a great many pleasant and useful things; desire also, in man's relationships, has created a great many problems and turmoil and misery — the desire for pleasure. The monks and the sannyasis of the world have tried to go beyond it, have forced themselves to worship an ideal, an image, a symbol. But desire is always there like a flame, burning. And to find out, to probe into the nature of desire, the complexity of desire, its activities, its demands, its fulfilments — ever more and more desire for power, position, prestige, status, the desire for the unnameable, that which is beyond all our daily life — has made man do all kinds of ugly and brutal things. Desire is the outcome of sensation the outcome with all the images that thought has built. And this desire not only breeds discontent but a sense of hopelessness. Never suppress it, never discipline it but probe into the nature of it — what is the origin, the purpose, the intricacies of it? To delve deep into it is not another desire, for it has no motive; it is like understanding the beauty of a flower, to sit down beside it and look at it. And as you look it begins to reveal itself as it actually is — the extraordinarily delicate colour, the perfume, the petals, the stem and the earth out of which it has grown. So look at this desire and its nature without thought which is always shaping sensations, pleasure and pain, reward and punishment. Then one understands, not verbally, nor intellectually, the whole causation of desire, the root of desire. The very perception of it, the subtle perception of it, that in itself is intelligence. And that intelligence will always act sanely and rationally in dealing with desire."

"No description can ever describe the origin. The origin is nameless; the origin is absolutely quiet, it is not whirring about making noise. Creation is something that is most holy, that is the most sacred thing in life, and if you have made a mess of your life, change it. Change it today, not tomorrow. If you are uncertain, find out why and be certain. If your thinking is not straight, think straight, logically, Unless all that is prepared, all that is settled, you cannot enter into this world, into the world of creation. It ends. This is the last talk. Do you want to sit together quietly for a while? All right, sirs, sit quietly for a while."

"Goodness shows itself in behaviour and action and in relationship. Generally our daily behaviour is based on either the following of certain patterns — mechanical and therefore superficial — or according to very carefully thought-out motive, based on reward or punishment. So our behaviour, consciously or unconsciously, is calculated. This is not good behaviour. When one realizes this, not merely intellectually or by putting words together, then out of this total negation comes true behaviour."

"Goodness has no opposite. Most of us consider goodness as the opposite of the bad or evil and so throughout history in any culture goodness has been considered the other face of that which is brutal. So man has always struggled against evil in order to be good; but goodness can never come into being if there is any form of violence or struggle."

"The very nature of intelligence is sensitivity, and this sensitivity is love. Without this intelligence there can be no compassion. Compassion is not the doing of charitable acts or social reform; it is free from sentiment, romanticism and emotional enthusiasm. It is as strong as death. It is like a great rock, immovable in the midst of confusion, misery and anxiety. Without this compassion no new culture or society can come into being. Compassion and intelligence walk together; they are not separate. Compassion acts through intelligence. It can never act through the intellect. Compassion is the essence of the wholeness of life."

"Attention involves seeing and hearing. We hear not only with our ears but also we are sensitive to the tones, the voice, to the implication of words, to hear without interference, to capture instantly the depth of a sound. Sound plays an extraordinary part in our lives: the sound of thunder, a flute playing in the distance, the unheard sound of the universe; the sound of silence, the sound of one’s own heart beating; the sound of a bird and the noise of a man walking on the pavement; the waterfall. The universe is filled with sound. This sound has its own silence; all living things are involved in this sound of silence. To be attentive is to hear this silence and move with it."

"Attention is this hearing and this seeing, and this attention has no limitation, no resistance, so it is limitless. To attend implies this vast energy: it is not pinned down to a point. In this attention there is no repetitive movement; it is not mechanical. There is no question of how to maintain this attention, and when one has learnt the art of seeing and hearing, this attention can focus itself on a page, a word. In this there is no resistance which is the activity of concentration. Inattention cannot be refined into attention. To be aware of inattention is the ending of it: not that it becomes attentive. The ending has no continuity. The past modifying itself is the future — a continuity of what has been — and we find security in continuity, not in ending. So attention has no quality of continuity. Anything that continues is mechanical. The becoming is mechanical and implies time. Attention has no quality of time. All this is a tremendously complicated issue. One must gently, deeply go into it."

"How can one be compassionate if you belong to any religion, follow any guru, believe in something, believe in your scriptures, and so on, attached to a conclusion? When you accept your guru, you have come to a conclusion, or when you strongly believe in god or in a saviour, this or that, can there be compassion? You may do social work, help the poor out of pity, out of sympathy, out of charity, but is all that love and compassion?"

"First, we must be very clear that you and the speaker are treating life not as a problem but as a tremendous movement. If your brain is trained to solve problems, then you will treat this movement as a problem to be solved. Is it possible to look at life with all its questions, with all its issues, which is tremendously complex, to look at it not as a problem, but to observe it clearly, without bias, without coming to some conclusion which will then dictate your observation? You have to observe this vast movement of life, not only your own particular life, but the life of all humanity, the life of the earth, the life of the trees, the life of the whole world — look at it, observe it, move with it, but if you treat it as a problem, then you will create more problems."

"From childhood we are trained to have problems. When we are sent to school, we have to learn how to write, how to read, and all the rest of it. How to write becomes a problem to the child. Please follow this carefully. Mathematics becomes a problem, history becomes a problem, as does chemistry. So the child is educated, from childhood, to live with problems — the problem of God, problem of a dozen things. So our brains are conditioned, trained, educated to live with problems. From childhood we have done this. What happens when a brain is educated in problems? It can never solve problems; it can only create more problems. When a brain that is trained to have problems, and to live with problems, solves one problem, in the very solution of that problem, it creates more problems. From childhood we are trained, educated to live with problems and, therefore, being centred in problems, we can never solve any problem completely. It is only the free brain that is not conditioned to problems that can solve problems. It is one of our constant burdens to have problems all the time. Therefore our brains are never quiet, free to observe, to look. So we are asking: Is it possible not to have a single problem but to face problems? But to understand those problems, and to totally resolve them, the brain must be free."

"Are we wasting our lives? By that word “wasting” we mean dissipating our energy in various ways, dissipating it in specialized professions. Are we wasting our whole existence, our life? If you are rich, you may say, “Yes, I have accumulated a lot of money, it has been a great pleasure.” Or if you have a certain talent, that talent is a danger to a religious life. Talent is a gift, a faculty, an aptitude in a particular direction, which is specialization. Specialization is a fragmentary process. So you must ask yourself whether you are wasting your life. You may be rich, you may have all kinds of faculties, you may be a specialist, a great scientist or a businessman, but at the end of your life has all that been a waste? All the travail, all the sorrow, all the tremendous anxiety, insecurity, the foolish illusions that man has collected, all his gods, all his saints and so on — have all that been a waste? You may have power, position, but at the end of it — what? Please, this is a serious question that you must ask yourself. Another cannot answer this question for you."

"It is astonishingly beautiful and interesting, how thought is absent when you have an insight. Thought cannot have an insight. It is only when the mind is not operating mechanically in the structure of thought that you have an insight. Having had an insight, thought draws a conclusion from that insight. And then thought acts and thought is mechanical. So I have to find out whether having an insight into myself, which means into the world, and not drawing a conclusion from it is possible. If I draw a conclusion, I act on an idea, on an image, on a symbol, which is the structure of thought, and so I am constantly preventing myself from having insight, from understanding things as they are."

"Insight is not a matter of memory, of knowledge and time, which are all thought. So I would say insight is the total absence of the whole movement of thought as time and remembrance. So there is direct perception. It is as though I have been going North for the last ten thousand years, and my brain is accustomed to going North, and somebody comes along and says, that will lead you nowhere, go East. When I turn round and go East the brain cells have changed. Because I have an insight that the North leads nowhere. I will put it differently. The whole movement of thought, which is limited, is acting throughout the world now. It is the most important action, we are driven by thought. But thought will not solve any of our problems, except the technological ones. If I see that, I have stopped going North. I think that with the ending of a certain direction, the ending of a movement that has been going on for thousands of years, there is at that moment an insight that brings about a change, a mutation, in the brain cells."

"In oneself lies the whole world and if you know how to look and learn, the door is there and the key is in your hand. Nobody on earth can give you either the key or the door to open, except yourself."

"To understand oneself requires patience, tolerant awareness; the self is a book of many volumes which you cannot read in a day, but when once you begin to read, you must read every word, every sentence, every paragraph for in them are the intimations of the whole. The beginning of it is the ending of it. If you know how to read, supreme wisdom is to be found."

"Questioner: Can one love truth without loving man? Can one love man without loving truth? What comes first? Krishnamurti: Love comes first. To love truth, you must know truth. To know truth is to deny truth. What is known is not truth. What is known is already encased in time and ceases to be truth. Truth is an eternal movement, and so cannot be measured in words or in time. It cannot be held in the fist. You cannot love something which you do not know. But truth is not to be found in books, in images, in temples. It is to be found in action, in living. The very search for the unknown is love itself, and you cannot search for the unknowable away from relationship. You cannot search for reality, or for what you will, in isolation. It comes into being only in relationship, only when there is right relationship between man and man. So the love of man is the search for reality."

"To understand oneself, one needs enormous pliability, and that pliability is denied when we specialize in devotion, in action, in knowledge. There are no paths such as devotion, as action, as knowledge, and he who follows any of these paths separately as a specialist brings about his own destruction. That is, a man who is committed to a particular path, to a particular approach, is incapable of pliability, and that which is not pliable is broken. As a tree that is not pliable breaks in the storm, so a man who has specialized breaks down in moments of crisis."

"The answer is in the problem, not away from the problem. I go through the searching, analysing, dissecting process, in order to escape from the problem. But, if I do not escape from the problem and try to look at the problem without any fear or anxiety, if I merely look at the problem — mathematical, political, religious, or any other — and not look to an answer, then the problem will begin to tell me. Surely, this is what happens. We go through this process and eventually throw it aside because there is no way out of it. So, why can’t we start right from the beginning, that is, not seek an answer to a problem? — which is extremely arduous, isn’t it? Because, the more I understand the problem, the more significance there is in it. To understand, I must approach it quietly, not impose on the problem my ideas, my feelings of like and dislike. Then the problem will reveal its significance. Why is it not possible to have tranquillity of the mind right from the beginning?"

"You cannot find truth through anybody else. How can you? Surely, truth is not something static; it has no fixed abode; it is not an end, a goal. On the contrary, it is living, dynamic, alert, alive. How can it be an end? If truth is a fixed point, it is no longer truth; it is then a mere opinion. Sir, truth is the unknown, and a mind that is seeking truth will never find it. For mind is made up of the known; it is the result of the past, the outcome of time — which you can observe for yourself. Mind is the instrument of the known; hence it cannot find the unknown; it can only move from the known to the known. When the mind seeks truth, the truth it has read about in books, that "truth" is self-projected, for then the mind is merely in pursuit of the known, a more satisfactory known than the previous one. When the mind seeks truth, it is seeking its own self-projection, not truth. After all, an ideal is self-projected; it is fictitious, unreal. What is real is what is, not the opposite. But a mind that is seeking reality, seeking God, is seeking the known. When you think of God, your God is the projection of your own thought, the result of social influences. You can think only of the known; you cannot think of the unknown, you cannot concentrate on truth. The moment you think of the unknown, it is merely the self-projected known. So, God or truth cannot be thought about. If you think about it, it is not truth. Truth cannot be sought; it comes to you. You can go after only what is known. When the mind is not tortured by the known, by the effects of the known, then only can truth reveal itself. Truth is in every leaf, every tear; it is to be known from moment to moment. No one can lead you to truth; and if anyone leads you, it can only be to the known."

"Truth is not something in the distance; there is no path to it, there is neither your path nor my path; there is no devotional path, there is no path of knowledge or path of action, because truth has no path to it. The moment you have a path to truth, you divide it, because the path is exclusive; and what is exclusive at the very beginning will end in exclusiveness. The man who is following a path can never know truth because he is living in exclusiveness; his means are exclusive, and the means are the end, are not separate from the end. If the means are exclusive, the end is also exclusive. So there is no path to truth, and there are not two truths. Truth is not of the past or the present, it is timeless; the man who quotes the truth of the Buddha, of Shankara, of Christ, or who merely repeats what I am saying, will not find truth, because repetition is not truth. Repetition is a lie."

"Meditation is not a process of learning how to meditate; it is the very inquiry into what is meditation. To inquire into what is meditation, the mind must free itself from what it has learnt about meditation, and the freeing of the mind from what it has learnt is the beginning of meditation."

"Please let us be clear on this point — that you cannot by any process, through any discipline, through any form of meditation, go to truth, God, or whatever name you like to give it. It is much too vast, it cannot possibly be conceived of; no description will cover it, no book can hold it, nor any word contain it. So you cannot by any devious method, by any sacrifice, by any discipline or through any guru, go to it. You must await it, it will come to you, you cannot go to it. That is the fundamental thing one has to understand, that not through any trick of the mind, not through any control, through any virtue, any compulsion, any form of suppression, can the mind possibly go to truth. All that the mind can do is be quiet but not with the intention of receiving it. And that is one of the most difficult things of all because we think truth can be experienced right away through doing certain things. Truth is not to be bought any more than love can be bought."

"I think we must see this very clearly right at the beginning — that if one would solve the everyday problems of existence, whatever they may be, one must first see the wider issues and then come to the detail. After all, the great painter, the great poet is one who sees the whole — who sees all the heavens, the blue skies, the radiant sunset, the tree, the fleeting bird — all at one glance; with one sweep he sees the whole thing. With the artist, the poet, there is an immediate, a direct communion with this whole marvellous world of beauty. Then he begins to paint, to write, to sculpt; he works it out in detail. If you and I could do the same, then we should be able to approach our problems — however contradictory, however conflicting, however disturbing — much more liberally, more wisely, with greater depth and colour, feeling. This is not mere romantic verbalization but actually it is so, and that is what I would like to talk about now and every time we get together. We must capture the whole and not be carried away by the detail, however pressing, immediate, anxious it may be. I think that is where the revolution begins."

"When death comes, it does not ask your permission; it comes and takes you; it destroys you on the spot. In the same way, can you totally drop hate, envy, pride of possession, attachment to beliefs, to opinions, to ideas, to a particular way of thinking? Can you drop all that in an instant? There is no “how to drop it”, because that is only another form of continuity. To drop opinion, belief, attachment, greed, or envy is to die — to die every day, every moment. If there is the coming to an end of all ambition from moment to moment, then you will know the extraordinary state of being nothing, of coming to the abyss of an eternal movement, as it were, and dropping over the edge — which is death. I want to know all about death, because death may be reality; it may be what we call God — that most extraordinary something that lives and moves and yet has no beginning and no end."

"We know only fragmentarily this extraordinary thing called life; we have never looked at sorrow, except through the screen of escapes; we have never seen the beauty, the immensity of death, and we know it only through fear and sadness. There can be understanding of life, and of the significance and beauty of death, only when the mind on the instant perceives “what is”.You know, sirs, although we differentiate them, love, death, and sorrow are all the same; because, surely, love, death, and sorrow are the unknowable. The moment you know love, you have ceased to love. Love is beyond time; it has no beginning and no end, whereas knowledge has; and when you say, “I know what love is”, you don’t. You know only a sensation, a stimulus. You know the reaction to love, but that reaction is not love. In the same way, you don’t know what death is. You know only the reactions to death, and you will discover the full depth and significance of death only when the reactions have ceased."

"Passion is something which very few of us have really felt. What we may have felt is enthusiasm, which is being caught up in an emotional state over something. Our passion is for something: for music, for painting, for literature, for a country, for a woman or a man; it is always the effect of a cause. When you fall in love with someone, you are in a great state of emotion, which is the effect of that particular cause; and what I am talking about is passion without a cause. It is to be passionate about everything, not just about something, whereas most of us are passionate about a particular person or thing. I think one must see this distinction very clearly. In the state of passion without a cause, there is intensity free of all attachment; but when passion has a cause, there is attachment, and attachment is the beginning of sorrow."

"Just observe what you are. What you are is the fact: the fact that you are jealous, anxious, envious, brutal, demanding, violent. That is what you are. Look at it, be aware; don’t shape it, don’t guide it, don’t deny it, don’t have opinions about it. By looking at it without condemnation, without judgement, without comparison, you observe; out of that observation, out of that awareness comes affection. Now, go still further. And you can do this in one flash. It can only be done in one flash — not first from the outside and then working further and deeper and deeper and deeper; it does not work that way, it is all done with one sweep, from the outermost to the most inward, to the innermost depth. Out of this, in this, there is attention — attention to the whistle of that train, the noise, the coughing, the way you are jerking your legs about; attention whereby you listen to what is said, you find out what is true and what is false in what is being said, and you do not set up the speaker as an authority. So this attention comes out of this extraordinarily complex existence of contradiction, misery and utter despair. And when the mind is attentive, it can then give focus, which then is quite a different thing; then it can concentrate but that concentration is not the concentration of exclusion. Then the mind can give attention to whatever it is doing, and that attention becomes much more efficient, much more vital, because you are taking everything in."

"Sacredness is the essence of religion. You know, a great river may become polluted as it flows past a town, but if the pollution isn’t too great, the river cleanses itself as it goes along, and within a few miles it is again clean, fresh, pure. Similarly, when once the mind comes upon this sacredness, then every act is a cleansing act. Through its very movement the mind is making itself innocent, and therefore it is not accumulating. A mind that has discovered this sacredness is in constant revolution — not economic or social revolution, but an inner revolution through which it is endlessly purifying itself. Its action is not based on some idea or formula. As the river, with a tremendous volume of water behind it, cleanses itself as it flows, so does the mind cleanse itself when once it has come upon this religious sacredness."

"Attention is not concentration. When you concentrate, as most people try to do — what takes place when you are concentrating? You are cutting yourself off, resisting, pushing away every thought except that one particular thought, that one particular action. So your concentration breeds resistance, and therefore concentration does not bring freedom. Please, this is very simple if you observe it yourself. But whereas if you are attentive, attentive to everything that is going on about you, attentive to the dirt, the filth of the street, attentive to the bus which is so dirty, attentive of your words, your gestures, the way you talk to your boss, the way you talk to your servant, to the superior, to the inferior, the respect, the callousness to those below you, the words, the ideas — if you are attentive to all that, not correcting, then out of that attention you can know a different kind of concentration. You are then aware of the setting, the noise of the people, people talking over there on the roof, your hushing them up, asking them not to talk, turning your head; you are aware of the various colours, the costumes, and yet concentration is going on. Such concentration is not exclusive, in that there is no effort. Whereas mere concentration demands effort."

"Krishnamurti is one of the greatest philosophers of the age."

"Krishnamurti was, on one hand, a typically self-alienated Indian intellectual criticizing his own culture. But, on the other hand, he possessed a genuine meditative mind in harmony with the same tradition, a strange contradiction but one that was appealing to people who could not relate to traditions. He had important teachings on perception and on the workings of the mind and emotions that added much depth to my meditation."

"He has received divine honors in India and in the West. I had a long interview with him, found him of average intelligence, of rather lovable disposition, of mediocre spiritual intuitions, and heard him swear in good, round English! I came away feeling that if he is all we, as a race, have to look to in order to get out of the muddle we are in, then God pity us."

"The qualifications for admission to the Great White Brotherhood, which have to be acquired in the course of the work in the earlier part of the Path, are of a very definite character, and are always essentially the same, although they have been described in many different terms during the last twenty-five centuries. But the latest and simplest account of them is to be found in Mr. J. Krishnamurti’s wonderful little book. At the Feet of the Master, Although Mr. Krishnamurti puts this book before the world, the words which it contains are almost entirely those of the Master Kuthumi. ‘‘ These are not my words,” the author says in the Foreword; " they are the words of the Master who taught me.” When the book was written, Mr. Krishnamurti’s body was thirteen years old, and it was necessary for the Master’s plans that the knowledge requisite for Initiation should be conveyed to him as quickly as possible. The words contained in the book are those in which the Master tried to convey the whole essence of the necessary teaching in the simplest and briefest form."

"Political leaders are never leaders. For leaders we have to look to the Awakeners! Lao Tse, Buddha, Socrates, Jesus, Milarepa, Gurdjiev, Krishnamurti."

"Few modern thinkers have integrated psychology, philosophy, and religion so seamlessly as Krishnamurti."

"Never one to endear himself to schoolmasters, Krishna was punished brutally for his inadequacies and branded an imbecile."

"Krishnamurti lacked ordinary human compassion and kindness; he was intolerant, even contemptuous, of those who could not rise to his own high plane."

"Wait for that wisest of all counselors, Time."

"Trees, though they are cut and lopped, grow up again quickly, but if men are destroyed, it is not easy to get them again."

"The whole Earth is the Sepulchre of famous men; and their story is not graven only on Stone over their native earth, but lives on far away, without visible symbol, woven into the stuff of other men's lives."

"Freedom is the sure possession of those alone who have the courage to defend it."

"Future ages will wonder at us, as the present age wonders at us now. We do not need the praises of a Homer, or of anyone else whose words may delight us for the moment, but the estimation of facts will fall short of what is really true."

"Although only a few may originate a policy, we are all able to judge it."

"What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others."

"We do not say that a man who takes no interest in politics is a man who minds his own business; we say that he has no business here at all."

"If we turn to our military policy, there also we differ from our antagonists. We throw open our city to the world, and never by alien acts exclude foreigners from any opportunity of learning or observing..."

"Our constitution does not copy the laws of neighboring states; we are rather a pattern to others than imitators ourselves"

"Our love of what is beautiful does not lead to extravagance; our love of the things of the mind does not make us soft. We regard wealth as something to be properly used, rather than as something to boast about. As for poverty, no one need be ashamed to admit it, the real shame is in not taking practical measures to escape from it."

"Hatred and unpopularity at the moment have fallen to the lot of all who have aspired to rule others; but where odium must be incurred, true wisdom incurs it for the highest objects. Hatred also is short-lived; but that which makes the splendour of the present and the glory of the future remains for ever unforgotten. Make your decision, therefore, for glory then and honour now, and attain both objects by instant and zealous effort: do not send heralds to Lacedaemon, and do not betray any sign of being oppressed by your present sufferings, since they whose minds are least sensitive to calamity, and whose hands are most quick to meet it, are the greatest men and the greatest communities."

"I could tell you a long story (and you know it as well as I do) about what is to be gained by beating the enemy back. What I would prefer is that you should fix your eyes every day on the greatness of Athens as she realty is, and should fall in love with her. When you realize her greatness, then reflect that what made her great was men with a spirit of adventure, men who knew their duty, men who were ashamed to fall below a certain standard. If they ever failed in an enterprise, they made up their minds that at any rate the city should not find their courage lacking to her, and they gave to her the best contribution that they could. They gave her their lives, to her and to all of us, and for their own selves they won praises that never grow old, the most splendid of sepulchers — not the sepulchre in which their bodies are laid, but where their glory remains eternal in men's minds, always there on the right occasion to stir others to speech or to action. For famous men have the whole earth as their memorial: it is not only the inscriptions on their graves in their own country that mark them out; no, in foreign lands also, not in any visible form but in people's hearts, their memory abides and grows. It is for you to try to be like them. Make up your minds that happiness depends on being free, and freedom depends on being courageous."

"Nor is it any longer possible for you to give up this empire … Your empire is now like a tyranny: it may have been wrong to take it; it is certainly dangerous to let it go."

"But the bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet notwithstanding go out to meet it."

"Instead of looking on discussion as a stumbling block in the way of action, we think it an indispensable preliminary to any wise action at all."

"Pericles did undoubtcdly seek by every means in his power to win an undisputed position at Athens; and undoubtedly he had a passion for art and literature. He was, if we please to say it, a demagogue and a connoisseur. But he was something more. Looking at the whole evidence before us with impartial eyes, we cannot refuse to acknowledge that he cherished aspirations worthy of a great statesman. He sincerely desired that every Athenian should owe to his city the blessing of an education in all that was beautiful, and the opportunity of a happy and useful life. If Solon had laid down rules, not less excellent than precise, for the education of the Athenian youth, Pericles would go further, and educate the Athenian man."

"[I]f one day I look out from my cabin's porch and see a row of windmills spinning in the distance, I won't curse them. I will praise them. It will mean we are finally getting somewhere."

"More than a billion people lack adequate access to clean water."

"With the growing urgency of climate change, we cannot have it both ways. We cannot shout from the rooftops about the dangers of global warming and then turn around and shout even louder about the "dangers" of windmills."

"As an atheist, Suzuki declares, he has no illusions about life and death, adding that the individual is insignificant in cosmic terms. Human beings must come to terms with the unbearable reality that they, like all life, will be extinguished. What he finds most difficult, he confides, "is the idea that this guy looking back at me in the mirror, this person locked into my skull full of memories that make him who he is, this fellow who has known pain, joy, thoughts, having existed for such a brief flash in all eternity, is going to vanish forever at his death. Forever is such a long time, and 70, 80, 90, even 100 years is such a tiny interval in all of time.""

"The planet, hell! What about my nuts?"

"We now have access to so much information that we can find support for any prejudice or opinion."

"Oh, I think Canada is full too! Although it’s the second largest country in the world, our useful area has been reduced. Our immigration policy is disgusting: We plunder southern countries by depriving them of future leaders, and we want to increase our population to support economic growth. It’s crazy!"

"The question is have we met our match?"

"No matter what lengths politicians, corporate interests and others take to avoid, downplay and obfuscate serious issues around environmental degradation and our economic system’s destructive path, we can’t deny reality. Studies show we must refrain from burning most fossil fuel reserves to avoid catastrophic warming. In little more than a century, the human population has more than quadrupled to seven billion and rising, and our plastic-choked, consumer-driven, car-obsessed cultures have led to resource depletion, species extinction, ocean degradation, climate change and more. It’s past time to open our eyes and shift to a more sensible approach to living on this small, precious planet."

"Many solutions are being employed or developed, but not fast enough to forestall catastrophe. In Canada, we have federal and provincial governments hell-bent on expanding fossil fuel infrastructure and development to reap as much profit as possible from a dying industry and to satisfy the vagaries of short election cycles. The fossil fuel industry continues to receive massive subsidies, including a multi-billion-dollar taxpayer bailout for an American pipeline company, while clean energy receives far less support."

"I think we have to stop building cities to serve the car... We have to return to the notion that cities have become human habitats, cities are human created things."

"I meet a lot of parents that say, “what, what can I do”, you know, and I say, ‘“Stop driving your kids to school!” This is crazy. It'll be healthier for you and healthier for the environment. So it's not just the way we design our cities differently, but our own behavior within the cities."

"We now live within a globalized economy. So to live the way we are in Vancouver, it means that people in Mexico, people in Africa are having to change the way they're living."

"the biggest challenge we've got to do right away, stop the hyper consumption that demands that all of these areas serve us."

"If you look at the states in the United States, or the provinces, that have not really been able to come to grips with the COVID crisis, they are the ones led by people who said, “We got to get the economy going, the economy, the economy”, so that the the health and well being of the community or the the State is not as important as the economy...the ultra rich have just been getting richer and richer. So you know, the economy's not connected to the well being of people or the well being of the planet."

"We've got to begin to shut down fracking and the the more difficult areas, deep underground and the deep underwater. Shutdown the riskiest areas...Fracking is one of the dumbest ways that you can imagine getting your energy because of the water that you're using, polluting it."

"We can shut down immediately all subsidizing of the fossil fuel industry. We've got to shut down their ability to advertise, the way we did with tobacco."

"The most important thing is to say, we've got to be 50% off fossil fuels by 2030. And this is what we have to do every year, we've got to mandate reductions year after year after year, if we're serious about it."

"I think for the individuals -- make the word disposable an obscene word. If someone says, “Well, I got a disposable cup”, you cover your kid's ear and say, “Don't listen to that man, what a terrible thing to say”. Because the whole idea of disposable, that's a notion brought in by economists."

"We're changing the chemistry of the atmosphere. And we're doing it in a way that has never happened in nature. We're doing it so quickly. Nature, of course, has had fluctuations. We've gone from warm periods to ice ages. But that's been over 1000s and 1000s of years. We're doing it at an unprecedented rate. The experiment’s started. If we stopped all emissions today it will still take over a century to find equilibration. At the same time that we're adding stuff to the atmosphere at an unprecedented rate, we're cutting down, we're destroying the only real safety that we have, which is the web of living green things all over the planet."

"I think even a lot of really committed environmentalists, they think, well, if everybody drives an electric car, and we have all LED lights, and and you know, that somehow everything will be fine. No, it's not going to be that simple. Reduction of our fossil fuel use by 2030. Everything is going to change and we can't go on in this hyper consuming way. There going to be massive changes."

"the underlying root cause of our problem is that we've radically shifted in the way that we live on earth. For most of our existence, 95% of human existence, we were a nomadic hunter gatherer, we had to follow animals and plants do the seasons on their migration, carrying everything we owned. You know damn well you're deeply embedded in nature. And all of your ceremonies and in traditional cultures, their ceremonies are about thanking their creator for Mother Nature's abundance, and making a commitment to act properly in order to ensure that abundance will continue. That's what's needed, a recognition of a deeply embedded.. but we've elevated ourselves above all, we think that we're the top of the heap, and that everything is there for us to use in any way we can imagine. And now with environmentalism, oh, well, we have to be more careful. But we still are making that assumption-- we're at the top of the heap. So all of our solutions are all about serving us. We got to ensure jobs, we got to ensure the economy. We’ve got to ensure politically that… and we're not seeing that the deeper underlying thing is the way that we live on this planet"

"we've become totally narcissistic. And Donald Trump, to me, is the ultimate expression of that kind of narcissism. Me, me, me. Screw anybody else is not about me, me, me."

"There has been no media coverage of D Suzuki's extreme anti-immigration views.What would happen if a prominent conservative said same thing?"

"Suzuki’s extreme comments reveal how offside he is with Canadians"

"As to the Income Tax, my opinion is that the needful revenue would be fairly and most fairly raised if paid by property, and by individuals in proportion to their property...A Property Tax should be an assessment upon all land and buildings, and canals and railroads, but not on property such as machinery, stock in trade, etc. The aristocracy have squeezed all they can out of the mass of the consumers, and now they lay their daring hands on those not wholly impoverished."

"To the Working Men of Rochdale: A deep sympathy with you in your present circumstances induces me to address you. Listen and reflect, even though you may not approve. Your are suffering—you have long suffered. Your wages have for many years declined, and your position has gradually and steadily become worse. Your sufferings have naturally produced discontent, and you have turned eagerly to almost any scheme which gave hope of relief. Many of you know full well that neither an act of Parliament nor the act of a multitude can keep up wages. You know that trade has long been bad, and that with a bad trade wages cannot rise. If you are resolved to compel an advance of wages, you cannot compel manufacturers to give you employment. Trade must yield a profit, or it will not long be carried on...The aristocracy are powerful and determined; and, unhappily, the middle classes are not yet intelligent enough to see the safety of extending political power to the whole people. The working classes can never gain it of themselves. Physical force you wisely repudiate. It is immoral, and you have no arms, and little organisations...Your first step to entire freedom must be commercial freedom—freedom of industry. We must put an end to the partial famine which is destroying trade, and demand for your labor, your wages, your comforts, and your independence. The aristocracy regard the Anti-Corn Law League as their greatest enemy. That which is the greatest enemy of the remorseless aristocracy of Britain must almost of necessity be your firmest friend. Every man who tells you to support the Corn Law is your enemy—every man who hastens, by a single hour, the abolition of the Corn Law, shortens by so much the duration of your sufferings. Whilst the inhuman law exists, your wages must decline. When it is abolished, and not till then, they will rise."

"I do not see that it is possible, nor can I discover that it would be right, for me now to withdraw from the cause in which I have so long taken so deep an interest. The work is great, and vast are the results depending upon it, and unhappily our laborers are not abundant...But conscious of the increasing hazard we run owing to the long continuance of monopolies, and beholding the appalling sufferings of multitudes of my fellow-creatures, and satisfied that all benevolence and charity and the teaching of religion and of schools fall short of much of their full effect owing to the degraded and impoverished condition of the people—I should feel myself guilty, as possessing abundance and leaving others to hunger, nakedness and immorality and deepest ignorance and crime, if I were to retire into domestic quiet and leave the struggle to be carried on entirely by others."

"I believe that the intelligence of the people in Scotland is superior to the intelligence of the people in England. I take it from these facts. Before going to the meetings, we often asked the committee or the people with whom we came in contact, "Are there any fallacies which the working people hold on this question? Have they any crotchets about machinery, or wages, or anything else?" And the universal reply was, "No; you may make a speech about what you like; they understand the question thoroughly; and it is no use confining yourself to machinery or wages, for there are few men, probably no man here, who would be taken in by such raw jests as those." …I told them that they were the people who should have repeal of the Union; for that, if they are separate from England, they might have a government wholly popular and intelligent, to a degree which I believe does not exist in any other country on the face of the earth. However, I believe they will be disposed to press us on, and make us become more and more intelligent; and we may receive benefits from our contact with them, even though, for some ages to come, our connexion with them may be productive of evil to themselves."

"The Corn Law is as great a robbery of the man who follows the plough as it is of him who minds the loom...If there be one view of the question which stimulates me to harder work in this cause than another, it is the fearful sufferings which I know to exist amongst the rural laborers in almost every part of this kingdom...And then a fat and sleek dean, a dignitary of the Church and a great philosopher, recommends for the consumption of the people—he did not read a paper about the supplies that were to be had in the great valley of the Mississippi—but he said that there were swede, turnip and mangel-wurzel; and the Hereditary Earl Marshal of England, if to out-Herod Herod himself, recommends hot water and a pinch of curry-powder. The people of England have not, even under thirty years of Corn Law influence, been sunk so low as to submit tamely to this insult and wrong. It is enough that a law should be passed to make your toil valueless, to make your skill and labor unavailing to procure for you a fair supply of the common necessaries of life—but when to this grievous iniquity they add the insult of telling you to go, like beasts that perish, to mangel-wurzel, or to something which even the beasts themselves cannot eat, then I believe the people of England will rise, and with one voice proclaim the downfall of this odious system."

"Rich and great people can take care of themselves; but the poor and defenceless—the men with small cottages and large families—the men who must work six days every week if they are to live in anything like comfort for a week,—these men want defenders; they want men to maintain their position in Parliament; they want men who will protest against any infringement of their rights."

"I am amused to find the fuss our Darlington friends and relatives are making about the Education Bill. Edward Pease, John Pease, etc., all attending a public meeting, making speeches, moving resolutions, promoting agitation, leaving their sweet retirement and the enjoyment of their otium cum dignitate for the tumult of political strife, and all because the Government are disposed to add another link to the fetter which has galled us. Alas! and can these men be really blind to the causes of the miseries of the people, and to the source [viz. the Corn Laws] of the physical and moral degradation which permits the heartless aristocracy of Britain to trample unpunished upon every right, human and divine? The time will come when all will have to speak. Aggression follows aggression; enthralment of the mind naturally treads upon the heels of physical prostration, and we are becoming a people powerless, spiritless, and trained to bonds and to wrong."

"I am a working man as much as you. My father was as poor as any man in this crowd. He was of your own body, entirely. He boasts not—nor do I—of birth, nor of great family distinctions. What he has made, he has made by his own industry and successful commerce. What I have comes from him, and from my own exertions. I have no interest in the extravagance of government; I have no interest in seeking appointments under any government; I have no interest in pandering to the views of any government; I have nothing to gain by being the tool of any party. I come before you as the friend of my own class and order; as one of the people; as one who would, on all occasions, be the firm defender of your rights, and the asserter of all those privileges to which you are justly entitled. It is on these grounds that I offer myself to your notice; it is on these grounds that I solicit your suffrages."

"If a man have three or four children, he has just three or four times as much interest in having the Corn Laws abolished as the man who has none. Your children will grow up to be men and women. It may be that your heads will be laid in the grave before they come to manhood or womanhood; but they will grow up, and want employment at honest trades—want houses and furniture, food and clothing, and all the necessaries and comforts of life. They will be honest and industrious as yourselves. But the difficulties which surround you will be increased tenfold by the time they have arrived at your age. Trade will then have become still more crippled; the supply of food still more diminished; the taxation of the country still further increased. The great lords, and some other people, will have become still more powerful, unless the freemen and electors of Durham and of other places stand to their guns, and resolve that, whatever may come of Queen, or Lords, or Commons, or Church, or anybody—great and powerful, and noble though they be—the working classes will stand by the working classes; and will no longer lay themselves down in the dust to be trampled upon by the iron heel of monopoly, and have their very lives squeezed out of them by evils such as I have described."

"Going into the House last night, the caution lately given me by a poor but honest Scotchman struck me. He said to me, "Mr. Bright, I'll give you a piece of advice. You are going into bad company; and now that you are in, remember that you stick to what you said when you were out." If one had dropped from the clouds upon the floor of the House and listened to the debate last night, I never should have dreamed that there was the least distress or discontent in the country. It was true that Lord John Russell made a very clever speech and some hard hits at the ministry...Then came Lord Palmerston, and he made a very clever speech, if there was no country; it would have been very well at a debating club; it had some hard cuts at the ministry, interspersed with references to Afghanistan and the Ameers of Scinde, and everything but the condition of England question."

"The preservation of game involves a list of evils to the farmer of which the loss of money is probably not the greatest. It destroys his self-respect and the independence of his character. He takes a farm and contracts to pay a rent; he stocks it with cattle and sheep; he ploughs and sows and reaps—his landlord also stocks the same farm with hares and rabbits and pheasants, and enjoys his battue, or sends to market the game which his tenant's produce has fed. The tenant has his servants, to superintend or conduct the operations on his farm, and to feed and protect his cattle and his flocks—the landlord has his keepers to secure his game, and these keepers are a spy upon the tenant himself, and traverse his field by day or night, as though superior to his servants and himself. In all this there is a fruitful source of depredation to the farmer. Men of capital and independent feeling will shun an occupation which involves so much humiliation."

"Does Irish discontent arise because the priests of Maynooth are now insufficiently clad or fed? I have always thought that it arose because one-third of the people were paupers. I can easily see how, by the granting of this sum, you might hear far less in future times of the sufferings and wrongs of the people of Ireland than you have heard heretofore. For you find that one large means of influence possessed by those who have agitated for the redress of Irish wrongs is the support which the Irish Catholic clergy have given to the various associations for carrying on political agitation. And the object of this Bill is to tame down these agitators—it is a sop given to the priests. It is hush-money, given that they may not proclaim to the whole country, to Europe and to the world, the sufferings of the population to whom they administer the rites and the consolations of religion."

"I take it that the Protestant Church of Ireland is at the root of the evils of that country. The Irish Catholics would thank us infinitely more if we were to wipe away that foul blot than they would even if Parliament were to establish the Roman Catholic Church alongside of it. They have had everything Protestant—a Protestant clique which has been dominant in the country; a Protestant Viceroy to distribute places and emoluments amongst that Protestant clique; Protestant judges who have polluted the seats of justice; Protestant magistrates before whom the Catholic peasant cannot hope for justice; they have not only Protestant but exterminating landlords, and more than that a Protestant soldiery, who at the beck and command of a Protestant priest, have butchered and killed a Catholic peasant even in the presence of his widowed mother. The consequence of all this is the extreme discontent of the Irish people. And because this House is not prepared yet to take those measures which would be really doing justice to Ireland, your object is to take away the sympathy of the Catholic priests from the people. The object is to make the priests in Ireland as tame as those in Suffolk and Dorsetshire. The object is that when the horizon is brightened every night by incendiary fires, no priest of the paid establishment shall ever tell of the wrongs of the people among whom he is living...Ireland is suffering, not from the want of another Church, but because she has already one Church too many."

"Notwithstanding the hope that my friend [Cobden], who has just addressed you, has expressed, that it may not become a war of classes, I am not sure that it has not already become such, and I doubt whether it can have any other character. I believe this to be a movement of the commercial and industrial classes against the Lords and great proprietors of the soil...Since the time when we first came to London to ask the attention of Parliament to the question of the Corn Law, two millions of human beings have been added to the population of the United Kingdom...I see them now in my mind's eye ranged before me, old men and young children, all looking to the Government for bread; some endeavouring to resist the stroke of famine, clamorous and turbulent, but still arguing with us; some dying mute and uncomplaining. Multitudes have died of hunger in the United Kingdom since we first asked the Government to repeal the Corn Law, and although the great and powerful may not regard those who suffer mutely and die in silence, yet the recording angel will note down their patient endurance and the heavy guilt of those by whom they have been sacrificed..."

"We have had landlord rule longer, far longer than the life of the oldest man in this vast assembly, and I would ask you to look at the results of that rule. The landowners have had unlimited sway in Parliament and in the provinces. Abroad the history of our country is the history of war and rapine: at home, of debt, taxes, and rapine too. In all the great contests in which we have been engaged we have found that this ruling class have taken all the honours, while the people have taken all the scars. No sooner was the country freed from the horrible contest which was so long carried on with the Powers of Europe, than this law, by their partial legislation, was enacted—far more hostile to British interests than any combination of foreign powers has ever proved. We find them legislating corruptly: they pray daily that in their legislation they may discard all private ends and partial affections, and after prayers they sit down to make a law for the purpose of extorting from all the consumers of food a higher price than it is worth, that the extra price may find its way into the pockets of the proprietors of land, these proprietors being the very men by whom this infamous law is sustained..."

"Two centuries ago the people of this country were engaged in a fearful conflict with the Crown. A despotic and treacherous monarch assumed to himself the right to levy taxes without the consent of Parliament and the people. That assumption was resisted. This fair island became a battlefield, the kingdom was convulsed, and an ancient throne overturned. And if our forefathers, two hundred years ago, resisted that attempt—if they refused to be the bondmen of a king—shall we be the born thralls of an aristocracy like ours? Shall we, who struck the lion down—shall we pay the wolf homage? Or shall we not, by a manly and united expression of public opinion, at once, and for ever, put an end to this giant wrong?"

"Peel delivered the best speech I ever heard in Parliament. It was truly a magnificent speech, sustained throughout, thoroughly with us, and offering even to pass the immediate [repeal of the Corn Laws], if the House are willing. Villiers, Gibson, and myself cheered continually, and I never listened to any human being speaking in public with so much delight."

"You say the right hon. baronet [Peel] is a traitor. It would ill become me to attempt his defence after the speech which he delivered last night—a speech, I will venture to say, more powerful and more to be admired than any speech which has been delivered within the memory of any man in this House. I watched the right hon. baronet as he went home last night, and for the first time I envied him his feelings. That speech was circulated by scores of thousands throughout the kingdom and throughout the world; and wherever a man is to be found who loves justice, and wherever there is a labourer whom you have trampled under foot, that speech will bring joy to the heart of the one, and hope to the breast of the other. You chose the right hon. baronet—why? Because he was the ablest man of your party. You always said so, and you will not deny it now. Why was he the ablest? Because he had great experience, profound attainments, and an honest regard for the good of the country. You placed him in office. When a man is in office he is not the same man as when in opposition. The present generation, or posterity, does not deal as mildly with men in government as with those in opposition. There are such things as the responsibilities of office. Look at the population of Lancashire and Yorkshire, and there is not a man among you who would have the valour to take office and raise the standard of Protection, and cry, "Down with the Anti-Corn Law League, and Protection for ever!" There is not a man in your ranks who would dare to sit on that bench as the Prime Minister of England pledged to maintain the existing law. The right hon. baronet took the only, the truest course—he resigned. He told you by that act: "I will no longer do your work. I will not defend your cause. The experience I have had since I came into office renders it impossible for me at once to maintain office and the Corn Laws." The right hon. baronet resigned—he was then no longer your Minister. He came back to office as the Minister of his Sovereign and of the people."

"We have taught the people of this country the value of a great principle. They have learned that there is nothing that can be held out to the intelligent people of this kingdom so calculated to stimulate them to action, and to great and persevering action, as a great and sacred principle like that which the League has espoused. They have learned that there is in public opinion a power much greater than that residing in any particular form of government; that although you have in this kingdom a system of government which is called "popular" and "representative"—a system which is somewhat clumsily contrived, and which works with many jars and joltings—that still, under the impulse of a great principle, with great labour and with great sacrifices, all those obstacles are overcome, so that out of a machine especially contrived for the contrary, justice and freedom are at length achieved for the nation; and the people have learned something beyond this—that is, that the way to freedom is henceforward not through violence and bloodshed."

"Liberty is on the march, and this year promises to be a great year in European history. Our Government is blind enough, and the Parliamentary majorities are more regarded than opinion out of doors. We must have another League of some kind, and our aristocracy must be made to submit again."

"In this country political agitation is not likely to be soon lulled. We shall have no violence, I think, except in Ireland, and even there I hope appearances are rather less threatening than were supposed a short time ago. But we shall have, and ought to have, a powerful agitation in favour of a real Parliamentary Reform, and to gain this would be worth some time longer of commercial depression. We have deluded ourselves with the notion that we are a free people, and have a good government and a representative system, whilst in fact our representative system is for the most part a sham, and the forms of representation are used to consolidate the supremacy of the titled and proprietary class. All this will break down by and by. From all parts of the country we hear of preliminary meetings and new organisations, Associations and Leagues, etc. The middle and working classes are beginning to see that united they may win all they require; divided they are a prey to their insatiable enemies."

"The real difficulties which beset this question, do not arise from anything in Ireland, so much as from the constitution of the Government. This House, and the other House of Parliament, are almost exclusively aristocratic in their character. The Administration is therefore necessarily the same, and on the Treasury benches aristocracy reigns supreme. Not fewer than seven Members of the Cabinet are Members of the House of Lords; and every other Member of it is either a Lord by title, or on the very threshold of the peerage by birth or marriage. I am not blaming them for this; it may even be that from neither House of Parliament can fourteen better men be chosen to fill their places. But I maintain that in the present position of Ireland, and looking at human nature as it is, it is not possible that fourteen Gentlemen, circumstanced as these are, can meet round the Council table, and with unbiassed minds fairly discuss the question of Ireland, as it now presents itself to this House, to the country, and to the world."

"Why cannot the Irish get and save money in Ireland? And why must they cross the Atlantic before they can get hold of a piece of land? Our "territorial" system is one which works a wide and silent cruelty, beggaring, demoralising and destroying multitudes of our people. I should like to join a League sworn or pledged to its entire overthrow. There are facts enough afloat that would suffice to make a revolution in opinion with regard to it, and it follows logically on the Free Trade movement."

"We see sad scenes by the wayside, small and wretched hovels in quarries and nooks of the roads in which some wretched family finds shelter. The children leave an impression of misery on the mind which can never be effaced. Houses unroofed and lands waste and de-populated, are the memorials of the frightful calamities through which the country has passed. The proprietors are nearly all bankrupt, great numbers of the farmers are gone away, thousands of the peasantry are in the work-houses or in their graves. I believe we can form no fair idea of what has passed in these districts within the last four years, and I see no great prospect of a solid improvement. Here we have in perfection the fruits of aristocratic and territorial usurpation and privileges."

"The question at issue in the late debate was mainly this: Shall the Foreign Minister of this country be permitted to interfere in the affairs of other countries in cases where the direct interests of this country do not require it? Shall he advise, and warn, and meddle in matters which concern only the domestic and internal affairs of other countries? I say that such a policy necessarily leads to irritation, and to quarrels with other nations, and may lead even to war; and that it involves the necessity of maintaining greater armaments, and a heavier expenditure and taxation than would otherwise be required. It is a policy, therefore, which I cannot support under any pretence whatever."

"In the Cabinet there were large Irish proprietors, and, without imputing to any proprietor a desire of doing injustice to his tenants, it was easy to understand that after the long continuance of the present state of the law in Ireland, proprietors were alarmed at any proposition coming to them like the Bill of the hon. Member for Rochdale. The Irish proprietors in the Cabinet, in that House, and out of it, were afraid of a Bill that would interfere with the powers and privileges that a Parliament of landowners for generations past had been conferring upon the proprietors of the soil. That was the point. The question was, could the cats wisely and judiciously legislate for the mice? He did not believe it. He was as much opposed as any man could be to transferring the land from the landlord to the tenant; but a measure of justice was due from the former to the latter, both in Ireland and in this country as well."

"At present no Government dare say a word to the Church—that overgrown and monstrous abuse assumes airs as if it were not an abuse. It is a wen upon the head and pretends to be the head, and no administration is strong enough to say a word against it. With 14,000 Dissenting Chapels in England and Wales, with two-thirds of Scotland in dissenting ranks, with five-sixths of Ireland hostile to the Church, how comes it that this scandalous abuse puts on the character of a national and useful institution? Simply because it has the Crown and the Peers on its side by tradition and the constitution, and has gained great power in the Commons thro' our defective representation. Let the representation be amended, and then the Church will be more humble, and will submit, of necessity, to be overhauled as one of the departments of the State."

"The Romans were great conquerors, but where they conquered, they governed wisely. The nations they conquered were impressed so indelibly with the intellectual character of their masters, that, after fourteen centuries of decadence, the traces of civilisation were still distinguishable. Why should not we act a similar part in India? There never was a more docile people, never a more tractable nation. The opportunity was present, and the power was not wanting. Let us abandon the policy of aggression, and confine ourselves to a territory ten times the size of France, with a population four times as numerous as that of the United Kingdom. Surely that was enough to satisfy the most gluttonous appetite for glory and supremacy. Educate the people of India, and govern them wisely, and gradually the distinctions of caste would disappear, and they would look upon us rather as benefactors than as conquerors. And if we desired to see Christianity, in some form, professed in that country, we should sooner attain our object by setting the example of a high-toned Christian morality, than by any other means we could employ."

"The division of the land is the grand source of the property and wealth of France...probably no other country has made such strides in increasing wealth and comfort as France has since 1790."

"We shall almost be hooted down in the House, I expect, for the Tories are for war, partly because the Government has been supposed to be for peace. And if war begins, then nine-tenths of the men on our side will back the Government and shout even more vociferously than the Tories. Losing a Reform Bill and gaining a war. I don't see how we could be worse placed. Though the end may show that we are now right, yet the end is not yet, and in the meantime we shall have much to suffer and much to despond about. How men can prefer the certain and enormous evils of a war, to the dim and vague prospect of remote injury from Russian aggrandisement, is beyond my understanding. The nation seems little wiser than in 1793 and we may soon be as unpopular as Fox was, and yet be as much right as he was. I feel rather sick of public life, and indeed of the follies of my country."

"This old aristocracy and Church-ridden, and tradition-ridden country will never grow wiser. Whilst we are fighting for supremacy in Europe the [United] States are working, and not fighting for it, but winning it all over the world."

"The angel of death has been abroad throughout the land; you may almost hear the beating of his wings. There is no one, as when the first-born were slain of old, to sprinkle with blood the lintel and the two sideposts of our doors, that he may spare and pass on; he takes his victims from the castle of the noble, the mansion of the wealthy, and the cottage of the poor and the lowly, and it is on behalf of all these classes that I make this solemn appeal."

"I am not working for failure, but for success, and for a real gain, and I must go the way to get it. I am sure the putting manhood suffrage in the Bill is not the way to get it. This has been done by the Chartists, and by the Complete Suffragists, but what has become of their Bills?"

"[H]is (Mr. Bright's) own opinions had always been very adverse to maintaining an armed squadron for the suppression of the slave trade."

"I do not now make any comment upon the mode in which this country has been put into possession of India. I accept that possession as a fact. There we are; we do not know how to leave it, and therefore let us see if we know how to govern it. It is a problem such as, perhaps, no other nation has had to solve. Let us see whether there is enough of intelligence and virtue in England to solve the difficulty. In the first place, then, I say, let us abandon all that system of calumny against the Natives of India which has lately prevailed. Had that people not been docile, the most governable race in the world, how could you have maintained your power for 100 years? Are they not industrious, are they not intelligent, are they not—upon the evidence of the most distinguished men the Indian Service ever produced—endowed with many qualities which make them respected by all Englishmen who mix with them? I have heard that from many men of the widest experience, and have read the same in the works of some of the best writers upon India. Then let us not have these constant calumnies against such a people."

"They say we must not on any account "Americanise" our institutions...They tell us in America numbers overwhelm property and education. Well, but numbers have not overwhelmed property and education in England, and yet look at legislation in England. Look at our wars, look at our debt, look at our taxes, look at this great fact—that every improvement of the last forty years has been an improvement which numbers, and numbers only, have wrested from the property, and what they call the education of the country. Our education is fairly represented by our Universities, but I say now, as I have said before, that if the Legislature of England, if the Parliament of England, had been guided for thirty years past according to the counsels of the representatives from the Universities, England, instead of being a country of law and of order, would have been long before this a country of anarchy and of revolution."

"Shall we then, I ask you, even for a moment, be hopeless of our great cause? I feel almost ashamed even to argue it to such a meeting as this. I call to mind where I am, and who are those whom I see before me. Am I not in the town of Birmingham—England's central capital; and do not these eyes look upon the sons of those who, not thirty years ago, shook the fabric of privilege to its base? Not a few of the strong men of that time are now white with age. They approach the confines of their mortal day. Its evening is cheered with the remembrance of that great contest, and they rejoice in the freedom they have won. Shall their sons be less noble than they? Shall the fire which they kindled be extinguished with you? I see your answer in every face. You are resolved that the legacy which they bequeathed to you, you will hand down in an accumulated wealth of freedom to your children. As for me, my voice is feeble. I feel now sensibly and painfully that I am not what I was. I speak with diminished fire; I act with a lessened force; but as I am, my countrymen and my constituents, I will, if you will let me, be found in your ranks in the impending struggle."

"This excessive love for "the balance of power" is neither more nor less than a gigantic system of out-door relief for the aristocracy of Great Britain."

"I believe there is no permanent greatness to a nation except it be based upon morality. I do not care for military greatness or military renown. I care for the condition of the people among whom I live. There is no man in England who is less likely to speak irreverently of the Crown and Monarchy of England than I am; but crowns, coronets, mitres, military display, the pomp of war, wide colonies, and a huge Empire, are, in my view, all trifles light as air, and not worth considering, unless with them you can have a fair share of comfort, contentment, and happiness among the great body of the people. Palaces, baronial castles, great halls, stately mansions, do not make a nation. The nation in every country dwells in the cottage; and unless the light of your constitution can shine there, unless the beauty of your legislation and the excellence of your statesmanship are impressed there on the feelings and condition of the people, rely upon it you have yet to learn the duties of Government."

"The moral law was not written for men alone in their individual character, but it was written as well for nations, and for nations great as this of which we are citizens. If nations reject and deride that moral law, there is a penalty which will inevitably follow. It may not come at once, it may not come in our lifetime; but, rely upon it, the great Italian is not a poet only, but a prophet, when he says: "The sword of heaven is not in haste to smite, Nor yet doth linger.""

"I have often compared, in my own mind, the people of England with the people of ancient Egypt, and the Foreign Office of this country with the temples of the Egyptians. We are told by those who pass up and down the Nile that on its banks are grand temples with stately statues and massive and lofty columns, statues each one of which would have appeared almost to have exhausted a quarry in its production. You have, further, vast chambers and gloomy passages; and some innermost recess, some holy of holies, in which, when you arrive at it, you find some loathsome reptile which a nation reverenced and revered, and bowed itself down to worship. In our Foreign Office we have no massive columns; we have no statues; but we have a mystery as profound; and in the innermost recesses of it we find some miserable intrigue, in defence of which your fleets are traversing every ocean, your armies are perishing in every clime, and the precious blood of our country's children is squandered as though it had no price. I hope that an improved representation will change all this; that the great portion of our expenditure which is incurred in carrying out the secret and irresponsible doings of our Foreign Office will be placed directly under the free control of a Parliament elected by the great body of the people of the United Kingdom."

"I think we are bound as free men—and we townsmen are especially bound, for we only have the power to take the initiative in this great question—we are bound, so far as we are able, by our representatives in Parliament (and I have no doubt it will be one of the consequences of a real Reform Bill), to apply those great principles of political economy, which are the gospel and the charter of industry, as fully to property in land as we have already applied them to property engaged in trade."

"I am for "peace, retrenchment, and reform" — the watchword of the great Liberal party 30 years ago. Whosoever may abandon the cause I shall never pronounce another Shibboleth, but as long as the old flag floats in the air I shall be found a steadfast soldier in the foremost ranks"

"I have never uttered a word in favour of universal suffrage either in this House or elsewhere."

"I ask every Gentleman...whether it is possible that you can continue to raise from the people of this country £60,000,000 sterling per annum of taxes more than an equal population is called upon to pay for its Government and its policy in the United States, and that we can go on with safety to our institutions, or that the people can hear the strain of that enormous pressure? ... [T]his insane and wicked policy, which requires that you should abstract from the labour and the industry of the people of England this enormous, incredible, and ruinous sum from year to year. ... You will have an exiled Royal family—you will have an overthrown aristocracy—and you will have a period of recurring revolution; and there is no path so straight, so downward, so slippery, so easily travelled to all these misfortunes as the path which we are now following, year after year adding to these enormous expenses until the time will come when there will be some change throughout the country, when men will open their eyes, will ask who has deceived them, defrauded them, pillaged them. And then you will have to pay the penalty which all men in the upper classes of society in every country have had to pay when they have not maintained the rights of the great body of the people in this particular, and when they have not fulfilled the duties which devolved upon them as the governing classes of the country."

"If the middle class prefer an alliance with the aristocratic or ruling party, to the cordial co-operation and help of the great nation now excluded from the franchise and from all political power, they must be content with a profligate government expenditure, and a taxation burdensome from its amount, and insulting from its inequality and injustice."

"I have been asked twenty, fifty times during the last twelve months, “Why do you not come out and say something? Why can you not tell us something in this time of our great need?” Well, I reply, “I told you something when speaking was of use; all I can say now is this, or nearly all, that a hundred years of crime against the negro in America, and a hundred years of crime against the docile natives of our Indian empire, are not to be washed away by the penitence and the suffering of an hour.”"

"Now, take as an illustration the Rock of Gibraltar. Many of you have been there, I dare say. I have; and among the things that interested me were the monkeys on the top of it, and a good many people at the bottom, who were living on English taxes. Well, the Rock of Gibraltar was taken and retained when we were not at war with Spain, and it was retained contrary to every law of morality and honour."

"We may be proud that England is the ancient country of Parliaments. With scarcely any intervening period, Parliaments have met constantly for 600 years, and there was something of a Parliament before the Conquest. England is the mother of Parliaments."

"The Aristocracy in this country are almost, and really are altogether on one side – because they have special privileges to sustain, to surrender which would make them no longer an aristocracy. Our government was purely an aristocratic one from 1690 to 1830. Nearly the whole period was one of war, and war wholly needless."

"The right hon. Gentleman is the first of the new party who has expressed his great grief by his actions—who has retired into what may be called his political Cave of Adullam—and he has called about him every one that was in distress and every one that was discontented."

"[The opposition to the Reform Bill of 1866 was directed] against the admission of any portion of the working men to the suffrage. The Tory party, and those from the Liberal ranks who join it, are animated by an unchangeable hostility to any Bill which gives the franchise to the working men. They object to any transfer of power from those who now possess it, and they object to share their power with any increased number of their countrymen who form the working class. They regard the workmen here as the southern planter regards the negroes who were so lately his slaves. They can no longer be bought or sold; so far they are free men. They may work and pay taxes; but they must not vote. They must obey the laws, but must have no share in selecting the men who are to make them. The future position of the millions of working men in the United Kingdom is now determined, if the opposition of the Tory party is to prevail—it is precisely that fixed by the southern planter for the negro. Millions of workmen will bear this in mind; they will now know the point or the gulf which separates one party from the other in the House of Commons."

"I am the great terror of the squires, they seem to be seized with a sort of bucolic mania in dealing with me."

"Working men in this hall...I...say to you, and through the Press to all the working men of this kingdom, that the accession to office of Lord Derby is a declaration of war against the working classes...They reckon nothing of the Constitution of their country—a Constitution which has not more regard to the Crown or to the aristocracy than it has to the people; a Constitution which regards the House of Commons fairly representing the nation as important a part of the Government system of the kingdom as the House of Lords or the Throne itself...Now, what is the Derby principle? It is the shutting out of much more than three-fourths, five-sixths, and even more than five-sixths, of the people from the exercise of constitutional rights...What is it that we are come to in this country that what is being rapidly conceded in all parts of the world is being persistently and obstinately refused here in England, the home of freedom, the mother of Parliaments...Stretch out your hand to your countrymen in every portion of the three kingdoms, and ask them to join in a great and righteous effort on behalf of that freedom which has so long been the boast of Englishmen, but which the majority of Englishmen have never yet possessed...Remember the great object for which we strive, care not for calumnies and for lies, our object is this—to restore the British Constitution and with all its freedom to the British people."

"I believe the time is coming when this question must be laid hold of by a Government, and that Parliament will feel that it dare not treat it in future as it has treated it in the past. These great meetings, as Mr. Mill very justly said, were not meetings so much for discussion as they were meetings for demonstration of opinion, and, if you like, I will add for exhibition of force. (Cheers.) Such exhibitions, if they be despised and disregarded may become exhibitions of another kind of force...I have been insulted in past times...that I was in favour of peace at any price...I believe that however much any of us may abhor the thought that political questions in any country should ever again be settled by force, yet there is something in the constitution of our nature that when these evils are allowed to run on beyond a certain period unredressed, that the most peace-loving of men are unable to keep the peace. (Hear, hear.) And bear this in mind,—that, however much we may wish political questions to be settled by moral means, yet it is no more immoral for a people to use force in the last resort for the obtaining and the securing of freedom than it is for a Government by force to suppress and deny that freedom. (Loud cheers, the audience rising.)"

"What are the results of this system of legislation? Some of them have been touched upon in that Address which has been so kindly presented to me. You refer to the laws affecting land. Are you aware that half the land of England is in the possession of fewer than one hundred and fifty men? Are you aware of the fact that half the land in Scotland is in the possession of not more than ten or twelve men? Are you aware of the fact that the monopoly in land in the United Kingdom is growing constantly more and more close? And the result of it is this — the gradual extirpation of the middle class as owners of land, and the constant degradation of the tillers of the soil."

"[H]e asked why in Ireland they should tolerate the law of primogeniture and the system of entails? He would go further still, and deal with the question of absenteeism. He proposed that a Parliamentary Commission should be empowered to treat for the purchase of large estates belonging to the English nobility, with a view of selling them to the tenantry of Ireland. ‘Now, here are some of them: the present Prime Minister, Lord Derby, Lord Lansdowne, Lord Fitzwilliam, the Marquis of Hertford, the Marquis of Bath, the Duke of Bedford, the Duke of Devonshire, and many others. They have estates in Ireland; many of them, I dare say, are just as well managed as any other estates in the country; but what you want is to restore to Ireland a middle-class proprietary of the soil; and I venture to say that if these estates could be purchased and could be sold out farm by farm to the tenant occupiers in Ireland, that it would be infinitely better, in a conservative sense, than that they should belong to great proprietors living out of the country.’"

"The Aristocratic Institutions of England [had] acted much like the Slavery Institutions of America...[in] demoralis[ing] large classes outside their own special boundaries...[in producing] a long habit of submission...[and in] enfeebl[ing] by corrupting those who should assail them."

"He...made observations with regard to the Queen, which, in my opinion, no meeting of people in this country, and certainly no meeting of Reformers, ought to have listened to with approbation. (Cheers.) Let it be remembered that there has been no occasion on which any Ministry has proposed an improved representation of the people when the Queen has not given her cordial, unhesitating, and, I believe, hearty assent. (Cheers.) ... But Mr. Ayrton referred further to a supposed absorption of the sympathies of the Queen with her late husband to the exclusion of sympathy for and with the people. (Hear, hear.) I am not accustomed to stand up in defence of those who are possessors of crowns. (Hear, hear.) But I could not sit here and hear that observation without a sensation of wonder and of pain. (Loud cheers.) I think there has been by many persons a great injustice done to the Queen in reference to her desolate and widowed position. (Cheers.) And I venture to say this, that a woman, be she the Queen of a great realm or be she the wife of one of your labouring men, who can keep alive in her heart a great sorrow for the lost object of her life and affection, is not at all likely to be wanting in a great and generous sympathy with you. (Loud and prolonged cheers.)"

"I do not think, as some persons seem to think, that the land is really only intended to be in the hands of the rich. I think that is a great mistake. I am not speaking of the poor—for the poor man, in the ordinary meaning of the term, cannot be the possessor of land; but it cannot be a crime or an evil that any man of moderate means, any farmer, should, if he could, become the possessor of land or of his farm."

"Since I have taken a part in public affairs, the fact of the vast weight of the poverty and ignorance that exists at the bottom of the social scale has been a burden on my mind, and is so now. I have always hoped that the policy which I have advocated, and has been accepted in principle, will tend gradually but greatly to relieve the pauperism and the suffering which we still see among the working classes of society."

"Ireland is never unanimous but on one thing – getting something from the Imperial Exchequer."

"To have two Legislative Assemblies in the United Kingdom would, in my opinion, be an intolerable mischief; and I think no sensible man can wish for two within the limits of the present United Kingdom who does not wish the United Kingdom to become two or more nations, entirely separate from each other."

"They [the Conservatives] say that we—that is, the Liberal party—have disturbed classes and interests unnecessarily, that we have harassed almost all sorts of people, and have made ourselves very unpopular thereby. Without doubt, if they had been in the Wilderness, they would have condemned the Ten Commandments as a harassing piece of legislation, though it does happen that we have the evidence of more than thirty centuries to the wisdom and usefulness of those Commandments."

"Tell the merchant that he must not rely for one moment on the Home Rulers for any one thing that is wise and good, nor indeed on any political combination of Irishmen. They have never yet done anything for themselves or their country and have never yet as a party shown what ought to be done. The absence of political and economical knowledge in Ireland is remarkable, and what there is of a sensible middle class is apparently crushed or smothered by the extreme men, who are always in pursuit of some phantom and who seem not to know the substance even when they see it."

"The public exactions and expenditure have much to do with poverty. To raise not less than eighty millions sterling per annum for purposes of government, to expend thirty millions of it in military preparations and means of offence and defence, the bulk of which is only rendered apparently necessary by a mistaken foreign policy, must act as a burden on the people, and must press multitudes of prudent and virtuous families to poverty."

"There is no nation on the Continent of Europe that is less able to do harm to England, and there is no nation on the Continent of Europe to whom we are less able to do harm than we are to Russia. We are so separated that it seems impossible that the two nations, by the use of reason or common sense at all, could possibly be brought into conflict with each other."

"It is not Bradlaugh's atheism which they hate, but his unconscious Christianity."

"Force is not a remedy."

"I think in reviewing the doctrines connected with our Foreign policy which I have preached and defended during 40 years of my public life, you will not be surprised at the decision I am now compelled to take. I cannot accept any share of the responsibility for the acts of war which have taken place at Alexandria. I cannot see to what they may lead, and I know not to what greater wrong and mischief they may force the Government. I feel therefore compelled to withdraw from the Administration, and to ask you to place my resignation of the office I hold in the hands of the Queen. I bitterly lament the disappointment of many hopes as I separate myself from your Government. My feelings towards yourself are those of profound esteem and regard, and an overpowering sense of duty has alone forced me to the only course which seems now open to me. To add to your difficulties and to give you trouble is a cause of much unhappiness to me. I can only hope you will be able to judge me rightly and to forgive me."

"What is a great love of books? It is something like a personal introduction to the great and good men of all past times."

"[W]hat more a blessing, than in these years of feebleness—may be sometimes of suffering—it must be often of solitude—if there be the power to derive instruction and amusement and refreshment from books which your great library will offer to every one? (Applause.) To the young especially this is of great importance, for if there be no seed-time there will certainly be no harvest, and the youth of life is the seed-time of life."

"The task of the wise government of so vast an empire may be an impossible one—I often fear it is so—we may fail in our efforts, but, whether we fail or succeed, let us do our best to compensate for the wrong of the past and the present by conferring on the Indian people whatever good it is in our power to give them."

"The fact is that the abolition of the corn laws which allowed the importation of wheat from every part of the world whence it can be grown cheaper and sent here and the unhappy pressure of the last few years' bad harvests have broken down the landed system of England and no power on earth can set it up again. (Hear, hear). What I want with regard to the land system is not many or any new fangled propositions. What I want is that we should at first remove all the obstructions which the present law puts in the way of the easy transfer and the division of land."

"[Gladstone] gave me a long memorandum, historical in character, on the past Irish story, which seemed to be somewhat one-sided, leaving out of view the important minority and the views and feelings of the Protestant and loyal portion of the people. He explained much of his policy as to a Dublin Parliament, and as to Land purchase. I objected to the Land policy as unnecessary—the Act of 1881 had done all that was reasonable for the tenants—why adopt the policy of the rebel party, and get rid of landholders, and thus evict the English garrison as the rebels call them? I denied the value of the security for repayment. Mr G. argued that his finance arrangements would be better than present system of purchase, and that we were bound in honour to succour the landlords, which I contested. Why not go to the help of other interests in Belfast and Dublin? As to Dublin Parliament, I argued that he was making a surrender all along the line—a Dublin Parliament would work with constant friction, and would press against any barrier he might create to keep up the unity of the three Kingdoms. What of a volunteer force, and what of import duties and protection as against British goods? … I thought he placed far too much confidence in the leaders of the rebel party. I could place none in them, and the general feeling was and is that any terms made with them would not be kept, and that through them I could not hope for reconciliation with discontented and disloyal Ireland."

"I feel outside all the contending sections of the liberal party — for I am not in favour of home rule, or the creation of a Dublin parliament...I cannot consent to a measure which is so offensive to the whole protestant population of Ireland, and to the whole sentiment of the province of Ulster so far as its loyal and protestant people are concerned. I cannot agree to exclude them from the protection of the imperial parliament. ...In any case of a division, it is I suppose certain that a considerable majority of British members will oppose the bill. Thus, whilst it will have the support of the rebel members, it will be opposed by a majority from Great Britain and by a most hostile vote from all that is loyal in Ireland. The result will be, if a majority supports you it will be one composed in effect of the men who for six years past have insulted the Queen, have torn down the national flag, have declared your lord lieutenant guilty of deliberate murder, and have made the imperial parliament an assembly totally unable to manage the legislative business for which it annually assembles at Westminster."

"Clarendon met the eminent demagogue in the street about this time, and described wonderingly to Kathy “his insolent and swaggering way of saying that he and Lords like himself [Clarendon] had no idea of the extent of Reform which they would be obliged to swallow, and other radical speeches which Clarendon seems to have answered with contempt and spirit, and felt an almost unconquerable desire to give him a good thrashing, which he felt he could do, and would have liked intensely.”"

"[T]he real clue to his power lay in the personality and moral attributes of the man, and in the nature of the causes for which he pleaded. Though it is no part of the business of an orator to mount a pulpit, John Bright preached to his countrymen with the fervour of a Savonarola and the simplicity of a Wesley. Many of his illustrations (e.g. the Shunammite woman and the cave of Adullam) were drawn from the Bible, which he was said to know better than any other book. In general literature he was not deeply versed, nor did he give any evidence of a wide knowledge or profound reasoning. There can never have been any speaker who more successfully practised the maxim Ars est celare artem. Though he was known to shut himself up for days before he delivered a great speech, when he was inaccessible even to his family, though his purple passages, as they would now be called, were committed to memory and his perorations written down, neither his manner nor his diction suggested artifice, while his high character and patent sincerity opened the door of every heart."

"Bright was a great contrast to Cobden. A more powerful speaker—but not so persuasive. Even when right, he often injured his cause by his want of the faculty of conciliation. Bright was a natural & powerful orator. He was Demosthenic. He had imagination & a glowing soul... Bright, brought up in the most dreadful prejudices, which he fancied were liberal opinions, & apt to offend & outrage, was however always learning, & beneath his apparent vindictiveness & fierceness was a good-hearted man."

"I ought to name a deputation of a demonstrative character on account of one who formed part of it. It was received not by me but by Lord Ripon, in the large room at the Board of Trade, I being present. A long line of fifteen or twenty gentlemen from the Lancashire district occupied benches running down and at the end of the room, and presented a formidable appearance. All however that I remember is the figure of a person in (I think) black or dark Quaker costume, seemingly the youngest of the band. Eagerly he sat a little forward on the bench, and intervened in the discussion... I was greatly struck with him. He seemed to me rather fierce, but very strong and very earnest. I need hardly say this was John Bright. A year or two after he made his appearance in parliament."

"No one was equal to Bright when he had time to prepare a subject. But he was not strong as a debater, though I once remember his being very successful in debate."

"I will say that there were certain passages in Bright's speeches which I never heard equalled."

"John Bright, to whom Mr. Gladstone used in familiar terms occasionally to refer as "honest John." The "grand moral tone" which characterised Bright's sayings and doings, his high principle, the consistency of his public career and solidarity of his character, appealed with special force to Mr. Gladstone; and acutely as he felt breaches of political friendship, there was no one with whom he parted company with a heavier heart than John Bright when he left the government in 1882, and again when he felt unable to support the policy which was enunciated for Ireland in 1886."

"As a man Mr. Bright put Christianity in the first place as a personal influence—as a politician he regarded it chiefly as a public force to be appealed to on behalf of social welfare. What he hated was injustice; what he abhorred was cruelty, whether of war or slavery; what he cared for was the comfort and prosperity of common people. Whatever stood in the way of these things he would withstand, whether the opposing forces were spiritual principalities, or peers, or thrones."

"He embodied some of the best qualities of the race. His eloquence moved men to the depths of their nature because it was instinct with the loftiest purpose, with that moral seriousness which is conspicuous in the English character even to excess. But no trace of cant marked the words and thoughts of John Bright. Everything he said came from the very heart of the man. His Liberalism was a creed that appealed to everything that was noble in humanity: it was animated by great ideals; it had no hint of opportunism, of materialism... He stood for justice in all things, and his whole political life was a long struggle against the inequalities around him. Almost alone of English statesmen, he sided with the American Federals from the very first."

"I was at the Hyde Park Franchise demonstration, when a large meeting of Socialists was held after the political one was over, at which John Burns referred to Bright as a silver-tongued hypocrite. This was enough for the radicals of that day; our banners and platform were torn and broken up, and some of us were being run to the Serpentine for a ducking."

"A political leader does well to strive to keep our democracy historic. John Bright would have been a worthy comrade of John Hampden, John Selden and John Pym. He had the very spirit of the Puritan leaders. He had their brave and honest heart, their sound and steady judgment, their manly hatred of oppression, of bad laws and bad government; and besides that, it was true of Bright as was said of John Pym that "he had the civic temper and the habit of looking for wisdom as the result of common debate." It was that which made him glory in the House of Commons. No man so profoundly honoured the great possibilities of the Mother of Parliaments."

"Now, Sir, I happen to be of opinion that there are things for which peace may be advantageously sacrificed, and that there are calamities which a nation may endure which are far worse than war... The hon. Member, however, reduces everything to the question of pounds, shillings, and pence, and I verily believe that if this country were threatened with an immediate invasion likely to end in its conquest, the hon. Member would sit down, take a piece of paper, and would put on one side of the account the contributions which his Government would require from him for the defence of the liberty and independence of the country, and he would put on the other the probable contributions which the general of the invading army might levy upon Manchester, and if he found that, on balancing the account, it would be cheaper to be conquered than to be laid under contribution for defence, he would give his vote against going to war for the liberties and independence of the country, rather than bear his share in the expenditure which it would entail."

"In the first place, he was the greatest master of English oratory that this generation has produced, or I may perhaps say several generations back. I have met men who have heard Pitt and Fox, and in whose judgment their eloquence at its best was inferior to the finest efforts of John Bright. At a time when much speaking has depressed and almost exterminated eloquence, he maintained robust and intact that powerful and vigorous style of English which gave fitting expression to the burning and noble thoughts he desired to express. Another characteristic for which I think he will be famous is the singular rectitude of his motives, the singular straightness of his career. He was a keen disputant, a keen combatant; like many eager men, he had little tolerance of opposition. But his action was never guided for a single moment by any consideration of personal or party selfishness. He was inspired by nothing but the purest patriotism and benevolence from the first beginning of his public career to the hour of its close."

"Lord Lansdowne once told Charles Austin that he thought Bright, as an orator, fully equal to Charles Fox."

"This age of ours consequently has let fall, bit by bit, some of the richest and sweetest fruits that the tree of knowledge has yielded; has thrown away the results of the vigils and labours of the most illustrious men of genius, things of more value, I am almost tempted to say, than anything else in the whole world."

"To-day I made the ascent of the highest mountain in this region, which is not improperly called Ventosum. My only motive was the wish to see what so great an elevation had to offer. I have had the expedition in mind for many years; for, as you know, I have lived in this region from infancy, having been cast here by that fate which determines the affairs of men. Consequently the mountain, which is visible from a great distance, was ever before my eyes, and I conceived the plan of some time doing what I have at last accomplished to-day."

"I rejoiced in my progress, mourned my weaknesses, and commiserated the universal instability of human conduct. I had well-nigh forgotten where I was and our object in coming; but at last I dismissed my anxieties, which were better suited to other surroundings, and resolved to look about me and see what we had come to see. The sinking sun and the lengthening shadows of the mountain were already warning us that the time was near at hand when we must go. As if suddenly wakened from sleep, I turned about and gazed toward the west. I was unable to discern the summits of the Pyrenees, which form the barrier between France and Spain; not because of any intervening obstacle that I know of but owing simply to the insufficiency of our mortal vision."

"My brother, waiting to hear something of St. Augustine's from my lips, stood attentively by. I call him, and God too, to witness that where I first fixed my eyes it was written: "And men go about to wonder at the heights of the mountains, and the mighty waves of the sea, and the wide sweep of rivers, and the circuit of the ocean, and the revolution of the stars, but themselves they consider not." I was abashed, and, asking my brother (who was anxious to hear more), not to annoy me, I closed the book, angry with myself that I should still be admiring earthly things who might long ago have learned from even the pagan philosophers that nothing is wonderful but the soul, which, when great itself, finds nothing great outside itself. Then, in truth, I was satisfied that I had seen enough of the mountain; I turned my inward eye upon myself, and from that time not a syllable fell from my lips until we reached the bottom again. Those words had given me occupation enough, for I could not believe that it was by a mere accident that I happened upon them. What I had there read I believed to be addressed to me and to no other, remembering that St. Augustine had once suspected the same thing in his own case, when, on opening the book of the Apostle, as he himself tells us, the first words that he saw there were, "Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying. But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof.""

"Hitherto your eyes have been darkened and you have looked too much, yes, far too much, upon the things of earth. If these so much delight you what shall be your rapture when you lift your gaze to things eternal! When I heard her thus speak, though my fear still clung about me, with trembling voice I made reply in Virgil's words —"

"Rarely do great beauty and great virtue dwell together."

"Man has no greater enemy than himself. I have acted contrary to my sentiments and inclination; throughout our whole lives we do what we never intended, and what we proposed to do, we leave undone."

"Love is the crowning grace of humanity, the holiest right of the soul, the golden link which binds us to duty and truth, the redeeming principle that chiefly reconciles the heart to life, and is prophetic of eternal good."

"To begin with myself, then, the utterances of men concerning me will differ widely, since in passing judgment almost every one is influenced not so much by truth as by preference, and good and evil report alike know no bounds."

"I certainly will not reject the praise you bestow upon me for having stimulated in many instances, not only in Italy but perhaps beyond its confines also, the pursuit of studies such as ours, which have suffered neglect for so many centuries; I am, indeed, almost the oldest of those among us who are engaged in the cultivation of these subjects. But I cannot accept the conclusion you draw from this, namely, that I should give place to younger minds, and, interrupting the plan of work on which I am engaged, give others an opportunity to write something, if they will, and not seem longer to desire to reserve everything for my own pen. How radically do our opinions differ, although, at bottom, our object is the same! I seem to you to have written everything, or at least a great deal, while to myself I appear to have produced almost nothing."

"You, my friend, by a strange confusion of arguments, try to dissuade me from continuing my chosen work by urging, on the one hand, the hopelessness of bringing my task to completion, and by dwelling, on the other, upon the glory which I have already acquired. Then, after asserting that I have filled the world with my writings, you ask me if I expect to equal the number of volumes written by Origen or Augustine. No one, it seems to me, can hope to equal Augustine. Who, nowadays, could hope to equal one who, in my judgment, was the greatest in an age fertile in great minds? As for Origen, you know that I am wont to value quality rather than quantity, and I should prefer to have produced a very few irreproachable works rather than numberless volumes such as those of Origen, which are filled with grave and intolerable errors."

"Continued work and application form my soul's nourishment. So soon as I commenced to rest and relax I should cease to live. I know my own powers. I am not fitted for other kinds of work, but my reading and writing, which you would have me discontinue, are easy tasks, nay, they are a delightful rest, and relieve the burden of heavier anxieties. There is no lighter burden, nor more agreeable, than a pen. Other pleasures fail us or wound us while they charm, but the pen we take up rejoicing and lay down with satisfaction, for it has the power to advantage not only its lord and master, but many others as well, even though they be far away — sometimes, indeed, though they be not born for thousands of years to come. I believe I speak but the strict truth when I claim that as there is none among earthly delights more noble than literature, so there is none so lasting, none gentler, or more faithful; there is none which accompanies its possessor through the vicissitudes of life at so small a cost of effort or anxiety."

"Books have led some to learning and others to madness, when they swallow more than they can digest."

"How fortune brings to earth the over-sure!"

"It is better to will the good than to know the truth."

"It is more honorable to be raised to a throne than to be born to one. Fortune bestows the one, merit obtains the other."

"Sameness is the mother of disgust, variety the cure."

"Five enemies of peace inhabit with us — avarice, ambition, envy, anger, and pride; if these were to be banished, we should infallibly enjoy perpetual peace."

"Here I have established my Rome, my Athens, and my spiritual fatherland; here I gather all the friends I now have or did have, not only those ... who have lived with me, but also those who died many centuries ago, known to me only through their writings. ... I am where I wish to be."

"O thou of all knowledge and of all wisdom, true and only God, thou giver of true glory, Lord of all virtue, supreme Saviour Jesus, see that supplicant and in my soul genuflected before thee I sincerely beg thee that, if thou wilt not give me anything else, at least grant me this, that I may be a good man: Nor will I ever be such except by loving Thee greatly and devoutly adoring Thee, for this I was born, not for letters; which, if they alone occupy the mind, swell and destroy instead of edifying, and are to the soul shining chains, painful travail, thunderous burden."

"(About king David) I would like to have his Psalter in my hands and before my eyes during the day, and under my head at night and at the point of death, considering this a source of glory for me not less than for the greatest philosophers, the mimes of Sophron."

"Voi ch'ascoltate in rime sparse il suono di quei sospiri ond'io nudriva 'l core in sul mio primo giovenile errore quand'era in parte altr'uom da quel ch'i' sono."

"Et del mio vaneggiar vergogna è 'l frutto, e 'l pentersi, e 'l conoscer chiaramente che quanto piace al mondo è breve sogno."

"Ché i be' vostr'occhi, donna, mi legaro."

"Who overrefines his argument brings himself to grief."

"Tempo da travagliare è quanto è 'l giorno."

"Ma pur sí aspre vie né sí selvagge cercar non so ch'Amor non venga sempre ragionando con meco, et io co llui."

"Ahi nova gente oltra misura altera, irreverente a tanta et a tal madre!"

"Per fama huom s'innamora."

"Inanzi al dí de l'ultima partita huom beato chiamar non si convene."

"Da'duo begli occhi che legato m'ànno."

"Perché la vita è breve, et l'ingegno paventa a l'alta impresa, né di lui né di lei molto mi fido."

"Questa vita terrena è quasi un prato, che 'l serpente tra' fiori et l'erba giace; et s'alcuna sua vista agli occhi piace, è per lassar piú l'animo invescato."

"Voi dunque, se cercate aver la mente anzi l'extremo dí queta già mai, seguite i pochi, et non la volgar gente."

"Vinse Hanibàl, et non seppe usar poi ben la vittoriosa sua ventura."

"Pandolfo mio, quest'opere son frali da ll lungo andar, ma 'l nostro studio è quello dche fa per fama gli uomini immortali."

"Amor regge suo imperio senza spada."

"Intendami chi pò, ch'i' m'intend'io."

"Proverbio "ama chi t'ama" è fatto antico."

"Per bene star si scende molte miglia."

"Tal par gran meraviglia, et poi si sprezza."

"Una chiusa bellezza è piú soave."

"Né del vulgo mi cal, né di Fortuna."

"Vero è 'l proverbio, ch'altri cangia il pelo anzi che 'l vezzo."

"Le bionde treccie sopra il collo sciolte."

"Io parlo per ver dire, non per odio d'altrui, né per disprezzo."

"S'amor non è, che dunque è quel ch'io sento? Ma s'egli è amor, perdio, che cosa et quale? Se bona, onde l'effecto aspro mortale? Se ria, onde sí dolce ogni tormento?"

"Pace non trovo, et non ò da far guerra; e temo, et spero; et ardo, et son un ghiaccio."

"Ché bel fin fa chi ben amando more."

"Sarò qual fui, vivrò com'io son visso."

"Sol se stessa, et nulla altra, simiglia."

"Pien d'un vago penser che me desvia da tutti gli altri."

"Chi po dir com'egli arde è 'n picciol foco."

"Un bel morir tutta la vita honora."

"Beato in sogno et di languir contento, d'abbracciar l'ombre et seguir l'aura estiva, nuoto per mar che non à fondo o riva, solco onde, e 'n rena fondo, et scrivo in vento."

"Il sonno è veramente, qual uom dice, parente de la morte, e 'l cor sottragge a quel dolce penser che 'n vita il tene."

"Le città son nemiche, amici i boschi."

"Nulla al mondo è che non possano i versi."

"L'alta beltà ch'al mondo non à pare noia t'è, se non quanto il bel thesoro di castità par ch'ella adorni et fregi."

"Co la morte a lato cerco del viver mio novo consiglio, et veggio 'l meglio, et al peggior m'appiglio."

"Non è sí duro cor che, lagrimando, pregando, amando, talor non si smova, né sí freddo voler, che non si scalde."

"Ché 'ncontra 'l ciel non val difesa humana."

"La vita fugge, et non s'arresta una hora."

"Veramente siam noi polvere et ombra, veramente la voglia cieca e 'ngorda, veramente fallace è la speranza."

"L'acque parlan d'amore, et l'òra e i rami et gli augelletti et i pesci e i fiori et l'erba, tutti inseme pregando ch'i' sempre ami.'Ma tu, ben nata, che dal ciel mi chiami, per la memoria di tua morte acerba preghi ch'i' sprezzi 'l mondo e i suoi dolci hami."

"I' so' colei che ti die' tanta guerra, et compie' mia giornata inanzi sera."

"Cosí nel mondo sua ventura à ciascun dal dí che nasce."

"O che lieve è inganar chi s'assecura!"

"Canzon, s'uom trovi in suo amor viver queto, di': Muor' mentre se' lieto, ché morte al tempo è non duol, ma refugio; et chi ben pò morir, non cerchi indugio."

"Ei sa che 'l vero parlo: ché legno vecchio mai non róse tarlo."

"Obedir a Natura in tutto è il meglio."

"Think you, if Laura had been Petrarch's wife, He would have written sonnets all his life?"

"Petrarch was the final blossom and perfection of the Troubadours."

"Lovely Laura in her light green dress, And faithful Petrarch gloriously crowned."

"Francesco Petrarca, the mirror of our century, after completing a vast array of volumes, on reaching his seventy-first year, closed his last day in his library. He was found leaning over a book as if sleeping, so that his death was not at first suspected by his household."

"The reason for this contrast between the French and the Italian mediaeval literature is not far to seek. Allegory is a characteristically mediaeval form; and in Italy the Middle Ages began so late and the Renaissance came so early that that country never had the opportunity to fall completely under the spell that held France from the time of the Roman de la Rose till the end of the fifteenth century. Thus Petrarch, in spite of the fact that he wrote perhaps more pure allegory than any other Italian, was at the same time an enthusiast for the New Learning."

"Petrarch, a character on whom I never think but with love, formed his mind entirely in Solitude, and there rendered himself capable of transacting the most important political affairs. Petrarch was, doubtless, sometimes what persons frequently become in Solitude, satirical, peevish and choleric. He has, in particular, been reproached with great severities, on account of his lively pictures of the manners of his age, and especially his description of the infamous vices practised at Avignon, during the pontificate of the sixth Clement. But Petrarch possessed a profound knowledge of the human heart, and extraordinary address in working upon the passions and directing them as he pleased. The Abbé de Sade, the best historian of his life, says, that he is scarcely known, but as the tender and elegant poet, who loved with ardor and sung in the most impassioned strains the charms of his mistress; and that nothing more is known of his character. Even authors are ignorant of the obligations which literature owes him; that he rescued it from the barbarism beneath which it had so long been buried; that he saved the best works of the ancient writers from dust and destruction, and that all these treasures would have been lost to us, if he had not sought and procured correct copies of them."

"It is not perhaps, generally known, that he first revived the study of the Belles Lettres in Europe; that he purified the taste of the age; that he himself thought and wrote like a citizen of ancient and independent Rome; that he extirpated numerous prejudices, and paved the way to further improvements, in the circle of human knowledge; that to the hour of his death, he continued to exercise his distinguished talents, and in each successive work always surpassed the preceding. Still less is it known, that Petrarch was an able statesman; that the greatest sovereigns of his age confided to him the most difficult negotiations, and consulted him on their most important concerns; that in the fourteenth century, he possessed a higher reputation, credit and influence, than any man of learning of the present day; that three popes, an emperor, a king of France, a sovereign of Naples, a crowd of cardinals, the greatest princes, and most illustrious lords of Italy, courted his friendship, and desired his company; that, as a statesman, an ambassador and minister they employed him in the most intricate affairs of those times; that, in return, he was not backward in telling them the most unpleasant truths; that Solitude alone supplied him with all this power; that none was better acquainted with its advantages, Cherished them with such fondness, or extolled them with such energy, and at length, preferred leisure and liberty to every other consideration. He appeared, a long time, enervated by love, to which he had devoted the prime of his life, but he suddenly abandoned the soft and effeminate tone, in which he sighed at the feet of his Laura. He then addressed himself, with manly boldness, to kings, emperors, and popes, and always with that confidence which splendid talents and high reputation inspire."

"So far has Athens left the rest of mankind behind in thought and expression that her pupils have become the teachers of the world, and she has made the name of Hellas distinctive no longer of race but of intellect, and the title of Hellene a badge of education rather than of common descent."

"ἃ πάσχοντες ὑφʹ ἑτέρων ὀργίζεσθε, ταῦτα τοὺς ἄλλους μὴ ποιεῖτε."

"Argos is the land of your fathers."

"Therefore, since the others are so lacking in spirit, I think it is opportune for you to head the war against the King; and, while it is only natural for the other descendants of Heracles, and for men who are under the bonds of their polities and laws, to cleave fondly to that state in which they happen to dwell, it is your privilege, as one who has been blessed with untrammeled freedom, to consider all Hellas (Greece) your fatherland, as did the founder of your race, and to be as ready to brave perils for her sake as for the things about which you are personally most concerned."

"… all men will be grateful to you: the Hellenes (Greeks) for your kindness to them and the rest of the nations, if by your hands they are delivered from barbaric despotism and are brought under the protection of Hellas."

"Never hope to conceal any shameful thing which you have done; for even if you do conceal it from others, your own heart will know. … Pursue the enjoyments which are of good repute; for pleasure attended by honor is the best thing in the world, but pleasure without honor is the worst."

"Guard yourself against accusations, even if they are false; for the multitude are ignorant of the truth and look only to reputation. In all things resolve to act as though the whole world would see what you do; for even if you conceal your deeds for the moment, later you will be found out. But most of all will you have the respect of men, if you are seen to avoid doing things which you would blame others for doing."

"Ἐὰν ᾖς φιλομαθής, ἔσει πολυμαθής"

"If you love knowledge, you will be a master of knowledge. What you have come to know, preserve by exercise; what you have not learned, seek to add to your knowledge; for it is as reprehensible to hear a profitable saying and not grasp it as to be offered a good gift by one's friends and not accept it. Spend your leisure time in cultivating an ear attentive to discourse, for in this way you will find that you learn with ease what others have found out with difficulty."

"Believe that many precepts are better than much wealth; for wealth quickly fails us, but precepts abide through all time; for wisdom alone of all possessions is imperishable. Do not hesitate to travel a long road to those who profess to offer some useful instruction; for it were a shame, when merchants cross vast seas in order to increase their store of wealth, that the young should not endure even journeys by land to improve their understanding."

"Take your time in planning, but when you have made your decision be fast in putting it into action."

"The greatest thing in the small compass is a sound mind in a human body. Strive with all your body to be a lover of toil, and with your soul to be a lover of wisdom, in order that with the one you may have the strength to carry out your resolves, and with the other the intelligence to foresee what is for your good."

"Always when you are about to say anything, first weigh it in your mind; for with many the tongue outruns the thought. Let there be but two occasions for speech — when the subject is one which you thoroughly know and when it one on which you are compelled to speak. On these occasions alone is speech better than silence; on all others, it is better to be silent than to speak."

"Consider that nothing in human life is stable; for then you will not exult overmuch in prosperity, nor grieve overmuch in adversity. Rejoice over the good things which come to you, but grieve in moderation over the evils which befall you, and in either case do not expose your heart to others; for it were strange to hide away one's treasure in the house, and yet walk about laying bare one's feelings to the world."

"Be more careful in guarding against censure than against danger; for the wicked may well dread the end of life, but good men should dread ignominy during life. Strive by all means to live in security, but if ever it falls to your lot to face the dangers of battle, seek to preserve your life, but with honour and not with disgrace; for death is the sentence which fate has passed on all mankind, but to die nobly is the special honour with nature has reserved for the good."

"Do not be surprised that many things which I have said do not apply to your at your present age. For I also have not overlooked this fact, but I have deliberately chosen to employ this one treatise, not only to convey to you advice for your life now, but also to leave with you precepts for the years to come; for you will then readily perceive the application of my precepts, but you will not easily find a man who will give you friendly counsel. In order, therefore, that you may not seek the rest from another source, but that you may draw from this as from a treasure-house, I thought that I ought not to omit any of the counsels which I have to give you."

"I shall be most grateful to the gods if I am not disappointed in the opinion which I have of you. For, while we find that the great majority of other men seek the society of those friends who join them in their follies and not of those to admonish them, just as they prefer the most pleasant to the most wholesome, you, I think, are minded otherwise as I judge from the industry you display in your general education. For when one sets for himself the highest standard of conduct, it is probable that in his relation to others he will approve only of those who exhort him to virtue. But most of all you would be spurred on to strive for noble deeds if you should realize that it is from them most of all that we also derive pleasure in the true sense. For while the result of indolence and love of surfeit is that pain follows on the heels of pleasure, on the other hand, devoted toil in the pursuit of virtue, and self-control in the ordering of one's life always yield delights that are pure and more abiding. In the former case we experience pain following upon pleasure, in the latter we enjoy pleasure after pain."

"With these examples before you, you should aspire to nobility of character, and not only abide by what I have said, but acquaint yourself with the best things in the poets as well, and learn from the other wise men also any useful lessons they have taught. For just as we see the bee settling on all the flowers, and sipping the best from each, so also those who aspire to culture ought not to leave anything untasted, but should gather useful knowledge from every source. For hardly even with these pains can they overcome the defects of nature."

"Democracy destroys itself because it abuses its right to freedom and equality. Because it teaches its citizens to consider audacity as a right, lawlessness as a freedom, abrasive speech as equality, and anarchy as progress."

"Lying rumours do not penetrate farther than our ears."

"Truth is strong enough to overcome all human sophistries."

"For at a congress of the Lacedaemonian allies and the other Greeks, in which Amyntas, the father of Philip, being entitled to a seat, was represented by a delegate whose vote was absolutely under his control, he joined the other Greeks in voting to help Athens to recover possession of Amphipolis. As proof of this I presented from the public records the resolution of the Greek congress and the names of those who voted."

"Aeschines said to him, "I am a poor man and have nothing else to give, but I offer you myself," and Socrates answered, "Nay, do you not see that you are offering me the greatest gift of all?""

"The man who is unprincipled in private life will never make a good public servant, nor will one who is of no account at home prove a man of light and leading with the embassy in Macedonia; for he has only changed his abode, not his nature."

"He is specially deserving of our hatred, in that being wicked he has all the outward signs of virtue."

"An evil nature wielding great authority brings misfortune upon the community."

"Right is not unlimited, but is limited by the laws."

"I will not bring dishonor on my sacred arms nor will I abandon my comrade wherever I shall be stationed. I will defend the rights of gods and men and will not leave my country smaller, when I die, but greater and better, so far as I am able by myself and with the help of all. I will respect the rulers of the time duly and the existing ordinances duly and all others which may be established in the future. And if anyone seeks to destroy the ordinances I will oppose him so far as I am able by myself and with the help of all. I will honor the cults of my fathers. Witnesses to this shall be the gods Agraulus, Hestia, Enyo, Enyalius, Ares, Athena the Warrior, Zeus, Thallo, Auxo, Hegemone, Heracles, and the boundaries of my native land, wheat, barley, vines, olive-trees, fig-trees..."

"Consider, then, and act upon the true ends of existence. This world which stretches out before you, is but the vestibule of an immortal life. These deeds that are taking place around you, touch upon chords that extend by a thousand connections, visible and invisible, and vibrate in eternity."

"Each man … finds life to be a discipline. Each has his separate form of discipline; but it bears upon the kindred spirit that is in every one of us, and strikes upon motives, sympathies, faculties, that run through the common humanity. Surely, you will not calculate any essential difference from mere appearances; for the light laughter that bubbles on the lip often mantles over brackish depths of sadness, and the serious look may be the sober veil that covers a divine peace. You know that the bosom can ache beneath diamond brooches, and how many blithe hearts dance under coarse wool."

"[A] true man … never frets about his place in the world; but just slides into it by the gravitation of his nature, and swings there as easily as a star!"

"There is no happiness in life, there is no misery, like that growing out of the dispositions which consecrate or desecrate a Home."

"Life is a . We are thrown into it, and tried. The actual weight and value of a man are expressed in the spiritual substance of the man. All else is ."

"An aged Christian, with the snow of time on his head, may remind us that those points of earth are whitest that are nearest heaven."

"Objects close to the eye shut out much larger objects on the horizon; and splendors born only of the earth eclipse the stars. So a man sometimes covers up the entire disk of eternity with a dollar, and quenches transcendent glories with a little shining dust."

"[N]ever does the human soul appear so strong as when it foregoes revenge and dares to forgive an injury."

"Morality is but the vestibule of religion."

"Goodness consists not in the outward things we do, but in the inward thing we are. To be is the great thing."

"Through all God's works there runs a beautiful harmony. The remotest truth in his universe is linked to that which lies nearest the throne."

"At the bottom of a good deal of the bravery that appears in the world there lurks a miserable cowardice. Men will face powder and steel because they cannot face public opinion."

"I know a good many people, I think, who are bigots, and who know they are bigots, and are sorry for it, but they dare not be anything else."

"A great many men — some comparatively small men now — if put in the right position, would be Luthers and Columbuses."

"Fashion is the science of appearances, and it inspires one with the desire to seem rather than to be."

"Poetry is the utterance of truth — deep, heartfelt truth. The true poet is very near the oracle."

"Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seamed with scars; martyrs have put on their coronation-robes glittering with fire; and through their tears have the sorrowful first seen the gate of heaven."

"Christ saw much in this world to weep over, and much to pray over; but he saw nothing in it to look upon with contempt."

"Christianity has made martyrdom sublime, and sorrow triumphant."

"There is no tariff so injurious as that with which sectarian bigotry guards its commodities. It dwarfs the soul by shutting out truths from other continents of thought, and checks the circulation of its own."

"[Christ] illustrates the purport of life as he descends from his transfiguration to toil, and goes forward to exchange that robe of heavenly brightness for the crown of thorns."

"Gaiety is often the reckless ripple over depths of despair."

"[U]nder the shadow of earthly disappointment, all unconsciously to ourselves, our Divine Redeemer is walking by our side."

"Pride is the master-sin of the devil; and the devil is the father of lies."

"Most men are less afraid of ghosts than of facts; but out of the truth of things — truth of character and vision — grows true life."

"Many people live habitually as if the present moment were an obstacle that they need to overcome in order to get to the next moment, and imagine living your whole life like that. Always, this moment is not quite good enough because you need to get to the next one."

"I have little use for the past and rarely think about it; however, I would briefly like to tell you how I came to be a spiritual teacher and how this book came into existence. Until my thirtieth year, I lived in a state of almost continuous anxiety interspersed with periods of suicidal depression. It feels now as if I am talking about some past lifetime or somebody else's life. Introduction"

"What was the point in continuing to live with this burden of misery? Why carry on with this continuous struggle? I could feel that a deep longing for annihilation, for nonexistence, was now becoming much stronger than the instinctive desire to continue to live. “I cannot live with myself any longer.” This was the thought that kept repeating itself in my mind. Then suddenly I became aware of what a peculiar thought it was. “Am I one or two? If I cannot live with myself, there must be two of me: the ‘I’ and the ‘self’ that ‘I’ cannot live with.” “Maybe,” I thought, “only one of them is real.” Introduction"

"When someone goes to the doctor and says, "I hear a voice in my head," he or she will most likely be sent to a psychiatrist. The fact is that, in a very similar way, virtually everyone hears a voice, or several voices, in their head all the time: the involuntary thought processes that you don't realize you have the power to stop. Continuous monologues or dialogues. You have probably come across "mad" people in the street incessantly talking or muttering to themselves. Well, that's not much different from what you and all other "normal" people do, except that you don't do it out loud. The voice comments, speculates, judges, compares, complains, likes, dislikes, and so on. The voice isn't necessarily relevant to the situation you find yourself in at the time; it may be reviving the recent or distant past or rehearsing or imagining possible future situations. Here it often imagines things going wrong and negative outcomes; this is called worry. p. 16"

"Even if the voice is relevant to the situation at hand, it will interpret it in terms of the past. This is because the voice belongs to your conditioned mind, which is the result of all your past history as well as of the collective cultural mind-set you inherited. So you see and judge the present through the eyes of the past and get a totally distorted view of it. It is not uncommon for the voice to be a person's own worst enemy. Many people live with a tormentor in their head that continuously attacks and punishes them and drains them of vital energy. It is the cause of untold misery and unhappiness, as well as of disease."

"When you listen to a thought, you are aware not only of the thought but also of yourself as the witness of the thought. A new dimension of consciousness has come in. p. 17"

"As you listen to the thought, you feel a conscious presence - your deeper self - behind or underneath the thought, as it were. The thought then loses its power over you and quickly subsides, because you are no longer energizing the mind through identification with it. This is the beginning of the end of involuntary and compulsive thinking. When a thought subsides, you experience a discontinuity in the mental stream - a gap of "no-mind." At first, the gaps will be short, a few seconds perhaps, but gradually they will become longer. When these gaps occur, you feel a certain stillness and peace inside you."

"Instead of "watching the thinker," you can also create a gap in the mind stream simply by directing the focus of your attention into the Now. Just become intensely conscious of the present moment. This is a deeply satisfying thing to do. In this way, you draw consciousness away from mind activity and create a gap of no-mind in which you are highly alert and aware but not thinking. This is the essence of meditation. In your everyday life, you can practice this by taking any routine activity that normally is only a means to an end and giving it your fullest attention, so that it becomes an end in itself."

"The greater part of human pain is unnecessary. It is self created as long as the unobserved mind runs your life....The pain that you create now is always some form of non acceptance, some form of unconscious resistance to what is. On the level of thought, the resistance is some form of judgment. On the emotional level, it is some form of negativity. p. 25"

"Be the ever-alert guardian of your inner space. You need to be present enough to be able to watch the pain-body directly and feel its energy. It then cannot control your thinking. The moment your thinking is aligned with the energy field of the painbody, you are identified with it and again feeding it with your thoughts....For example, if anger is the predominant energy vibration of the pain-body and you think angry thoughts, dwelling on what someone did to you or what you are going to do to him or her, then you have become unconscious, and the pain-body has become "you.""

"Where there is anger, there is always pain underneath. Or when a dark mood comes upon you and you start getting into a negative mind-pattern and thinking how dreadful your life is, your thinking has become aligned with the pain-body, and you have become unconscious and vulnerable to the pain-body's attack. "Unconscious," the way that I use the word here, means to be identified with some mental or emotional pattern. It implies a complete absence of the watcher. p. 29-30"

"The good news is that you can free yourself from your mind. This is the only true liberation. You can take the first step right now.... You'll soon realize: there is the voice, and here I am listening to it, watching it. This I am realization, this sense of your own presence, is not a thought. It arises from beyond the mind."

"The great Zen master Rinzai, in order to take his students' attention away from time, would often raise his finger and slowly ask: "What, at this moment, is lacking?" A powerful question that does not require an answer on the level of the mind. It is designed to take your attention deeply into the Now. A similar question in the Zen tradition is this: "If not now, when?" p. 38"

"The Now is also central to the teaching of Sufism, the mystical branch of Islam. Sufis have a saying: "The Sufi is the son of time present." And Rumi, the great poet and teacher of Sufism, declares: "Past and future veil God from our sight; burn up both of them with fire.""

"Meister Eckhart, the thirteenth-century spiritual teacher, summed it all up beautifully: "Time is what keeps the light from reaching us. There is no greater obstacle to God than time.""

"You think that your attention is in the present moment when it's actually taken up completely by time. You cannot be both unhappy and fully present in the Now. What you refer to as your "life" should more accurately be called your "life situation." It is psychological time: past and future. Certain things in the past didn't go the way you wanted them to go. You are still resisting what happened in the past, and now you are resisting what is. Hope is what keeps you going, but hope keeps you focused on the future, and this continued focus perpetuates your denial of the Now and therefore your unhappiness. p. 43"

"The past cannot survive in your presence. It can only survive in your absence. p. 76"

"Because we live in such a mind-dominated culture, most modern art, architecture, music, and literature are devoid of beauty, of inner essence, with very few exceptions."

"You are here to enable the divine purpose of the universe to unfold. That is how important you are! p. 91"

"The ego … reduces the present to a means to an end."

"Pleasure is always derived from something outside you, whereas joy arises from within."

"The past gives you an identity and the future holds the promise of salvation. … Both are illusions."

"The future is usually imagined as either better or worse than the present. If the imagined future is better, it gives you hope or pleasurable anticipation. If it is worse, it creates anxiety. Both are illusory."

"Whereas before you dwelt in time and paid brief visits to the Now, have your dwelling place in the Now and pay brief visits to past and future."

"If there is no joy, ease, or lightness in what you are doing, it does not necessarily mean that you need to change what you are doing. It may be sufficient to change the how. “How” is always more important than “what.” See if you can give much more attention to the doing than to the result that you want to achieve through it."

"To be free of time is to be free of the psychological need of past for your identity and future for your fulfillment."

"Ask yourself what “problem” you have right now, not next year, tomorrow, or five minutes from now. What is wrong with this moment?"

"The reason why you don't put your hand in the fire is not because of fear, it's because you know you'll get burned. You don't need fear to avoid an unnecessary danger, just a minimum of intelligence and common sense."

"If your destination, or the steps you are going to take in the future, take up so much of your attention that they become more important to you than the step you are taking now, then you completely miss the journey’s inner purpose, which has nothing to do with where you are going or what you are doing, but everything to do with how. It has nothing to do with future but everything to do with the quality of your consciousness at this moment."

"Every outer purpose is doomed to “fail” sooner or later, simply because it is subject to the law of impermanence of all things."

"A true spiritual teacher does not have anything to teach in the conventional sense of the word, does not have anything to give or add to you, such as new information, beliefs, or rules of conduct. The only function of such a teacher is to help you remove that which separates you from the truth of who you already are and what you already know in the depth of your being."

"If you come to a spiritual teacher — or this book — looking for stimulating ideas, theories, beliefs, intellectual discussions, then you will be disappointed. This is not a book to be read from cover to cover and then put away. Live with it, pick it up frequently, and more importantly, put it down frequently, or spend more time holding it than reading it. Many readers will feel naturally inclined to stop reading after each entry, to pause, reflect, become still. It is always more helpful and more important to stop reading than to continue reading. Allow the book to do its work, to awaken you from the old grooves of your repetitive and conditioned thinking. (intro)"

"The form of this book can be seen as a revival for the present age of the oldest form of recorded spiritual teachings: the sutras of ancient India. Sutras are powerful pointers to the truth in the form of aphorisms or short sayings, with little conceptual elaboration. The Vedas and Upanishads are the early sacred teachings recorded in the form of sutras, as are the words of the Buddha. The sayings and parables of Jesus, too, when taken out of their narrative context, could be regarded as sutras, as well as the profound teachings contained in the Tao Te Ching, the ancient Chinese book of wisdom. The advantage of the sutra form lies in its brevity... (intro)"

"Just as the ancient sutras, the writings contained within this book are sacred and have come out of a state of consciousness we may call stillness. Unlike those ancient sutras, however, they don’t belong to any one religion or spiritual tradition, but are immediately accessible to the whole of humanity. There is also an added sense of urgency here. The transformation of human consciousness is no longer a luxury, so to speak, available only to a few isolated individuals, but a necessity if humankind is not to destroy itself. (intro)"

"When you lose touch with inner stillness, you lose touch with yourself. When you lose touch with yourself, you lose yourself in the world. Your innermost sense of self, of who you are, is inseparable from stillness. This is the “I Am” that is deeper than name and form."

"Stillness is your essential nature. What is stillness? The inner space or awareness in which the words on this page are being perceived and become thoughts. Without that awareness, there would be no perception, no thoughts, no world. (Ch 1)"

"You are that awareness, disguised as a person. (Ch 1)"

"In the Bible, it says that God created the world and saw that it was good. That is what you see when you look from stillness without thought. (Ch 1)"

"Do you need more knowledge? Is more information going to save the world, or faster computers, more scientific or intellectual analysis? Is it not wisdom that humanity needs most at this time? But what is wisdom and where is it to be found? Wisdom comes with the ability to be still. Just look and just listen. No more is needed. Being still, looking, and listening activates the non-conceptual intelligence within you. Let stillness direct your words and actions. (Ch 1)"

"The human condition: Lost in thought Most people spend their entire life imprisoned within the confines of their own thoughts. They never go beyond a narrow, mind-made, personalized sense of self that is conditioned by the past. In you, as in each human being, there is a dimension of consciousness far deeper than thought. It is the very essence of who you are. We may call it presence, awareness, the unconditioned consciousness. In the ancient teachings, it is the Christ within, or your Buddha nature."

"There is an aliveness in you that you can feel with your Being, not just in the head. Every cell is alive in that presence in which you don't need to think. Yet, in that state, if thought is required for some practical purpose, it is there. The mind can still operate, and it operated beautifully when the greater intelligence that you are uses it and expresses itself through it. (Ch 2)"

"Finding that dimension frees you and the world from the suffering you inflict on yourself and others when the mind-made “little me” is all you know and runs your life. Love, joy, creative expansion, and lasting inner peace cannot come into your life except through that unconditioned dimension of consciousness. (Ch 2)"

"A moment of danger can bring about a temporary cessation of the stream of thinking and thus give you a taste of what it means to be present, alert, aware. (Ch 2)"

"The Truth is far more all-encompassing than the mind could ever comprehend. No thought can encapsulate the Truth. At best, it can point to it. For example, it can say: “All things are intrinsically one.” That is a pointer, not an explanation. Understanding these words means feeling deep within you the truth to which they point. (Ch 2)"

"The mind is incessantly looking not only for food for thought; it is looking for food for its identity, its sense of self. This is how the ego comes into existence and continuously re-creates itself."

"When you think or speak about yourself, when you say, “I,” what you usually refer to is “me and my story.” This is the “I” of your likes and dislikes, fears and desires, the “I” that is never satisfied for long. It is a mind-made sense of who you are, conditioned by the past and seeking to find its fulfillment in the future."

"Can you see that this “I” is fleeting, a temporary formation, like a wave pattern on the surface of the water? Who is it that sees this? Who is it that is aware of the fleetingness of your physical and psychological form? I am. This is the deeper “I” that has nothing to do with past and future."

""No self, no problem,” said the Buddhist master when asked to explain the deeper meaning of Buddhism."

"On the surface it seems that the present moment is only one of many, many moments. Each day of your life appears to consist of thousands of moments where different things happen. Yet if you look more deeply, is there not only one moment, ever? Is life ever not this moment? This one moment, now, is the only thing you can never escape from. The one constant factor in your life. No matter what happens. No matter how much your life changes. One thing is certain. Its always now. Since there is no escape from the now, why not welcome it, become friendly with it."

"Confusion, anger, depression, violence, and conflict arise when humans forget who they are. Yet how easy it is to remember the truth and thus return home: I am not my thoughts, emotions, sense perceptions, and experiences. I am not the content of my life. I am Life. I am the space in which all things happen. I am consciousness. I am the Now. I Am. (Ch 4)"

"The now is inseparable from who you are at the deepest level."

"Many things in your life matter but only one thing matters absolutely. It matters whether you succeed or fail in the eyes of the world. It matters whether you are healthy or not healthy, whether you are educated or not educated. It matters whether you are rich or poor. It certainly makes a difference in your life. Yes, all these things matter, relatively speaking. But they don't matter absolutely. There is something that matters more than any of those things and that is finding the essence of who your are beyond that short-lived entity, that short-lived personalized sense of self. You find peace not by rearranging the circumstances of your life but by realizing who you are at the deepest level. (Ch 5)"

"All the misery on the planet arises due to a personalized sense of me or us. That covers up the essence of who you are. When you are unaware of that inner essence, in the end, you always create misery. It's as simple as that. When you don't know who you are, you create a mind-made self as a substitute for your beautiful, divine being and cling to that fearful and needy self. Protecting and enhancing that false sense of self then becomes your primary motivating force. (Ch 5)"

"Most people's lives are run by desire and fear. Desire is the need to add something to yourself in order to be yourself more fully. All fear is the fear of losing something, and thereby become diminished and be less. These two movements obscure the fact that being cannot be given or taken away. Being in its fullness is already within you, now. (Ch 5)"

"By knowing yourself as the awareness in which phenomenal existence happens, you become free of dependency on phenomena and free of self seeking in situations, places, and conditions. In other words, what happens or doesn't happen is not that important anymore. Things lose their heaviness, their seriousness. A playfulness comes into your life. You recognize this world as a cosmic dance, the dance of form. (Ch 5)"

"Whenever you are able, have a “look” inside yourself to see whether you are unconsciously creating conflict between the inner and the outer, between your external circumstances at that moment–where you are, who you are with, or what you are doing–and your thoughts and feelings. Can you feel how painful it is to internally stand in opposition to what is?"

"When you recognize this, you also realize that you are now free to give up this futile conflict, this inner state of war. (Ch 6)"

"How often each day, if you were to verbalize your inner reality at that moment, would you have to say, “I don't want to be where I am?” What does it feel like when you don't want to be where you are–the traffic jam, your place of work, the airport lounge, the people you are with? (Ch 6)"

"It is true, of course, that some places are good places to walk out of–and sometimes that may well be the most appropriate thing for you to do. In many cases, however, walking out is not an option. In all those cases, the “I don't want to be here” is not only useless but also dysfunctional. It makes you and others unhappy. (Ch 6)"

"It has been said: wherever you go, there you are. In other words: you are here. Always. Is it so hard to accept that? (Ch 6)"

"Do you really need to mentally label every sense perception and experience? Do you really need to have a reactive like/dislike relationship with life where you are in almost continuous conflict with situations and people? Or is that just a deep seated mental habit that can be broken? Not by doing anything, but by allowing this moment to be as it is. (Ch 7)"

"The habitual and reactive “no” strengthens the ego. “Yes” weakens it. Your form identity, the ego, cannot survive surrender. (Ch 6)"

"Whatever you accept completely will take you to peace, including the acceptance that you cannot accept, that you are in resistance. (Ch 6)"

"Leave Life alone. Let it be."

"Surrender is surrender to this moment, not to a story through which you interpret this moment and then try to resign yourself to it. … Can you accept the isness of this moment and not confuse it with a story the mind has created around it? (Ch 6)"

"We depend on nature not only for our physical survival. We also need nature to show us the way home, the way out of the prison of our own minds. We got lost in doing, thinking, remembering, anticipating–lost in a maze of complexity and a world of problems."

"We have forgotten what rocks, plants, and animals still know. We have forgotten how to be–to be still, to be ourselves, to be where life is: Here and Now. (Ch 7)"

"Whenever you bring your attention to anything natural, anything that has come into existence without human intervention, you step out of the prison of conceptualized thinking and, to some extent, participate in the state of connectedness with Being in which everything natural still exists. (Ch 7)"

"To bring your attention to a stone, a tree, or an animal does not mean to think about it, but simply to perceive it, to hold it in your awareness."

"Something of its essence then transmits itself to you. You can sense how still it is, and in doing so the same stillness arises within you. You sense how deeply it rests in Being–completely at one with what it is and where it is. In realizing this, you too come to a place of rest deep within yourself. (Ch 7)"

"How quick we are to form an opinion of a person, to come to a conclusion about them. It is satisfying to the egoic mind to label another human being, to give them a conceptual identity, to pronounce righteous judgment upon them."

"Every human being has been conditioned to think and behave in certain ways– conditioned genetically as well as by their childhood experiences and their cultural environment. That is not who they are, but that is who they appear to be. When you pronounce judgment upon someone, you confuse those conditioned mind patterns with who they are. To do that is in itself a deeply conditioned and unconscious pattern. You give them a conceptual identity, and that false identity becomes a prison not only for the other person but also for yourself. (Ch 8)"

"To let go of judgment does not mean that you don’t see what they do. It means that you recognize their behavior as a form of conditioning, and you see it and accept it as that. You don’t construct an identity out of it for that person. That liberates you as well as the other person from identification with conditioning, with form, with mind. That liberates you as well as the other person from identification with conditioning, with form, with mind. The ego then no longer runs your relationships. (Ch 8)"

"How wonderful to go beyond wanting and fearing in your relationships. Love does not want or fear anything. (Ch 8)"

"If her past were your past, her pain your pain, her level of consciousness your level of consciousness, you would think and act exactly as she does. With this realization comes forgiveness, compassion, peace. (Ch 8)"

"The ego doesn’t like to hear this, because if it cannot be reactive and righteous anymore, it will lose strength. (Ch 8)"

"...the ego's need to be periodically in conflict with something or someone in order to strengthen its sense of separation between me and the other, without which it cannot survive. (Ch 8)"

"Whenever you meet anyone, no matter how briefly, do you acknowledge their being by giving them your full attention, or are you reducing them to a means to an end, a mere function or role. What is the quality of your relationship with the cashier at the supermarket, the parking attendant, the repair man, the customer? (Ch 8)"

"When you walk though a forest that has not been tamed and interfered with by man, you will see not only abundant life around you, but you will also encounter fallen trees and decaying trunks, rotting leaves and decomposing matter at every step. (Ch 9)"

"Wherever you look, you will find death as well as life. Upon closer scrutiny, however, you will discover that the decomposing tree trunk and rotting leaves not only give birth to new life, but are full of life themselves. (Ch 9)"

"Microorganisms are at work. Molecules are rearranging themselves. So death isn’t to be found anywhere. There is only the metamorphosis of life forms. What can you learn from this? (Ch 9)"

"Death is not the opposite of life. Life has no opposite. The opposite of death is birth. Life is eternal.(Ch 9)"

"The interconnectedness of all things: Buddhists have always known it and physicists now confirm it. Nothing that happens is an isolated event, it only appears to be. The more we judge and label it, the more we isolate it."

"The wholeness of life becomes fragmented through our thinking. Yet the totality of life has brought this event about. It is part of the web of interconnectedness that is the cosmos. This means whatever is could not be otherwise. (Ch 10)"

"In most cases, we cannot begin to understand what role a seemingly senseless event may have within the totality of the cosmos but recognizing its inevitability within the vastness of the whole can be the beginning of an inner acceptance of what is and thus a realignment with the wholeness of life. (Ch 10)"

"The inspiration for the title of this book came from a Bible prophecy that seems more applicable now than at any other time in human history. It occurs in both the Old and the New Testament and speaks of the collapse of the existing world order and the arising of “a new heaven and a new earth." We need to understand here that heaven is not a location but refers to the inner realm of consciousness. This is the esoteric meaning of the word, and this is also its meaning in the teachings of Jesus."

"Collective human consciousness and life on our planet are intrinsically connected. “A new heaven” is the emergence of a transformed state of human consciousness, and “a new earth” is its reflection in the physical realm."

"The greatest achievement of humanity is not its works of art, science, or technology, but the recognition of its own dysfunction, its own madness."

"In the distant past, this recognition already came to a few individuals. A man called Gautama Siddhartha, who lived 2,600 years ago in India, was perhaps the first who saw it with absolute clarity. Later the title Buddha was conferred upon him. Buddha means “the awakened one.”"

"Another of humanity’s early awakened teachers emerged in China. His name was Lao Tzu. He left a record of his teaching in the form of one of the most profound spiritual books ever written, the Tao Te Ching."

"To recognize one’s own insanity, is of course, the arising of sanity, the beginning of healing and transcendence."

"Is humanity ready for a transformation of consciousness, an inner flowering so radical and profound that compared to it the flowering of plants, no matter how beautiful, is only a pale reflection? Can human beings lose the density of their conditioned mind structures and become like crystals or precious stones, so to speak, transparent to the light of consciousness? Can they defy the gravitational pull of materialism and materiality and rise above identification with form that keeps the ego in place and condemns them to imprisonment within their own personality?"

"The possibility of such a transformation has been the central message of the great wisdom teachings of humankind. The messengers—Buddha, Jesus, and others, not all of them known—were humanity's early flowers. They were precursors, rare and precious beings. A widespread flowering was not yet possible at that time, and their message became largely misunderstood and often greatly distorted. It certainly did not transform human behavior, except in a small minority of people."

"This book itself is a transformational device that has come out of the arising new consciousness. The ideas and concepts presented here may be important, but they are secondary. They are no more than signposts pointing toward awakening. As you read, a shift takes place within you."

"What a liberation to realize that the "voice in my head" is not who I am. Who am I then? The one who sees that."

"Only by awakening can you know the true meaning of that word."

"When you don't cover up the world with words and labels, a sense of the miraculous returns to your life."

"How do you let go of attachment to things? Don't even try. It's impossible. Attachment to things drops away by itself when you no longer seek to find yourself in them."

"Accepting means you allow yourself to feel whatever it is you are feeling at that moment...you can't argue with what is. Well, you can, but if you do, you suffer."

"The more unconscious individuals, groups, or nations are, the more likely it is that egoic pathology will assume the form of physical violence. Violence is a primitive but still very widespread way in which the ego attempts to assert itself, to prove itself right or another wrong. With very unconscious people, arguments can easily lead to physical violence."

"Awareness is the greatest agent for change."

"You do not become good by trying to be good, but by finding the goodness that is already within you, and allowing that goodness to emerge."

"Teachings that pointed the way beyond the dysfunction of the human mind, the way out of the collective insanity, were distorted and became themselves part of the insanity. And so religions, to a large extent, became divisive rather than unifying forces. Instead of bringing about an ending of violence and hatred through a realization of the fundamental oneness of all life, they brought more violence and hatred, more divisions between people as well as between different religions and even within the same religion."

"Instead of asking "what do I want from life?", a more powerful question is, "what does life want from me?""

"Don't seek happiness. If you seek it, you won't find it, because seeking is the antithesis of happiness."

"Nothing ever happened in the past that can prevent you from being present now; and if the past cannot prevent you from being present now, what power does it have?"

"All the things that truly matter - beauty, love, creativity, joy, inner peace - arise from beyond the mind."

"You cannot find yourself in the past or future. The only place where you can find yourself is in the Now."

"When you lose touch with inner stillness, you lose touch with yourself."

"Suffering has a noble purpose: the evolution of the consciousness and the burning up of the ego."

"Nobody knows the exact figure because records were not kept, but it seems certain that during a three hundred year period between three and five million women were tortured and killed by the “Holy Inquisition,“ an institution founded by the Roman Catholic Church to suppress heresy. This sure ranks together with the Holocaust as one of the darkest chapters in human history. It was enough for a woman to show a love for animals, walk alone in the fields or woods, or gather medicinal plants to be branded a witch, then tortured and burned at the stake. The sacred feminine was declared demonic, and an entire dimension largely disappeared from human experience. Other cultures and religions, such as Judaism, Islam, and even Buddhism, also suppressed the female dimension, although in a less violent way. Women's status was reduced to being child bearers and men's property. Males who denied the feminine even within themselves were now running the world, a world that was totally out of balance. The rest is history or rather a case history of insanity... The female form is less rigidly encapsulated than the male, has greater openness and sensitivity toward other lifeforms, and is more attuned to the natural world... If the balance between male and female energies had not been destroyed on our planet, the ego's growth would have been greatly curtailed. We would not have declared war on nature, and we would not be so completely alienated from our Being."

"Being must be felt. It can't be thought."

"Listen to people's stories and they all could be entitled "Why I Cannot Be At Peace Now" The ego doesn't know that your only opportunity for being at peace is now."

"Presence is a state of inner spaciousness."

"Nonresistance is the key to the greatest power in the universe."

"Being spiritual has nothing to do with what you believe and everything to do with your state of consciousness."

"When you lose touch with inner stillness, you lose touch with yourself. When you lose touch with yourself, you lose yourself in the world."

"The human condition: lost in thought."

"Life is the dancer and you are the dance."

"What you react to in others, you strengthen in yourself."

"We could say that the totality, life wants the sapling to become a tree, but the sapling doesn't see itself as separate from life and so wants nothing for itself. It is one with what life wants. That's why it isn't worried or stressed. And, if it has to die prematurely, it dies with ease....."

"When you accept everything for what it is without labels you are outside of your ego."

"Right now we are being given the experience we need to raise our consciousness."

"A new species is arising on the planet. It is arising now, and you are it!"

"For this companion volume to A New Earth, I selected passages from the original book that felt particularly suitable for inspirational or meditative reading. For this reason I do not recommend that you read this book straight through from cover to cover. It would be far more beneficial to read, at the most, one chapter at a time, stopping at and perhaps rereading whatever passages elicit an inner response. Then let the words sink in and sense the truth to which they point, which is, of course, already within you. It can also be helpful to open the book at random occasionally, read one page or just one passage and let the words point the way to that dimension deep within that is beyond words, beyond thought. The truth to which the words point, the timeless dimension of consciousness, cannot be arrived at through discursive thought and conceptual understanding."

"The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation but your thoughts about it. Be aware of the thoughts you are thinking. Separate them from the situation, which is always neutral. There is the situation or the fact, and here are my thoughts about it. Life isn't as serious as the mind makes it out to be."

"Try to catch the voice in your head, in the very moment it complains about something. Recognise it for what it is: the voice of the ego, no more than a thought."

"People believe themselves to be dependent on what happens to them for their happiness. They don't realize that what happens is the most unstable thing in the universe. It changes constantly. They look upon the present moment as either marred by something that has happened and shouldn't have or as deficient because of something that has not happened but should have."

"The more shared past there is in a relationship, the more present you need to be; otherwise, you will be forced to relive the past again and again."

"Equating the physical body with "I," the body that is destined to grow old, wither, and die, always leads to suffering. To refrain from identifying with the body doesn't mean that you no longer care for it. If it is strong, beautiful, or vigorous, you can appreciate those attributes—while they last. You can also improve the body's condition through nutrition and exercise. If you don't equate the body with who you are, when beauty fades, vigor diminishes, or the body becomes incapacitated, this will not affect your sense of worth or identity in any way. In fact, as the body begins to weaken, the light of consciousness can shine more easily."

"You do not become good by trying to be good, but by finding the goodness that is already within you and allowing that goodness to emerge. If peace is really what you want, then choose peace. The moment that judgement stops through acceptance of what it is, you are free of the mind. You have made room for love, for joy, for peace."

"Progress is personal; it comes from individuals demanding more of themselves and everyone else."

"Conventional wisdom is not to put all of your eggs in one basket. 80/20 wisdom is to choose a basket carefully, load all your eggs into it, and then watch it like a hawk."

"Business strategy should not be a grand and sweeping overview. It should be more like an under view, a peek beneath the covers to look in great detail at what is going on."

"Marketing, and the whole firm, should devote extraordinary endeavour towards delighting, keeping for ever and expanding the sales to the 20 per cent of customers who provide 80 per cent."

"Few people take objectives really seriously. They put average effort into too many things, rather than superior thought and effort into a few important things. People who achieve the most are selective as well as determined."

"Everything you want should be yours: the type of work you want; the relationships you need; the social, mental, and aesthetic stimulation that will make you happy and fulfilled; the money you require for the lifestyle that is appropriate to you; and any requirement that you may (or may not) have for achievement or service to others. If you don’t aim for it all, you’ll never get it all. To aim for it requires that you know what you want"

"In 1897, Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923) noticed a regular pattern in distributions of wealth or income, no matter the country or time period concerned. He found that the distribution was extremely skewed toward the top end: A small minority of the top earners always accounted for a large majority of the total wealth. The pattern was so reliable that Pareto was eventually able to predict the distribution of income accurately before looking at the data. Pareto was greatly excited by his discovery, which he rightly believed was of enormous importance not just to economics but to society as well. But he managed to enthuse only a few fellow economists.... Pareto's idea became widely known only when Joseph Moses Juran, one of the gurus of the quality movement in the twentieth century, renamed it the "Rule of the Vital Few." In his 1951 tome The Quality Control Handbook, which became hugely influential in Japan and later in the West, Juran separated the "vital few" from the "trivial many," showing how problems in quality could be largely eliminated, cheaply and quickly, by focusing on the vital few causes of these problems. Juran, who moved to Japan in 1954, taught executives there to improve quality and product design while incorporating American business practices into their own companies. Thanks to this new attention to quality control, between 1957 and 1989, Japan grew faster than any other industrial economy."

"Those who can create wealth — and know that they can — are able to dictate their own terms. Wealth is a means to happiness, but it is not the main one. What most people want is control over their lives. They want the ability to choose how they live: what work they do, the way they interact with friends and colleagues, the quality of their personal relationships, the way they view themselves."

"People think that creativity is largely a matter of talent, experience, or luck. They are wrong. Talent, experience, and luck are all key elements, but there is something more fundamental, accessible, and powerful that you can use to multiply your creative effect."

"In business the 80/20 principle is behind any innovation, any extra value. It is an entrepreneurial principle, a formula for value creation utilized not only by entrepreneurs, but by most managers and organizations."

"The key is to work out the few things that are really important, and the few methods that will give us what we really want."

"¡Qué rico es ser boricua!"

"It is absurd to suppose, if this is God’s world, that men must always be selfish barbarians."

"When the first just and friendly man appeared on the earth, from that day a fatal Waterloo was visible for all the men of pride and fraud and blood."

"The truly civilized man has no enemies."

"Democracy is on trial in the world, on a more colossal scale than ever before."

"It is a world of startling possibilities."

"Golden hours of vision come to us in this present life, when we are at our best, and our faculties work together in harmony."

"Religion is as healthy and normal as life itself."

"Good Will is the mightiest practical force in the universe."

"The Golden Rule works like gravitation."

"The conception of life as constructive rather than antagonistic effort finds beautiful illustration in every approach that we make toward true civilization. You measure the quality and the value of the civilization of individuals or peoples, not by the houses which they live in or the clothes which they wear, but by the width and power of their sympathy."

"The truth is, that what men demand in life, and miss if they do not find it, is not antagonism and warfare, but struggle, effort, cost, strenuousness. It is not hate and enmity that have ennobled warfare. It is not killing that has made the life of the soldier fruitful in moral lessons. It is the nerve, endurance, hardihood, and courage that we love to see. Of these superb qualities there is likely to be a demand to the end of the human course; for it is out of these things that life is forever being wrought. The grown man conceives the universe, not as two impossible opposites in conflict, but as one harmonious structure; out of his soul, brought into unison with God, all hate has vanished."

"Is it not plain that the law of good will has a universal application? There is no event, no act, no word, no supreme crisis of life in which man may let the good will go, and turn on the forces of ill will, egotism, and selfishness. Letting the good will go out of him, he lapses straightway into the child or the savage. Keeping the flow of the serene good will in his soul, he walks the earth, fearless, erect, with God’s sunshine on his face. To live thus is the essence of civilization; the individual and the social welfare are thus secured and harmonized. To live thus is practical religion; the more thoroughly we try, test, and experience it, the more completely it will be found to grow out of, and to illustrate, a Theology, that is, a divine plan of the universe. This Theology matches the needs of civilized men in a civilized world."

"Parit enim conversatio contemptum; raritas conciliat admirationem."

"Ad vivendum velut ad natandum is melior qui onere liberior."

"Sanus est, qui scit quid sit insania, quippe insania scire se non potest, non magis quam caecitas se videre."

"En adsum tuis commota, Luci, precibus, rerum naturae parens, elementorum omnium domina, saeculorum progenies initialis, summa numinum, regina manium, prima caelitum, deorum dearumque facies uniformis, quae caeli luminosa culmina, maris salubria flamina, inferum deplorata silentia nutibus meis dispenso: cuius numen unicum multiformi specie, ritu vario, nomine multiiugo totus veneratus orbis."

"Nam cum coeperis deae servire, tunc magis senties fructum tuae libertatis."

"Accessi confinium mortis et calcato Proserpinae limine per omnia vectus elementa remeavi, nocte media vidi solem candido coruscantem lumine, deos inferos et deos superos accessi coram et adoravi de proximo."

"Thus the Phrygians, earliest of all races, call me Pessinuntia, mother of all gods. Thus the Athenians, sprung from their own soil, call me Cecropeian Minerva and the sea-tossed Cyprians call me Paphian Venus, the archer Cretans Diana, Dictynna, and the trilingual Sicilians Proserpine; to the Eleusinians I am Ceres, the ancient godess, to others Juno, to others Bellona and Hecate and Rhamnusia. But the Ethiopians, who are illumined by the first rays of the sun-god as he is born every day, together with the Africans and Egyptians, who excel through having the original doctrine, honour me with my distinctive rites and give me my true name of Queen Isis."

"And in that day men will be weary of life, and they will cease to think the universe worthy of reverent wonder and of worship. And so religion, the greatest of all blessings, for there is nothing, nor has been, nor ever shall be, that can be deemed a greater boon, will be threatened with destruction; men will think it a burden, and will come to scorn it."

"They will no longer love this world around us, this incomparable work of God, this glorious structure which He has built..."

"Darkness will be preferred to light, and death will be thought more profitable than life; no one will raise his eyes to heaven."

"The pious will be deemed insane, and the impious wise; the madman will be thought a brave man, and the wicked will be esteemed as good."

"No word of reverence or piety, no utterance worthy of heaven and of the Gods of heaven, will be heard or believed."

"But when all this has befallen, Asclepius, then the Master and Father, God, the first before all, the maker of that God who first came into being, will look on that which has come to pass, and will stay the disorder by the counterworking of His will, which is the good."

"He will call back to the right path those who have gone astray; He will cleanse the world from evil, now washing it away with water-floods, now burning it out with fiercest fire, or again expelling it by war and pestilence."

"And thus He will bring back His world to its former aspect, so that the Cosmos will once more be deemed worthy of worship and wondering reverence, and God, the maker and restorer of the mighty fabric, will be adored by the men of that day with unceasing hymns of praise and blessing."

"Magni pectoris est inter secunda moderatio."

"Perierat totus orbis, nisi iram finiret misericordia."

"Iniquum est conlapsis manum non porrigere; commune hoc ius generis humani est."

"Quædam iura non scripta, sed omnibus scriptis certiora sunt."

"Vivamus, moriendum est."

"Quid enim refert, quantum habeas? multo illud plus est, quod non habes."

"Si vis amari, ama."

"He that is a friend to himself, is a friend to all mankind."

"Omnia mors poscit. Lex est, non poena, perire."

"I never learned how to tune a harp, or play upon a lute; but I know how to raise a small and inconsiderable city to glory and greatness."

"May I never sit on a tribunal where my friends shall not find more favor from me than strangers."

"Strike, if you will, but hear."

"For the Athenians command the rest of Greece, I command the Athenians; your mother commands me, and you command your mother."

"I have with me two gods, Persuasion and Compulsion."

"I choose the likely man in preference to the rich man; I want a man without money rather than money without a man."

"He who controls the sea controls everything."

"Themistocles was a man who exhibited the most indubitable signs of genius; indeed, in this particular he has a claim on our admiration quite extraordinary and unparalleled. By his own native capacity, alike unformed and unsupplemented by study, he was at once the best judge in those sudden crises which admit of little or of no deliberation, and the best prophet of the future, even to its most distant possibilities. An able theoretical expositor of all that came within the sphere of his practice, he was not without the power of passing an adequate judgment in matters in which he had no experience. He could also excellently divine the good and evil which lay hid in the unseen future. In fine, whether we consider the extent of his natural powers, or the slightness of his application, this extraordinary man must be allowed to have surpassed all others in the faculty of intuitively meeting an emergency."

"And anyway, I am pro-Vietnamese, I regard their experience over 30 years as unique. They have had to turn back more intruders and vandals than any country in recent history. And now as a result of that they are ruined economically and they are facing starvation."

"The consensus, often called "the tolerant society," began to sicken under the Labor Governments of Harold Wilson and James Callaghan; under Mrs. Thatcher, it is dying. One example: There are 7,000 officially recorded racist attacks each year. The true figure is probably many times that. Of immigrant families I have interviewed, none allow their children to play outside, none has escaped at least one firebombing, none bother to call the police for fear of being arrested themselves on a bogus charge."

"I have always had a great deal of admiration for Bob Hawke and the work he did as ACTU president; in fact it's a shame he's not still ACTU president. If he is as I found him last week, now that he's bereft of booze and smokes and on a Pritikin diet, I would quite frankly prefer he returned to the booze."

"I always say that the difference between the United States and Australia is that US settlers were on a mission from God whereas Australian settlers were God-forsaken."

"Twenty years ago today, in the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, a gun was fired close to where I was standing. One bullet passed over my shoulder and struck a woman in the face; another lodged in the brain of a man who almost certainly would have become president of the United States. Robert Kennedy had seen his assassin leap on to a table and take aim; the flash of the little man's shiny yellow jacket remains indelible with me. "No!" Kennedy had screamed, half glancing for a space against the wall, anywhere, to escape. He lay mortally wounded beside a refrigerator, half smiling, tousled hair, eternal youth applied for; the face on the posters."

"It is not enough for journalists to see themselves as mere messengers without understanding the hidden agendas of the message and the myths that surround it."

"[An account of a visit to East Timor] I carried with me hand-drawn maps of other, unmarked graves where some of those murdered by Indonesian troops at the 1991 Santa Cruz massacre had been buried; I had no idea that so much of the country was a vast grave, marked by paths that ended abruptly, and fields inexplicably bulldozed, and earth inexplicably covered with tarmac, and villages that are not so much human entities as memorials. Kraras is one of them. It is known as the "village of the widows", because the whole community of 287 people was slaughtered by the Indonesians. In a meticulous hand that carried on from a faded typewriter ribbon, a priest recorded the name, age, cause of death and date and place of the killing of every victim. In the last column, he identified the Indonesian battalion responsible for each murder. I have the document, which I always find difficult to put down, as if the blood of East Timor is fresh on its pages."

"Long before the Soviet Union broke up, a group of Russian writers touring the United States were astonished to find, after reading the newspapers and watching television, that almost all the opinions on all the vital issues were the same. "In our country," said one of them, "to get that result we have a dictatorship. We imprison people. We tear out their fingernails. Here you have none of that. How do you do it? What's the secret?""

"[On the September 11 attacks] In these surreal days, there is one truth. Nothing justified the killing of innocent people in America last week and nothing justifies the killing of innocent people anywhere else."

"More terrorists are given training and sanctuary in the United States than anywhere on earth. They include mass murderers, torturers, former and future tyrants and assorted international criminals. This is virtually unknown to the American public, thanks to the freest media on earth."

"During my lifetime, America has been constantly waging war against much of humanity: impoverished people mostly, in stricken places."

"There is no War on Terrorism; it is the speeded up. The difference is the rampant nature of the , ensuring infinite dangers for us all."

"The censorship is such on television in the US that films like mine don't stand a chance."

"Many journalists now are no more than channelers and echoers of what Orwell called the official truth..."Impartiality" and "objectivity" now mean the establishment point of view...This is internalized. Journalists don't sit down and think, "I'm now going to speak for the establishment." Of course not. But they internalize a whole set of assumptions, and one of the most potent assumptions is that the world should be seen in terms of its usefulness to the West, not humanity."

"Kim Hill: All this time, then, the United Nations and weapons inspectors have been some kind of puppets of the US. Pilger: Are you saying that? Hill: I am asking you whether that is what you are implying? Pilger: That's a leading question, I wouldn't ... Hill: How would you describe the activities of the United Nations up until this point? Pilger: Which area of the United Nations? It's a very big organisation."

"Pilger: You waste my time because you have not prepared for this interview, as any journalist does, and I've done many interviews. The one thing is to prepare for them and this interview, frankly, is a disgrace. Hill: What preparation would you have cared for, Mr Pilger? Pilger: To read. Read. It takes time. Hill: It's a pity you wasted a lot of your time tonight, Mr Pilger. I was looking forward to ... Pilger: No, I haven't. I'm quite pleased with my answers. I hope you broadcast them as I've given them. Hill: We broadcast you exactly as you are. It's been interesting to speak with you."

"If those who support aggressive war had seen a fraction of what I've seen, if they'd watched children fry to death from Napalm and bleed to death from a cluster bomb, they might not utter the claptrap they do."

"The impact of the human tragedies I've reported on is that, more often than not, I'll be angry. I want to know why is this child dying? These are not acts of God; they're results of respectable politicians' decisions."

"When governments and other vested interests attack me personally I usually regard it as a vindication, otherwise they would use facts. That's why I believe in the wonderful Claud Cockburn dictum, 'Never believe anything until it is officially denied.' It has certainly been my experience."

"I love irony in pictures. There's one photograph from Vietnam by Philip Jones Griffiths that shows a very large GI having his pocket picked by a tiny Vietnamese woman. It told the whole story of the clash of two cultures and how the invader could never win."

"I've never seen myself as a campaigning journalist. A maverick, yes. But I'm a reporter and I'll always be a reporter, forever curious. And, I suppose, if anything drives me it's curiosity"

"I stand by every word I've ever written. I can back everything up with facts. I have never made the facts fit an agenda, unlike the corporate media. But, if I didn't annoy all the right people all the time, I would be very upset."

"Barack Obama is a glossy Uncle Tom who would bomb Pakistan. Hillary Clinton, another bomber, is anti-feminist. John McCain's one distinction is that he has personally bombed a country."

"In fact, Hamas's real threat is its example as the Arab world's only democratically elected government, drawing its popularity from its resistance to the Palestinians' oppressor and tormentor."

"[On Barack Obama:] No one knew what the new brand actually stood for. So accomplished was the advertising (a record $75m was spent on television commercials alone) that many Americans actually believed Obama shared their opposition to Bush’s wars. In fact, he had repeatedly backed Bush’s warmongering and its congressional funding. Many Americans also believed he was the heir to Martin Luther King’s legacy of anti-colonialism. Yet if Obama had a theme at all, apart from the vacuous 'Change you can believe in,' it was the renewal of America as a dominant, avaricious bully. 'We will be the most powerful,' he often declared."

"We are beckoned to see the world through a one-way mirror, as if we are threatened and innocent and the rest of humanity is threatening, or wretched, or expendable. Our memory is struggling to rescue the truth that human rights were not handed down as privileges from a parliament, or a boardroom, or an institution, but that peace is only possible with justice and with information that gives us the power to act justly."

"The major western democracies are moving towards corporatism. Democracy has become a business plan, with a bottom line for every human activity, every dream, every decency, every hope. The main parliamentary parties are now devoted to the same economic policies — socialism for the rich, capitalism for the poor — and the same foreign policy of servility to endless war. This is not democracy. It is to politics what McDonalds is to food."

"We journalists... have to be brave enough to defy those who seek our collusion in selling their latest bloody adventure in someone else's country... That means always challenging the official story, however patriotic that story may appear, however seductive and insidious it is. For propaganda relies on us in the media to aim its deceptions not at a far away country but at you at home... In this age of endless imperial war, the lives of countless men, women and children depend on the truth or their blood is on us... Those whose job it is to keep the record straight ought to be the voice of people, not power."

"The problem with media-run "conversations" on gender is not merely the almost total absence of male participants, but the suppression of class."

"Putin is the only leader to condemn the rise of fascism in 21st-century Europe."

"In the circus known as the American presidential campaign, Donald Trump is being presented as a lunatic, a fascist. He is certainly odious; but he is also a media hate figure. That alone should arouse our scepticism. Trump's views on migration are grotesque, but no more grotesque than those of David Cameron. It is not Trump who is the Great Deporter from the United States, but the Nobel Peace Prize winner, Barack Obama. According to one prodigious liberal commentator, Trump is "unleashing the dark forces of violence" in the United States. Unleashing them?"

"Donald Trump is a symptom of this, but he is also a maverick. He says the invasion of Iraq was a crime; he doesn't want to go to war with Russia and China. The danger to the rest of us is not Trump, but Hillary Clinton. She is no maverick. She embodies the resilience and violence of a system whose vaunted "exceptionalism" is totalitarian with an occasional liberal face. As presidential election day draws near, Clinton will be hailed as the first female president, regardless of her crimes and lies - just as Barack Obama was lauded as the first black president and liberals swallowed his nonsense about "hope". And the drool goes on."

"WikiLeaks has achieved far more than what The New York Times and The Washington Post in their celebrated incarnations did. No newspaper has come close to matching the secrets and lies of power that Assange and Snowden have disclosed. That both men are fugitives is indicative of the retreat of liberal democracies from principles of freedom and justice. Why is WikiLeaks a landmark in journalism? Because its revelations have told us, with 100 per cent accuracy, how and why much of the world is divided and run."

"Obama was one of the most violent U.S. Presidents. He launched or sustained seven wars and left office with none resolved: a record. In his last year as President, 2016, according to the Council on Foreign Relations, he dropped 26,171 bombs. It’s an interesting statistic; it’s three bombs every hour, 24 hours a day, on mostly civilians."

"Journalists can help people by telling the truth, or by as much truth as they can find, and acting not as agents of governments, of power, but of people. That is real journalism. The rest is specious and false."

"When I began as a journalist, especially as a foreign correspondent, the press in the UK was conservative and owned by powerful establishment forces, as it is now. But the difference compared to today is that there were spaces for independent journalism that dissented from the received 'wisdom' of authority. That space has now all but closed and independent journalists have gone to the internet, or to a metaphoric underground."

"The single biggest challenge is rescuing journalism from its deferential role as the stenographer of great power. The United States has constitutionally the freest press on earth, yet in practice it has a media obsequious to the formulas and deceptions of power. That is why the US was effectively given media approval to invade Iraq, and Libya, and Syria and dozens of other countries."

"WikiLeaks is possibly the most exciting development in journalism in my lifetime... The truth about the Vietnam War was told when Daniel Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon Papers. The truth about Iraq and Afghanistan, and Saudi Arabia and many other flashpoints was told when WikiLeaks published the revelations of whistle-blowers."

"When you consider that 100 percent of WikiLeaks leaks are authentic and accurate, you can understand the impact, as well as the fury generated among secretive powerful forces. Julian Assange is a political refugee in London for one reason only: WikiLeaks told the truth about the greatest crimes of the 21st century. He is not forgiven for that, and he should be supported by journalists and by people everywhere."

"Since Chavez’s death in 2013, his successor Nicolas Maduro has shed his derisory label in the Western press as a 'former bus driver' and become Saddam Hussein incarnate.... As the journalist and film-maker Pablo Navarrete reported this week, Venezuela is not the catastrophe it has been painted. 'There is food everywhere,' he wrote. 'I have filmed lots of videos of food in markets [all over Caracas] … it’s Friday night and the restaurants are full.'"

"In the pages of liberal newspapers in the West, race and class are two words almost never uttered in the mendacious “coverage” of Washington’s latest, most naked attempt to grab the world’s greatest source of oil and reclaim its “backyard”. For all the chavistas’ faults — such as allowing the Venezuelan economy to become hostage to the fortunes of oil and never seriously challenging big capital and corruption — they brought social justice and pride to millions of people and they did it with unprecedented democracy."

"Should the CIA stooge Guaido and his white supremacists grab power, it will be the 68th overthrow of a sovereign government by the United States, most of them democracies. A fire sale of Venezuela’s utilities and mineral wealth will surely follow, along with the theft of the country’s oil, as outlined by John Bolton. Under the last Washington-controlled government in Caracas, poverty reached historic proportions. There was no healthcare for those could not pay. There was no universal education; Mavis Mendez, and millions like her, could not read or write."

"Julian [Assange] is a distinguished Australian, who has changed the way many people think about duplicitous governments. For this, he is a political refugee subjected to what the United Nations calls 'arbitrary detention'. The UN says he has the right of free passage to freedom, but this is denied. He has the right to medical treatment without fear of arrest, but this is denied. He has the right to compensation, but this is denied. As founder and editor of WikiLeaks, his crime has been to make sense of dark times. WikiLeaks has an impeccable record of accuracy and authenticity which no newspaper, no TV channel, no radio station, no BBC, no New York Times, no Washington Post, no Guardian can equal."

"The persecution of Julian Assange is the conquest of us all: of our independence, our self respect, our intellect, our compassion, our politics, our culture. So stop scrolling. Organise. Occupy. Insist. Persist. Make a noise. Take direct action. Be brave and stay brave. Defy the thought police. War is not peace, freedom is not slavery, ignorance is not strength. If Julian can stand up, so can you: so can all of us."

"On 28 January China said it would welcome international help as it struggled to contain coronavirus. No substantial help has come. Instead of solidarity and defying WHO, the US, Australia, Britain seek to isolate China, returning it to a state of siege and the dangers of the past."

"A pandemic has been declared, but not for the 24,600 who die every day from unnecessary starvation, and not for 3,000 children who die every day from preventable malaria, and not for the 10,000 people who die every day because they are denied publicly-funded healthcare, and not for the hundreds of Venezuelans and Iranians who die every day because America's blockade denies them life-saving medicines, and not for the hundreds of mostly children bombed or starved to death every day in Yemen, in a war supplied and kept going, profitably, by America and Britain. Before you panic, consider them."

"I suggest in The Dirty War on the NHS we look beyond this virus and ask how our current state of fear and its mass obedience will be exploit­ed in future. Will the workers 'stood down' ever see their jobs again? Will artificial intelligence consume freedoms that have been suspended? As Edward Snowden says, the disease of mass surveillance will outlast this pandemic. Will Julian Assange [the Australian founder of WikiLeaks], persecuted for the crime of truthful journalism, survive?"

"Mr Pilger certainly looked the part of the crusading journalist – the open-necked shirt, the unobtrusive make-up, the earnest gaze straight at the autocue. But The Truth Game was not an investigation, it was a piece of special pleading – part polemic, part "drama documentary", the journalistic equivalent of soap opera in which the heroes and villains are readily identifiable."

"John Pilger was once a notable reporter on this newspaper, even if he was the first to say so. [...] Pilger is an Australian descended from German and Irish immigrants. He has never understood Britain. His world is populated by simple Aborigines and sinister capitalists. He espouses the cause of one and enjoys the fruits of the other."

"John Pilger's excoriation of the American performance in Vietnam was likewise unmatched by any similarly sceptical treatment of the North Vietnamese and their frequent resorts to torture and murder."

"The ferocity of rightwing criticism of his views indicated the effectiveness of his journalism."

"Oh, Pilger. The thing is, if Pilger wasn't an egomaniac, he wouldn't have done the work he's done. I was keen to talk to him, but he turns out to be a prick. So it goes."

"Pilger gained prominence in Indochina in the 1970s. ... He saw what he wished to see and ignored the rest. Pilger's documentaries about Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge inspired humanitarian fundraising, yet failed to disclose that Communist Vietnam, having invaded Cambodia and installed a puppet regime, was trying to control which starving people were fed and which were not."

"[A] kind of cult has developed around Noam Chomsky and John Pilger, which cannot believe they could ever be wrong, and produces ever more elaborate conspiracy theories to justify their mistakes."

"His trademark has always been to sidestep the accepted version of the facts, a modus operandi that served him well during the Vietnam war, in the apocalyptic post-Pol Pot Cambodia, the killing fields of East Timor and countless other hotspots... becoming an octogenari­an hasn’t mellowed him in the least."

"The possible truths, hazily perceived in the world of abstraction, like those inferred from observation and experiment in the world of matter, are forced upon the profane multitudes, too busy to think for themselves, under the form of Divine revelation and scientific authority. But the same question stands open from the days of Socrates and Pilate down to our own age of wholesale negation: is there such a thing as absolute truth in the hands of any one party or man? Reason answers, "there cannot be." There is no room for absolute truth upon any subject whatsoever, in a world as finite and conditioned as man is himself. But there are relative truths, and we have to make the best we can of them."

"I ask you also to remember that, on this important occasion, my voice is but the feeble echo of other more sacred voices, and the transmitter of the approval of Those whose presence is alive in more than one true Theosophical heart, and lives, as I know, preeminently in yours. May the assembled Society feel the warm greeting as earnestly as it is given, and may every Fellow present, who realizes that he has deserved it, profit by the Blessings sent... It must be remembered... that it (Theosophical Society) was intended to stem the current of materialism... For by “materialism” is meant not only an anti-philosophical negation of pure spirit, and, even more, materialism in conduct and action — brutality, hypocrisy, and, above all, selfishness — but also the fruits of a disbelief in all but material things, a disbelief which has increased enormously during the last century... The function of Theosophists is to open men’s hearts and understandings to charity, justice, and generosity, attributes which belong specifically to the human kingdom and are natural to man when he has developed the qualities of a human being. Theosophy teaches the animal-man to be a human-man; and when people have learnt to think and feel as truly human beings should feel and think, they will act humanely, and works of charity, justice, and generosity will be done spontaneously by all."

""There is often greater martyrdom to live for the love of, whether man or an ideal, than to die" is a motto of the Mahatmas."

"There is no religion higher than truth."

"Maitreya is the secret name of the Fifth Buddha, and the Kalki Avatar of the Brahmins - the last Messiah who will come at the culmination of the Great Cycle."

"We are in the Kali Yuga [Sanskrit term meaning Dark Age] and its fatal influence is a thousand-fold more powerful in the West than it is in the East; hence the easy preys made by the Powers of the Age of Darkness in this cyclic struggle, and the many delusions under which the world is now laboring. One of these is the relative facility with which men fancy they can get at the "Gate" and cross the threshold of Occultism without any great sacrifice. It is the dream of most Theosophists, one inspired by desire for Power and personal selfishness, and it is not such feelings that can ever lead them to the coveted goal. For, as well said by one believed to have sacrificed himself for Humanity--"Strait is the gate and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life" eternal, and therefore "few there be that find it." (Matthew 7:14) So strait indeed, that at the bare mention of some of the preliminary difficulties the affrighted Western candidates turn back and retreat with a shudder... Let them stop here and attempt no more in their great weakness. For if, while turning their backs on the narrow gate, they are dragged by their desire for the Occult one step in the direction of the broad and more inviting gates of that golden mystery which glitters in the light of illusion, woe to them!"

"Nothing of that which is conducive to help man, collectively or individually, to live — not "happily" — but less unhappily in this world, ought to be indifferent to the Theosophist-Occultist. It is no concern of his whether his help benefits a man in his worldly or spiritual progress; his first duty is to be ever ready to help if he can, without stopping to philosophize."

"I speak "with absolute certainty" only so far as my own personal belief is concerned. Those who have not the same warrant for their belief as I have, would be very credulous and foolish to accept it on blind faith. Nor does the writer believe any more than her correspondent and his friends in any "authority" let alone "divine revelation"!"

"How, then, can it be thought possible for a man to enter the “straight gate” of occultism when his daily and hourly thoughts are bound up with worldly things, desires of possession and power, with lust, ambition, and duties which, however honorable, are still of the earth...? Even the love for wife and family — the purest as the most unselfish of human affections is a barrier to real occultism... What lover... would not break the happiness of every other man and woman around him to satisfy the desire of one whom he loves? This is but natural... in the light of the code of human affections; less so, in that of divine universal love. p. 60"

"For, while the heart is full of thoughts for a little group of selves, near and dear to us, how shall the rest of mankind fare in our souls? What percentage of love and care will there remain to bestow on the “great orphan”? And how shall the “still small voice” make itself heard in a soul entirely occupied with its own privileged tenants? What room is there left for the needs of Humanity en bloc...? He who would profit by the wisdom of the universal mind, has to reach it through the whole of Humanity without distinction of race, complexion, religion, or social status. It is altruism, not ego-ism even in its most legal and noble conception, that can lead the unit to merge its little Self in the Universal Selves. It is... to this work that the true disciple of true Occultism has to devote himself if he would obtain... divine Wisdom and Knowledge. p. 62"

"The purpose of this book is exactly expressed in its title, “The Key to Theosophy,” and needs but few words of explanation. It is not a complete or exhaustive text-book of Theosophy, but only a key to unlock the door that leads to the deeper study."

"HPB:...Theosophy is Divine Knowledge or Science... "Divine Wisdom," (Theosophia) or Wisdom of the gods, as (theogonia), genealogy of the gods. The word theos means a god in Greek, one of the divine beings, certainly not "God" in the sense attached in our day to the term. Therefore, it is not "Wisdom of God," as translated by some, but Divine Wisdom such as that possessed by the gods. The term is many thousand years old... It comes to us from the Alexandrian philosophers, called lovers of truth, Philaletheians, from phil "loving," and aletheia "truth." The name Theosophy dates from the third century of our era, and began with Ammonius Saccas and his disciples, who started the Eclectic Theosophical system."

"Our age, we say, is inferior in Wisdom to any other, because it professes, more visibly every day, contempt for truth and justice, without which there can be no Wisdom. Because our civilization, built up of shams and appearances, is at best like a beautiful green morass, a bog, spread over a deadly quagmire. Because this century of culture and worship of matter, while offering prizes and premiums for every "best thing" under the Sun, from the biggest baby and the largest orchid down to the strongest pugilist and the fattest pig, has no encouragement to offer to morality; no prize to give for any moral virtue."

"Because it has Societies for the prevention of physical cruelty to animals, and none with the object of preventing the moral cruelty practiced on human beings. Because it encourages, legally and tacitly, vice under every form, from the sale of whiskey down to forced prostitution and theft brought on by starvation wages..."

"This is the age which, although proclaimed as one of physical and moral freedom, is in truth the age of the most ferocious moral and mental slavery, the like of which was never known before."

"Slavery to State and men has disappeared only to make room for slavery to things and Self, to one's own vices and idiotic social customs and ways. Rapid civilization, adapted to the needs of the higher and middle classes, has doomed by contrast to only greater wretchedness the starving masses."

"That the teachings of neither our modern teachers nor preachers are "wisdom from above" is fully demonstrated. It is proved not by any personal incorrectness in their statements or mistakes in life, for "to err is but human," but by incontrovertible facts."

"Children should above all be taught self-reliance, love for all men, altruism, mutual charity, and more than anything else, to think and reason for themselves... Aim at creating free men and women, free intellectually, free morally, unprejudiced in all respects, and above all things, unselfish."

"Wisdom and Truth are synonymous terms, and that which is false or well-known representative of the Church of England, that the Sermon of the Mount would, in its practical application, mean utter ruin for his country less than three weeks;"

"To doubt the exalted wisdom of the religion of... the Church of England, or again of our great modern scientists, is to sin against the Holy Ghost and Culture. Woe unto him who refuses to recognize the World's "Elect."...their "wisdom" is at best -- "terrestrial, psychic, devilish.""

"Valuing freedom of thought above all things as the only way of reaching at some future time that Wisdom, of which every Theosophist ought to be enamored, we recognize the right to the same freedom in our foes as in our friends."

"[We do not]... blame, but rather pity, in our innermost heart, the "wise men" of our age for trying to carry out the only policy that will keep them on the pinnacle of their "authority"; as they could not, if even they would, act otherwise and preserve their prestige with the masses, or escape from being speedily outcast by their colleagues."

"The origin of all religions -- Judaeo-Christianity included -- is to be found in a few primeval truths, not one of which can be explained apart from all the others, as each is a complement of the rest in some one detail. And they are all, more or less, broken rays of the same Sun of truth, and their beginnings have to be sought in the archaic records of the Wisdom-religion. Without the light of the latter, the greatest scholars can see but the skeletons thereof covered with masks of fancy"

"Thus, what with several generations of most active Church Fathers ever working at the destruction of old documents and the preparation of new passages to be interpolated in those which happened to survive, there remains of the Gnostics -- the legitimate offspring of the Archaic Wisdom-religion -- but a few unrecognizable shreds."

"Those who translate Pistis by "Faith," are utterly wrong. The word "faith" as grace or something to be believed in through unreasoned or blind faith, is a word that dates only since Christianity."

"We hold that a good book which gives people food for thought, which strengthens and clears their minds, and enables them to grasp truths which they have dimly felt but could not formulate—we hold that such a book does a real, substantial good."

"You must bear in mind how many powerful adversaries we have aroused ever since the formation of our Society... Intrinsically, Theosophy is the most serious movement of this age; and one, moreover, which threatens the very life of most of the time-honoured humbugs, prejudices, and social evils of the day — those evils which fatten and make happy the upper ten and their imitators and sycophants, the wealthy dozens of the middle classes, while they positively crush and starve out of existence the millions of the poor."

"We have to contend against... the hatred of the Spiritualists... the constant opposition of the clergy of all denominations... especially the relentless hatred and persecution of the missionaries in India."

"To this day no one seems even to feel quite certain whether the Theosophists are a kind of Serpent-and-Devil worshipers, or simply “Esoteric Buddhists”—whatever that may mean. It was useless for us to go on denying, day after day and year after year, every kind of inconceivable cock-and-bull stories about us; for, no sooner was one disposed of, than another, a still more absurd and malicious one, was born out of the ashes of the first."

"So long as the T.S. has a few devoted members willing to work for it without reward and thanks, so long as a few good Theosophists support it with occasional donations, so long will it exist, and nothing can crush it. Enquirer: I have heard many Theosophists speak of a “power behind the Society” and of certain “Mahatmas,” mentioned also in Mr. Sinnett’s works, that are said to have founded the Society, to watch over and protect it. HPB: You may laugh, but it is so."

"We call them “Masters” because they are our teachers; and because from them we have derived all the Theosophical truths, however inadequately some of us may have expressed, and others understood, them. They are men of great learning, whom we term Initiates, and still greater holiness of life. They are not ascetics in the ordinary sense, though they certainly remain apart from the turmoil and strife of your western world."

"The Society will live on into and through the twentieth century. It will gradually leaven and permeate the great mass of thinking and intelligent people with its large-minded and noble ideas of Religion, Duty, and Philanthropy. Slowly but surely it will burst asunder the iron fetters of creeds and dogmas, of social and caste prejudices; it will break down racial and national antipathies and barriers, and will open the way to the practical realization of the Brotherhood of all men."

"Through its teaching, through the philosophy which it has rendered accessible and intelligible to the modern mind, the West will learn to understand and appreciate the East at its true value. Further, the development of the psychic powers and faculties, the premonitory symptoms of which are already visible in America, will proceed healthily and normally."

"It is curious to see how prophetic in almost all things was the writer of Vishnu Purâna when foretelling to Maitreya some of the dark influences and sins of this Kali Yug. For after saying that the “barbarians” will be masters of the banks… There will be contemporary monarchs, reigning over the earth— kings of churlish spirit, violent temper, and ever addicted to falsehood and wickedness... Wealth and piety will decrease until the world will be wholly depraved. Property alone will confer rank; wealth will be the only source of devotion; passion will be the sole bond of union between the sexes; falsehood will be the only means of success in litigation; and women will be objects merely of sensual gratification."

"Mankind will be saved from the terrible dangers, both mental and bodily, which are inevitable when that unfolding takes place, as it threatens to do, in a hot-bed of selfishness and all evil passions. Man’s mental and psychic growth will proceed in harmony with his moral improvement, while his material surroundings will reflect the peace and fraternal goodwill which will reign in his mind, instead of the discord and strife which is everywhere apparent around us today."

"Adept (Lat.). Adeptus, “He who has obtained.” In Occultism one who has reached the stage of Initiation, and become a Master in the science of Esoteric philosophy."

"Aum (Sk.). The sacred syllable; the triple-lettered unit; hence the trinity in One."

"Aura (Gr. and Lat.). A subtle invisible essence or fluid that emanates from human and animal bodies and even things. It is a psychic effluvium, partaking of both the mind and the body, as it is the electro-vital, and at the same time an electro-mental aura; called in Theosophy the âkâsic or magnetic aura."

"Bodhisattva (Sk). Lit., “he, whose essence (sattva) has become intelligence (bodhi)”; those who need but one more incarnation to become perfect Buddhas, i.e., to be entitled to Nirvâna. This, as applied to Manushi (terrestrial) Buddhas. In the metaphysical sense, Bodhisattva is a title given to the sons of the celestial Dhyâni Buddhas."

"Buddha (Sk.). Lit., “The Enlightened”. The highest degree of knowledge. To become a Buddha one has to break through the bondage of sense and personality; to acquire a complete perception of the REAL SELF and learn not to separate it from all otherselves; to learn by experience the utter unreality of all phenomena of the visible Kosmos foremost of all; to reach a complete detachment from all that is evanescent and finite, and live while yet on Earth in the immortal and the everlasting alone, in a supreme state of holiness."

"Clairvoyance. The faculty of seeing with the inner eye or spiritual sight. As now used it is a loose and flippant term, embracing under its meaning a happy guess due to natural shrewdness or intuition, and also that faculty which was so remarkably exercised by Jacob Boehme and Swedenborg. Real clairvoyance means the faculty of seeing through the densest matter (the latter disappearing at the will and before the spiritual eye of the Seer), and irrespective of time (past, present and future) or distance."

"Buddha Siddhârta (Sk.) The name given to Gautama, the Prince of Kapilavastu, at his birth... Gautama, the Buddha, would not have been a mortal man, had he not passed through hundreds and thousands of births previous to his last.... (p. 66) During the years of his mission it is blameless and pure as that of a god—or as the latter should be. He is a perfect example of a divine, godly man. He reached Buddhaship—i.e., complete enlightenment—entirely by his own merit and owing to his own individual exertions, no god being supposed to have any personal merit in the exercise of goodness and holiness. Esoteric teachings claim that he renounced Nirvâna and gave up the Dharmakâya vesture to remain a “Buddha of compassion” within the reach of the miseries of this world. ...The religious philosophy he left... has produced for over 2,000 years generations of good and unselfish men. His is the only absolutely bloodless religion among all the existing religions tolerant and liberal, teaching universal compassion and charity, love and self-sacrifice, poverty and contentment with one’s lot, whatever it may he. No persecutions, and enforcement of faith by fire and sword, have ever disgraced it. No thunder-and-lightning-vomiting god has interfered with its chaste commandments; and if the simple, humane and philosophical code of daily life left to us by the greatest Man-Reformer ever known, should ever come to he adopted by mankind at large, then indeed an era of bliss and peace would dawn on Humanity. (p. 68)"

"Karma (Sk.). Physically, action: metaphysically, the LAW OF RETRIBUTION, the Law of cause and effect or Ethical Causation. Nemesis, only in one sense, that of bad Karma. It is the eleventh Nidana in the concatenation of causes and effects in orthodox Buddhism ; yet it is the power that controls all things, the resultant of moral action, the meta physical Samskâra, or the moral effect of an act committed for the attainment of something which gratifies a personal desire. There is the Karma of merit and the Karma of demerit. Karma neither punishes nor rewards, it is simply the one Universal LAW which guides unerringly, and, so to say, blindly, all other laws productive of certain effects along the grooves of their respective causations. When Buddhism teaches that “Karma is that moral kernel (of any being) which alone survives death and continues in transmigration ‘or reincarnation, it simply means that there remains naught after each Personality but the causes produced by it; causes which are undying, i.e., which cannot be eliminated from the Universe until replaced by their legitimate effects, and wiped out by them, so to speak, and such causes—unless compensated during the life of the person who produced them with adequate effects, will follow the reincarnated Ego, and reach it in its subsequent reincarnation until a harmony between effects and causes is fully reestablished."

"Lucifer (Lat.). The planet Venus, as the bright “Morning Star”. Before Milton, Lucifer had never been a name of the Devil. Quite the reverse, since the Christian Saviour is made to say of himself in Revelations (xvi. 22.) “I am . . . the bright morning star” or Lucifer. One of the early Popes of Rome bore that name; and there was even a Christian sect in the fourth century which was called the Luciferians."

"Magi (Lat.). The name of the ancient hereditary priests and learned adepts in Persia and Media, a word derived from Mâha great, which became later mog or mag, a priest in Pehlevi. Porphyry describes them (Abst. iv. 16) as “The learned men who are engaged among the Persians in the service of the Deity are called Magi”, and Suidas informs us that “among the Persians the lovers of wisdom (philalethai) are called Magi”..."

"Magic. The great “Science”. According to Deveria and other Orientalists, “magic was considered as a sacred science inseparable from religion” by the oldest and most civilized and learned nations. The Egyptians, for instance, were one of the most sincerely religious nations, as were and still are the Hindus. “Magic consists of, and is acquired by the worship of the gods”, said Plato. Could then a nation, which, owing to the irrefragable evidence of inscriptions and papyri, is proved to have firmly believed in magic for thousands of years, have been deceived for so long a time. And is it likely that generations upon generations of a learned and pious hierarchy, many among whom led lives of self-martyrdom, holiness and asceticism, would have gone on deceiving themselves and the people (or even only the latter) for the pleasure of perpetuating belief in “ miracles”? ..."

"Mahâtma. Lit., “great soul”. An adept of the highest order. Exalted beings who, having attained to the mastery over their lower principles are thus living unimpeded by the “man of flesh”, and are in possession of knowledge and power commensurate with the stage they have reached in their spiritual evolution. Called in Pali Rahats and Arhats."

"Maitreya Buddha (Sk.). The same as the Kalki Avatar of Vishnu (the “White Horse” Avatar), and of Sosiosh and other Messiahs..."

"Om or Aum (Sk.). A mystic syllable, the most solemn of all words in India. It is “an invocation, a benediction, an affirmation and a promise and it is so sacred, as to be indeed the word at low breath of occult, primitive masonry. No one must be near when the syllable is pronounced for a purpose. This word is usually placed at the beginning of sacred Scriptures, and is prefixed to prayers. It is a compound of three letters a,u,m, which, in the popular belief, are typical of the three Vedas, also of three gods—A (Agni) V (Varuna) and M (Maruts) or Fire, Water and Air. In esoteric philosophy these are the three sacred fires, or the “triple fire”in the Universe and Man, besides many other things..."

"Paracelsus. The symbolical name adopted by the greatest Occultist of the middle ages—Philip Bombastes Aureolus Theophrastus von Hohenheim—born in the canton of Zurich in 1493. He was the cleverest physician of his age, and the most renowned for curing almost any illness by the power of talismans prepared by himself. He never had a friend, but was surrounded by enemies, the most bitter of whom were the Churchmen and their party. That he was accused of being in league with the devil stands to reason, nor is it to be wondered at that finally he was murdered by some unknown foe, at the early age of forty-eight. He died at Salzburg, leaving a number of works behind him, which are to this day greatly valued by the Kabbalists and Occultists. Many of his utterances have proved prophetic. He was a clairvoyant of great powers, one of the most learned and erudite philosophers and mystics, and a distinguished Alchemist. Physics is indebted to him for the discovery of nitrogen gas, or Azote."

"Pre-existence. The term used to denote that we have lived before. The same as reincarnation in the past. The idea is derided by some, rejected by others, called absurd and inconsistent by the third yet it is the oldest and the most universally accepted belief from an immemorial antiquity. And if this belief was universally accepted by the most subtle philosophical minds of the pre-Christian world, surely it is not amiss that some of our modern intellectual men should also believe in it, or at least give the doctrine the benefit of the doubt. Even the Bible hints at it more than once, St. John the Baptist being regarded as the reincarnation of Elijah, and the Disciples asking whether the blind man was born blind because of his sins, which is equal to saying that he had lived and sinned before being born blind..."

"Psychology. The Science of Soul, in days of old: a Science which served as the unavoidable basis for physiology. Whereas in our modern day, it is psychology that is being based (by our great scientists) upon physiology."

"Reincarnation. The doctrine of rebirth, believed in by Jesus and the Apostles, as by all men in those days, but denied now by the Christians. All the Egyptian converts to Christianity, Church Fathers and others, believed in this doctrine, as shown by the writings of several. In the still existing symbols, the human-headed bird flying towards a mummy, a body, or “the soul uniting itself with its sahou (glorified body of the Ego, and also the kâmalokic shell) proves this belief. “The song of the Resurrection” chanted by Isis to recall her dead husband to life, might be translated “Song of Rebirth”, as Osiris is collective Humanity. “Oh! Osiris [here follows the name of the Osirified mummy, or the departed], rise again in holy earth (matter), august mummy in the coffin, under thy corporeal substances”, was the funeral prayer of the priest over the deceased. “Resurrection” with the Egyptians never meant the resurrection of the mutilated mummy, but of the Soul that informed it, the Ego in a new body. The putting on of flesh periodically by the Soul or the Ego, was a universal belief; nor can anything be more consonant with justice and Karmic law."

"And we, who lived around her, who in closest intimacy watched her day after day, we bear witness to the unselfish beauty of her life, the nobility of her character, and we lay at her feet our most reverent gratitude for knowledge gained, lives purified, strength developed."

"I — who reverence her as my first Teacher, and who keep her in my heart with unceasing gratitude as the one who led me to my Master, whom I have now served with ever-increasing thankfulness for more than eighteen years — place here on record the facts of the past, with such comment as seems necessary."

"Mme Blavatsky is a bit wild and somewhat irrational and speaks as if she were the Oracle of Delphi. But I will admit that I find some interesting observations in her book which was published as you know, back in 1888, at a time when physics and science were in their swaddling clothes... I'm astonished how much in keeping it is with modern Physics... There are many other significant statements of hers which I find interesting, but for which i have no time to discuss now."

"Some, most unjustly, try to make H.S.O. and H.P.B., solely responsible for the state of things, those two are, say, far from perfect — in some respects, quite the opposite. But they have that in them (pardon the eternal repetition but it is being as constantly overlooked) which we have but too rarely found elsewhere —Unselfishness, and an eager readiness for self-sacrifice for the good of others; what a multitude of sins does not this cover! It is but a truism, yet I say it, that in adversity alone can we discover the real man. It is a true manhood when one boldly accepts one's share of the collective Karma of the group one works with, and does not permit oneself to be embittered, and to see others in blacker colours than reality, or to throw all blame upon some one "black sheep," a victim, specially selected. Such a true man as that we will ever protect and despite his shortcomings, assist to develop the good he has in him. Such an one is sublimely unselfish; he sinks his personality in his cause, and takes no heed of discomforts or personal obloquy unjustly fastened upon him. (370)"

"Madame Blavatsky, as she was known, was an aristocratic, Russian-born medium who founded the Theosophical Society in New York in 1875 and who taught, among much else, that people could contact the spiritual realm with help from higher entities called Masters of Wisdom."

"From boyhood no problem had interested me so much as the mystery of man... [On meeting H.P.B.,] our acquaintance at once ripened into a friendship. We found ourselves to be congenial in opinion, and she brought to our intercourse the great resources of a mind stored with a mass of erudition with regard to the arcane or esoteric philosophies of the ancient times. I found her the most intellectual woman I had ever met in my life, a very eccentric personage, but a person who compelled you to either like her very much or to be very antagonistic to her. Besides these extraordinary literary and mental accomplishments of hers, she also possessed in a very striking degree psychical powers such as we read about in the accounts of the lives of ancient sages, and the proof of the reality of which powers was vouchsafed to many witnesses in America for years before we sailed from New York for India; so that naturally those of us who knew her in those times and subsequently, have been unaffected by all the imputations upon her character that have been so rife during the later years of her life... I now look back to that meeting as the most fortunate event of my life; for it made light shine in all the dark places, and sent me out on a mission to help to revive... occult science, which grows more absorbingly interesting every day."

"She was a splendid pianist, playing with a touch and expression that were simply superb. Her hands were models—ideal and actual—for a sculptor and never seen to such advantage as when flying over the keyboard to find its magical melodies... There were times when she was occupied by one of the Mahâtmas, when her playing was indescribably grand. She would sit in the dusk sometimes, with nobody else in the room beside myself, and strike from the sweettoned instrument improvisations that might well make one fancy he was listening to the Gandhâvas, or heavenly choristers. It was the harmony of heaven...she was loyal to the last degree to her aunt, her other relatives, and to the Masters; for whose work she would have sacrificed not only one, but twenty lives, and calmly seen the whole human race consumed with fire, if needs be."

"Unconventionality was with her almost a cult, and nothing pleased her more than to do and say things to shock the prudish... HPB felt herself in revolt to every conventional idea of society, being in beliefs, tastes, dress, ideals, and behavior a social helot; ...The world was to her an empty sham, its prizes but dross, her waking life a lugubrious existence, her real life that of the night when, leaving the body, she would go and sit at the feet of her Masters. So she felt little else than scorn and profound contempt for the blind bigots and narrow-thinking men of science, who had not even a stray glimpse of the truth, yet who would judge her with unrighteous judgment and conspire to silence her by a conspiracy of calumny. For clergymen as a body she felt hatred, because, being themselves absolutely ignorant of the truths of the spirit, they assumed the right to lead the spiritually blind, to keep the lay conscience under control, to enjoy revenues they had not earned, and to damn the heretic, who was often the sage, the illuminatus, the adept. We had one scrapbook into which we used to paste paragraphs from the newspapers telling of the crimes of clergymen and priests who had been brought to justice, and before we left for India there was a large collection of them. HPB made numberless friends, but often lost them again and saw them turned into personal enemies. No one could be more fascinating than she when she chose, and she chose it when she wanted to draw persons to her public work. She would be caressing in tone and manner, and make the person feel that she regarded him as her best, if not her only friend."

"H. P. Blavatsky said, in language which no thoughtful mind could misinterpret: Come unto me, my Brothers. I have been taught. Only as I have been taught am I authorized to give; but what I have been taught I can give, and it is my duty to give it. She gave, and gave lavishly. What she gave was not her own; it is not my own; it is not your own. It is the common spiritual and intellectual heritage of mankind; it belongs to us all as human beings, to every son of man; and anyone who studies this common heritage of mankind and who follows the pathway that it opens... The pathway, remember, is endless, for it leads over and through the spacious fields of the spaces of invisible space."

"In her efforts to teach and help she was ready to investigate all subjects; she pointed out with abundant logic the necessity of the ideas of Theosophy being implanted in the minds of the people of the present age; that these ideas might lead the people from dogmatism and materialism into a larger and broader life. She declared that unless humanity awakened to its real needs and to its opportunities, the human family as a whole must retrograde into the shadow and lose sight of the spiritual life and light that rightfully belong to every man. So it was that she established the Theosophical Society on entirely unsectarian and non-political lines. She accentuated tirelessly the truths of Theosophy; she declared that man's essential divine nature was a potent quality which should be aroused continuously: i. e., that man was dual in his nature -- that the higher, the nobler, the divine part, was the corrective and inspiring part, and that the human mind, no matter how splendidly trained, must be controlled by this higher self: before this man could not find his true place or realize his latent possibilities. She declared in her teachings that one who would know his strength must find his divinity, not outside himself but within; that he must understand the laws of evolution and involution; that spiritually he must realize that he is a part inseparable of the great human family; and that if he carried the investigation of Theosophy far enough, he would readily conceive of Deity as an all-powerful, omnipresent principle, rather than as a personal God existing at some point in space."

"Sixteen years and a half have gone since Helena Petrovna Blavatsky passed away from this mortal world. Yet attacks are still made upon her veracity, upon her character, and good and sympathetic men still turn away from the Theosophical Society with: " Oh ! I do not care to belong to it ; it was founded by Mme. Blavatsky, who was convicted of fraud by the Psychical Research Society." The articles which defended her at the time have long been out of print, and are forgotten. Dr. Hodgson, the writer of the S.P.R. report, became a believer in phenomena far more wonderful than those which he denied in his youthful self-confidence, and also became himself the victim of misrepresentation and ridicule. The large circulation of Mme. Blavatsky's priceless works, the spread of the ideas which she spent her life in learning and teaching, the growth of the Theosophical Society which she founded at the orders of her Master, and with the aid of her colleague Colonel H. S. Olcott. the ever-increasing literature published by her pupils — all these form her substantial defence, the justification of her life's work. p. 1"

"It is not right that the continued crucifixion of the Teacher should be regarded with complacency, while the world profits by the teachings, nor that she should be branded as fraud and impostor who brought to this age the truths now gaining such world-wide acceptance. It is but just that her defence should be obtainable so long as she is slandered. Therefore I — who reverence her as my first Teacher, and who keep her in my heart with unceasing gratitude as the one who led me to my Master, whom I have now served with ever-increasing thankfulness for more than eighteen years — place here on record the facts of the past, with such comment as seems necessary."

"Madame Fadeeff: proceeds: "The phenomena produced by the mediumistic power of my niece Helena are very curious and wonderful... so much force concentrated in a single individual — a whole group of the most extraordinary manifestations emanating from a single source... is certainly exceedingly rare and perhaps unparallelled... when she was here this power was in a condition far inferior to that which it has now reached... Helena... cannot be compared with anyone else. As child, as young girl, as woman, she was always too superior to her environment to be appreciated at her real value. She received the education of a girl of good family. She was well brought up, but was not at all learned, and as for scholarship, of that there was no question. But the unusual richness of her intellectual nature, the delicacy and swiftness of her thought, her marvellous facility in understanding, grasping and assimilating the most difficult subjects, such as would require from anybody else years of laborious study; an eminently developed intelligence, united with a character loyal, straightforward, frank, energetic — these gave her such an unusual superiority, raised her so high above the ordinary level of the insipid majority of human societies, that she could never avoid attracting general attention, and the consequent envy and animosity of all those who, in their trivial inferiority, felt wounded by the splendor of the faculties and talents of this really marvellous woman."

"Helena Petrovna was married, as a girl of seventeen, to an old man, and promptly took flight from her husband, on discovering what marriage meant, and roamed about the world in search of knowledge. In August, 1851... on a moonlight night, as her diary tells us, beside the Serpentine, " I met the Master of my dreams." He then told her that he had chosen her to work in a society, and some time afterwards, with her father's permission, she went into training for her future mission, passing through seven and ten years of probation, trial and hard work...."

"Madame Fadeeff: "She was well brought up, well educated as a woman of the world, that is to say, very superficially. But as to serious and abstract studies, the religious mysteries of antiquity, Alexandrian Theurgy, ancient philosophies and philologies, the science of hieroglyphs, Hebrew, Samskrit, Greek, Latin, etc., she never saw them even in a dream. I can swear to it. She had not the least idea of the very alphabet of such things.... my niece spoke to me about them (the Masters of Wisdom), and that very fully, years ago. She wrote to me that she had seen and reknitted her connection with several of them before she wrote her Isis. Why should she have invented these personages? With what object ? and what good could they do her if they did not exist? Your enemies are neither wicked nor dishonest, I think; they are, if they accuse you of that, only idiotic."

"There was one policy with regard to the Masters, the phenomena worked by her, and Their communications, which she would not tolerate: the attempts to separate the occult from the philosophical, and to evade the criticism and the hostility of an ignorant world by exalting the philosophical at the expense of the occult. To do this, she repeatedly declared, was to invite the destruction of the Society. She was bitterly conscious of the unfairness with which she had been treated, and of the way in which many Theosophists were willing to sacrifice her to the mob, while profiting by her teachings, and declaring that the Theosophical Society had its own foundation, and could continue to exist, even if she were regarded as a fraud."

"What H. P. Blavatsky was the world may some day know. She was of heroic stature, and smaller souls instinctively resented her strength, her titanic nature. Unconventional, careless of appearances, frank to unwisdom — as the world estimates wisdom — too honest to calculate against the dishonesty of others, she laid herself open to continual criticism and misunderstanding. Full of intellectual strength and with extraordinary knowledge, she was humble as a little child. Brave to recklessness, she was pitiful and tender. Passionately indignant when accused of sins she loathed, she was generous and forgiving to a repentant foe. She had a hundred splendid virtues, and a few petty failings. May the Master she served with unfaltering courage, with unwavering devotion, send back to us again "the Brother you know as H. P. B., but we — otherwise.""

"People also underestimate the time they spend debugging. They underestimate how much time they can spend chasing a long bug. With testing, I know straight away when I added a bug. That lets me fix the bug immediately before it can crawl off and hide. There are few things more frustrating or time-wasting than debugging. Wouldn't it be a hell of a lot quicker if we just didn't create the bugs in the first place?"

"Transparency is valuable, but while many things can be made transparent in distributed objects, performance isn't usually one of them."

"Refactoring is a disciplined technique for restructuring an existing body of code, altering its internal structure without changing its external behavior. Its heart is a series of small behavior preserving transformations. Each transformation (called a 'refactoring') does little, but a sequence of transformations can produce a significant restructuring. Since each refactoring is small, it's less likely to go wrong. The system is also kept fully working after each small refactoring, reducing the chances that a system can get seriously broken during the restructuring."

"One of the things I've been trying to do is look for simpler or rules underpinning good or bad design. I think one of the most valuable rules is to avoid duplication. "Once and only once" is the Extreme Programming phrase."

"Often designers do complicated things that improve the capacity on a particular hardware platform when it might actually be cheaper to buy more hardware."

"Modeling Principle: Models are not right or wrong; they are more or less useful."

"It is commonly said that a pattern, however it is written, has four essential parts: a statement of the context where the pattern is useful, the problem that the pattern addresses, the forces that play in forming a solution, and the solution that resolves those forces. … it supports the definition of a pattern as "a solution to a problem in a context", a definition that [unfortunately] fixes the bounds of the pattern to a single problem-solution pair"

"The definition I use for a pattern is an idea that has been useful in one practical context and will probably be useful in others"

"The second problem [with using UML for the purposes of this book] is that the Unified Modeling Language concentrates on implementation modeling rather than conceptual modeling"

"When you find you have to add a feature to a program, and the program's code is not structured in a convenient way to add the feature, first refactor the program to make it easy to add the feature, then add the feature."

"Any fool can write code that a computer can understand. Good programmers write code that humans can understand."

"Refactoring (noun): a change made to the internal structure of software to make it easier to understand and cheaper to modify without changing the observable behavior of the software. To refactor (verb): to restructure software by applying a series of refactorings without changing the observable behavior of the software."

"Often you'll see the same three or four data items together in lots of places: fields in a couple of classes, parameters in many method signatures. Bunches of data that hang around together really ought to be made into their own objects."

"When you feel the need to write a comment, first try to refactor the code so that any comment becomes superfluous."

"The key is to test the areas that you are most worried about going wrong. That way you get the most benefit for your testing effort. It is better to write and run incomplete tests than not to run complete tests"

"Steve Mellor and I independently came up with a characterization of the three modes in which people use the UML: sketch, blueprint, and programming language. By far the most common of the three, at least to my biased eye, is UML as a sketch. In this usage, developers use the UML to help communicate some aspects of a system. As with blueprints, you can use sketches in a forward-engineering or reverse-engineering direction. Forward engineering draws a UML diagram before you write code, while reverse engineering builds a UML diagram from the existing code in order to help understand it."

"The key books about object-oriented graphical modeling languages appeared between 1988 and 1992. Leading figures included Grady Booch [Booch,OOAD]; Peter Coad [Coad, OOA], [Coad, OOD]; Ivar Jacobson (Objectory) [Jacobson, OOSE]; Jim Odell [Odell]; Jim Rumbaugh (OMT) [Rumbaugh, insights], [Rumbaugh, OMT]; Sally Shlaer and Steve Mellor [Shlaer and Mellor, data], [Shlaer and Mellor, states] ; and Rebecca Wirfs-Brock (Responsibility Driven Design) [Wirfs-Brock]."

"Graphical design notations have been with us for a while... their primary value is in communication and understanding. A good diagram can often help communicate ideas about design, particularly when you want to avoid a lot of details. Diagrams can also help you understand either a software system or a business process. As part of a team trying to figure out something, diagrams both help to understand and communicate that understanding throughout a team. Although they aren't, at least yet, a replacement for textual programming languages, they are a helpful assistant... Of these graphical notations, the UML's importance comes from its wide use and standardization within the OO development community."

"Comprehensiveness is the enemy of comprehensibility"

"Jihad basically means to strive, it means to struggle and very often the critics of Islam, even the Hindu critics even Arun Shourie he writes in his book, ‘The World of Fatawa’ and he quotes Surah Tawbah verse no. 9 verse no. 5 and it says that the Qur’an mentions “Wherever you find a Kaafir, into brackets ‘Hindus’, whereever you find a Kaafir, you kill them.” And if you open the Qur’an and if you read in this Qur’an ch. no. 9 verse no. 5, it does say that wherever you find a Kaafir, you kill him but it’s a quotation out of context."

"Marxism, Freudianism and other 'non-religious' beliefs tried to attack the roots of organized religions. But these, in turn, developed into belief systems themselves. For instance, when communism was adopted by many countries of the world it was preached with the same commitment and fervor that characterizes the act of preaching and propagation of religions"

"“If bin Laden is fighting enemies of Islam, I am for him. If he is terrorizing America—the terrorist, biggest terrorist—I am with him. Every Muslim should be a terrorist. The thing is that if he is terrorizing the terrorist, he is following Islam. Whether he is or not, I don’t know, but you as Muslims know that, without checking up, laying allegations is also wrong,” Naik said in this speech."

"It is a blatant, open secret that this attack on the Twin Towers was done by George Bush himself."

"If bin Laden is fighting enemies of Islam, I am for him. If he is terrorizing the terrorist, if he is terrorizing America – the terrorist, biggest terrorist – I am with him. Every Muslim should be a terrorist. The thing is that if he is terrorizing the terrorist, he is following Islam. Whether he is or not, I don’t know, but you as Muslims know that, without checking up, laying allegations is also wrong."

"[Clarifying statement above]: Every Muslim should be a terrorist. A terrorist is a person who causes terror. The moment a robber sees a policeman he is terrified. A policeman is a terrorist for the robber. Similarly every Muslim should be a terrorist for the antisocial elements of society, such as thieves, dacoits [bandits] and rapists. Whenever such an anti-social element sees a Muslim, he should be terrified. It is true that the word ‘terrorist’ is generally used for a person who causes terror among the common people. But a true Muslim should only be a terrorist to selective people, i.e. anti-social elements, and not to the common innocent people. In fact, a Muslim should be a source of peace for innocent people."

""If you do not have the means to marry, marry a slave woman and give her freedom.." He said this is what the Quran encourages. However, he said it can't work vice-versa. According to Naik, it can't work if a woman wants to do the same. Only a man has such rights."

""If you have a son, and he wants to jump from the roof, you will admonish him." According to Naik, Allah has given permission to men to beat women. But, he says, men should beat their wives 'lightly'. "As far as the family is concerned, a man is the leader. So, he has the right," he says."

""Propagation of other religions is prohibited. Even construction of any place of worship is prohibited," he said."

""What Darwin said was only a theory. There is no book saying ‘the Fact of Evolution’ – All the books say ‘Theory of Evolution’," he said. "There is not a single statement in the Holy Qur’an, which Science has proved wrong yet. Hypothesis go against the Qur’an – theories go against the Qur’an. There is not a single scientific fact, which is mentioned in the Holy Qur’an which goes against established science – It may go against theory," Naik said."

"The Islamic scholar has clarified that the video of his speech on Osama Bin Laden was doctored. The Islamic preacher has also distanced himself from the controversial statement that "all Muslim should be terrorists". Naik says Islam is superior to all other faiths. Non-Muslims should not be allowed to have places of religious worship in an Islamic country. Muslims have the right to have sex with their female slaves. Sania Mirza should dress modestly while playing. No Indian politician would like to send his daughter to play beach volleyball even if it becomes an international sport. Girls shouldn't be sent to schools where they lose their virginity by the time they pass out. Schools should be shut down. They should not be allowed to wear gold ornaments. In the West, they are selling their daughters and mothers in the name of women's liberation. Wife-beating in the Muslim world is not necessarily a bad thing. Naik says the use of condom during sex is akin to killing a human being. Death by stoning or lapidation for having sex outside marriage is acceptable according to Sharia law. Based on teachings of the Qur'an and Sunnah, Naik says homosexuals should be killed. Suicide attacks advised by clerics is not bad. He refuses to condemn Osama bin Laden and claims that 9/11 was an inside job. The Islamic scholar says Muslim should seek help only from Allah and no one else, not even the Prophet - a belief which supports the Sunni view. Islamic State has used this particular understanding to justify violence against Sufis, Shias and Ahmadis."

"Suppose two sisters who are twins and who are equally beautiful, walk down a street. One of them is wearing the Islamic Hijab i.e. the complete body is covered except for the face and the hands up to the wrists, and the other twin is wearing a mini skirt or shorts. Around the corner there is a hooligan who is waiting for an opportunity to tease a girl. Who will he tease? The girl wearing the Islamic Hijab or the girl wearing the mini skirt or shorts? Dresses that expose more than they conceal, are an indirect temptation to the opposite sex for teasing, molestation and rape. The Qur’an rightly says that the hijab prevents women from being molested."

"If you want to judge how good is the latest model of the “Mercedes” car and a person who does not know how to drive sits at the steering wheel and bangs up the car, who will you blame? The car or the driver? But naturally, the driver. To analyze how good the car is, a person should not look at the driver but see the ability and features of the car. How fast is it, what is its average fuel consumption, what are the safety measures, etc. Even if I agree for the sake of argument that the Muslims are bad, we can’t judge Islam by its followers? If you want to judge how good Islam is then judge it according to its authentic sources, i.e. the Glorious Qur’an and the Sahih Hadith"

"If you practically want to check how good a car is put an expert driver behind the steering wheel. Similarly the best and the most exemplary follower of Islam by whom you can check how good Islam is, is the last and final messenger of God, Prophet Muhammad (pbuh)."

"‘Kafir’ is derived from the word ‘kufr’, which means to conceal or to reject. In Islamic terminology, ‘Kafir’ means one who conceals or rejects the truth of Islam and a person who rejects Islam is in English called a ‘non-Muslim’. If a ‘non-Muslim’ considers being called a ‘non-Muslim’ or ‘Kafir’, which are one and the same, an abuse, it is due to his misunderstanding about Islam. He or she needs to reach out to proper sources of understanding Islam and Islamic terminology, and not only will he not feel abused but appreciate Islam in the proper perspective."

"All religions basically exhort mankind to be righteous and eschew evil. But Islam goes beyond that. It guides us towards practical ways of achieving righteousness and eliminating evil from our individual and collective lives. Islam takes into account human nature and the complexities of human society. Islam is guidance from the Creator Himself. Therefore, Islam is also called the Deenul-Fitrah (the natural religion of Man)."

"Yes, of course, the chances of returning are much more. Not that tomorrow if there is a change in government I can come the next day. The case against me can proceed. I will cooperate under the condition that I will not be unjustly persecuted. Today, everyone is saying something for their own benefit, including the Congress. Out of the two evils, the Congress is the lesser evil. Not that they are completely honest. If the Congress was completely truthful then Babri masjid wouldn’t have been demolished. Today, if the Congress feels going soft on Muslims is beneficial, they are going soft for their own benefit. But I am definitely scared for the country and the Muslims if the BJP comes back to power. One of the concerns is extreme right wing, then money power and corruption. I don’t consider the BJP to be practising Hindus. I consider the Congress more Hindu than the BJP. Does Modi know Hindu scriptures? Let us have a dialogue. Let’s talk about hindutva. Hindu scriptures say don’t cheat, don’t lie. But why are they lying? I would not like to come back if the BJP is in power."

"“The rich non-Muslims travel to Gulf and different Muslim countries. If these Muslim countries have data of these people attacking or spreading venom against Muslims, they should arrest them under their (own) law once they enter their territory”"

"A Muslim cannot donate, support or construct a house of worship of non-Muslims... “There are several fatwas (rulings) that a Muslim cannot donate or build or support a house of worship of a non-Muslim. Over the ages, scholars have maintained this,” ...“Even if a non-Muslim living in an Islamic nation bequeaths his wealth to be used for a place of worship, it should not be allowed.... Fuqaha (experts in Islamic law) have agreed that even a non-Muslim's money cannot be used to build a temple in a Muslim land. So where is the question of using Muslim money or taxpayers money ( to construct a temple)?...If a non-Muslim house of worship is expanded by a Muslim rule, there is full right to destroy it. There is no permission (according to Islamic law) to build a new temple or church. Islamic nations can only protect existing ones,” ... How can Pakistan spend government money in the construction of the temple. The maximum it can do is to protect existing ones."

"“To reach your goals, you cannot use wrong means brother. What is Haram to them is also Haram to you. When you are wishing Merry Christmas to them, you are agreeing that he is the son of God and that is Shirk (sin). Because they believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God. Irrespective of whether they are practising Christians or not, they celebrate the day because of His birthday,” Zakir Naik emphasised. . “Is saying Merry Christmas wrong? I am telling you it is wrong. It is 100% wrong according to me,” he reiterated. Naik further added, “If you don’t know what Christmas stands for and happen to wish someone, Allah may forgive you. If you drink alcohol, mistaking it for Pepsi, Allah may forgive you. But if you are doing it to build a relationship after knowing what Christmas stands for, you are building your place in Jahannam (Hell). Therefore, for reaching good means, you never have to follow bad means. You have to follow the guidance of the Quran and the Sunnah (literature based on life and deeds of Prophet Muhammad).”…"

"People who know about him [Naik] know that he is one of the most uncontroversial persons you could find. He talks about the similarities between religions, and how should we work on the common ground between them."

"Dr. Naik recommends the death penalty for homosexuals and for apostasy from the faith, which he likens to wartime treason. He calls for India to be ruled by the medieval tenets of Shariah law."

"Perhaps the most influential Salafi ideologue in India."

"Dawah, which Naik also claims to be engaged in, is to make people aware of the creation plan of God, not to peddle some provocative, dubious ideas as Naik does."

"The people of this country (Bangladesh) want Zakir Naik, invite him, and they that he should be handed over to India; after 15 years of hiding and murder, the murderer (Sheikh Hasina) go to sleep in India, but they don't return the murderer, while they ask us to hand Zakir Naik over to them, what a shame, what a third-class state!"

"You are the architect of your own destiny; you are the master of your own fate; you are behind the steering wheel of your life. There are no limitations to what you can do, have, or be. Except the limitations you place on yourself by your own thinking."

"You have within you the potential to accomplish wonderful things with your life. Your greatest responsibilities are to dream big dreams, decide exactly what you want, make a plan to achieve it … take action every single day in the direction of your dreams and goals, and resolve to never, never, never give up. When you take these actions, you put yourself on the side of the angels. You become unstoppable and your success becomes inevitable."

"Successful people are always looking for opportunities to help others. Unsuccessful people are always asking, "What's in it for me?”"

"Should you be willing to read [Xenophon's Anabasis] very carefully you shall discover how ... to deceive one’s enemies to their harm and one’s friends to their advantage, and to speak the truth in a way that will not pain those who are needlessly disturbed by it."

"You are devoted to interests from which it is impossible to gain intelligence or prudence or a proper disposition of reverence toward the gods, but only stupid contention, unbridled ambition, vain grief, senseless joy, and raillery and extravagance."

"If in the guise of philosophers, they [declaim speeches] with a view to their own profit and reputation, and not to improve you, that indeed is shocking. For it is as if a physician when visiting patients should disregard their treatment and their restoration to health, and should bring them flowers and courtesans and perfume."

"When some people urged that it is impossible for man to live like the animals owing to the tenderness of his flesh and because he is naked and unprotected, [Diogenes] would say in reply that men are so very tender because of their mode of life. ... Man’s ingenuity and his discovering and contriving so many helps to life had not been altogether advantageous to later generations, since men do not employ their cleverness to promote courage or justice, but to procure pleasure."

"When [Diogenes] observed how other men were harassed throughout their whole lives, ever plotting against one another, ever encompassed by a thousand ills and never able to enjoy a moment’s rest, nay, not even during the great festivals nor when they proclaimed a truce; and when he beheld that they did or suffered all this simply in order to keep themselves alive, and that their greatest fear was lest their so-called necessities should fail them, and how, furthermore, they planned and strove to leave great riches to their children, he marvelled that he too did not do the like, but was the only independent man in the world."

"Just as the good physician should go and offer his services where the sick are most numerous, so, said [Diogenes], the man of wisdom should take up his abode where fools are thickest in order to convict them of their folly and reprove them."

"[Diogenes] was surprised by the fact that had he claimed to be a physician for the teeth, everybody would flock to him who needed to have a tooth pulled; yes, and by heavens, had he professed to treat the eyes, all who were suffering from sore eyes would present themselves, and similarly, if he had claimed to know of a medicine for diseases of the spleen or for gout or for running of the nose; but when he declared that all who should follow his treatment would be relieved of folly, wickedness, and intemperance, not a man would listen to him or seek to be cured by him, ... as though it were worse for a man to suffer from an enlarged spleen or a decayed tooth than from a soul that is foolish, ignorant, cowardly, rash, pleasure-loving, illiberal, irascible, unkind, and wicked, in fact utterly corrupt."

"Pleasure assails a man through each and every sense that he has; and while he must face and grapple with work, to pleasure he must give the widest berth possible and have none but unavoidable dealings with her. And herein the strongest man is indeed strongest, one might almost say, who can keep the farthest away from pleasures; for it is impossible to dwell with pleasure or even to dally with her for any length of time without being completely enslaved."

"Ordior arma, quibus caelo se gloria tollit Aeneadum, patiturque ferox Oenotria iura Carthago."

"Metui demens credebat honorem."

"Primus sumpsisse laborem."

"Ad limina sanctae contendit Fidei secretaque pectora temptat. arcanis dea laeta polo tum forte remoto caelicolum magnas uoluebat conscia curas. quam tali adloquitur Nemeae pacator honore: 'Ante Iouem generata, decus diuumque hominumque, qua sine non tellus pacem, non aequora norunt, iustitiae consors...'"

"Postquam oculos varia implevit virtutis imago, mira dehinc cernit: surgentis mole profundi injectum terris subitum mare nullaque circa litora et infuso stagnantis aequore campos. nam qua caeruleis Nereus evoluitur antris atque imo freta contorquet Neptunia fundo, proruptum exundat pelagus, caecosque relaxans Oceanus fontis torrentibus ingruit undis. tum uada, ceu saevo penitus permota tridenti, luctantur terris tumefactum imponere pontum. mox remeat gurges tractoque relabitur aestu, ac ratis erepto campis deserta profundo, et fusi transtris expectant aequora nautae. Cymothoes ea regna vagae pelagique labores Luna mouet, Luna, immissis per caerula bigis, fertque refertque fretum, sequiturque reciproca Tethys."

"Crede vigori femineo. Castum haud superat labor ullus amorem."

"Quoque magis subiere iugo atque euadere nisi erexere gradum, crescit labor. ardua supra sese aperit fessis et nascitur altera moles."

"Abscisa relincunt membra gelu, fractosque asper rigor amputat artus."

"Blandoque veneno desidiae virtus paulatim evicta senescit."

"Caeruleas Ticinus aquas et stagna uadoso perspicuus seruat turbari nescia fundo ac nitidum uiridi lente trahit amne liquorem. uix credas labi: ripis tam mitis opacis argutos inter uolucrum certamine cantus somniferam ducit lucenti gurgite lympham."

"Explorant adversa viros, perque aspera duro nititur ad laudem virtus interrita clivo."

"Pelle moras! Brevis est magni Fortuna favoris."

"Bellandum est astu; leuior laus in duce dextrae."

"Deforme sub armis vana superstitio est: dea sola in pectore Virtus bellantum viget."

"...ceu tigride cerva Hyrcana cum pressa tremit, vel territa pennas colligit accipitrem cernens in nube columba, aut dumis subit, albenti si sensit in aethra librantem nisus aquilam, lepus."

"Quantis armati caelum petiere Gigantes anguibus, aut quantus Lernae lassavit in undis Amphitryoniaden serpens, qualisque comantis auro servauit ramos Junonius anguis."

"Haud secus ac stabulis procurans otia pastor in foveam parco tectam velamine frondis ducit nocte lupos positae balatibus agnae."

"Nec tam fugisse cauendo aduersa egregium, quam perdomuisse ferendo."

"Rarae fumant felicibus arae."

"Sicut aquae splendor radiatus lampade solis dissultat per tecta uaga sub imagine uibrans luminis et tremula laquearia uerberat umbra."

"Aegris nil mouisse salus rebus."

"Non umquam spem ponit amor."

"Mantua, Musarum domus atque ad sidera cantu evecta Aonio et Smyrnaeis aemula plectris."

"Congesto laevae quodcumque avellitur auro metitur Latias victrix Carthago ruinas."

"Stat nulla diu mortalibus usquam, Fortuna titubante, fides."

"At patulo surgens iam dudum ex aequore late nauticus implebat resonantia litora clamor, et simul adductis percussa ad pectora tonsis centeno fractus spumabat verbere pontus."

"Pax optima rerum quas homini novisse datum est, pax una triumphis innumeris potior, pax custodire salutem et civis aequare potens revocetur in arcis tandem Sidonias, et fama fugetur ab urbe perfidiae, Phoenissa, tua."

"Sic, ubi perrupit stagnantem calculus undam, exiguos format per prima volumina gyros, mox tremulum uibrans motu gliscente liquorem multiplicat crebros sinuati gurgitis orbes, donec postremo laxatis circulus oris contingat geminas patulo curuamine ripas."

"Et deforme malum ac sceleri proclivis Egestas Errorque infido gressu, et Discordia gaudens permiscere fretum caelo."

"Ipsa quidem virtus sibimet pulcherrima merces; dulce tamen venit ad manis, cum gratia vitae durat apud superos nec edunt oblivia laudem."

"Subito cum pondere victus, insiliente mari, summergitur alveus undis. scuta virum cristaeque et inerti spicula ferro tutelaeque deum fluitant."

"[Virtutis] dispar habitus: frons hirta nec umquam composita mutata coma, stans vultus, et ore incessuque viro propior laetique pudoris celsa umeros niveae fulgebat stamine pallae."

"Mecum Honor ac Laudes et laeto Gloria vultu et Decus ac niveis Victoria concolor alis."

"Perpetui numquam moritura volumina Sill."

"Silius haec magni celebrat monumenta Maronis, jugera facundi qui Ciceronis habet. Heredem dominumque sui tumulive larisve non alium mallet nec Maro nec Cicero."

"Jam prope desertos cineres et sancta Maronis nomina qui coleret pauper et unus erat. Silius optatae succurrere censuit umbrae, et vates vatem non minor ipse colit."

"Scribebat carmina maiore cura quam ingenio."

"[Virgil's] birthday he celebrated with more solemnity than his own, especially at Naples, where he used to approach his tomb with as much reverence as if it had been a temple."

"Finished Silius Italicus; for which Heaven be praised! [...] Pope must have read him before me. In the 'Temple of Fame,' and the 'Essay on Criticism,' are some touches plainly suggested by Silius."

"While few customer offerings have a life, all great products and services have a soul."

"It is also worth noting that it is extremely difficult to be a great buyer of complementary competencies if you do not have any knowledge about the stuff you are acquiring. Friedrich Nietzsche pointed out that a man has no ears for that to which experience has given him no access. We need knowledge to be able to outsource knowledge."

"Gallery visitors did not tell Picasso to invent cubism. Jazz fanatics did not suggest that should work with hip-hoppers. Moviegoers did not propose to Lars von Trier, the Danish film director, that he make Breaking the Waves. And customers sure as hell did not come up with the idea for CDNow or Amazon.com. If you want to do something really interesting and revolutionary, learn to ignore your customers."

"We find support for the contingency logic, suggesting that effective organization design has to take into account the underlying characteristics of the firm's knowledge base."

"Some bodies of knowledge emerge over time in a process of coevolution with the location in which they are embedded."

"While few customer offerings have a life, all great products and services have a soul."

"It is also worth noting that it is extremely difficult to be a great buyer of complementary competencies if you do not have any knowledge about the stuff you are acquiring. Friedrich Nietzsche pointed out that a man has no ears for that to which experience has given him no access. We need knowledge to be able to outsource knowledge."

"Gallery visitors did not tell Picasso to invent cubism. Jazz fanatics did not suggest that should work with hip-hoppers. Moviegoers did not propose to Lars von Trier, the Danish film director, that he make Breaking the Waves. And customers sure as hell did not come up with the idea for CDNow or Amazon.com. If you want to do something really interesting and revolutionary, learn to ignore your customers."

"Dum Hispaniae uni quidquid ubique laudatur adsurgat. Haec durissimos milites, haec experientissimos duces, haec facundissimos oratores, haec clarissimos uates parit, haec iudicum mater haec principum est. Haec Traianum illum, haec deinceps Hadrianum misit imperio; huic te debet imperium."

"When I was meditating, I tried to perceive the universe as an immense symphony ... One day, I felt myself carried away in space, very far away, and suddenly I heard that the whole universe was singing ... no human music can compare to what I heard ... This music is not heard with the physical ears, but with the soul, with spirit ... This experience that I had so early in my life has remained like a seal in my soul and has pushed me to seek harmony always and everywhere."

"The idea of ​​brotherhood for which we are working is still like a newborn child. I speak to the entire universe about this child who wants to grow up, learn to walk, learn. I know all her needs, my constant concern is to ensure its subsistence and its growth, I have no other job, and I have to be so vigilant! This idea of ​​fraternity, it is she and she alone who has the power to make peace reign in the world. I have come among you so that an ideal of fraternal life can be realized here which will serve as an example for the future... to bring a model of collective, fraternal life, where each individual will consciously accept a kind of magnificent servitude in order to access another freedom, truer, deeper, that of his Higher Being."

"Now is the time to live an experience that humans have not yet attempted and that will free them from their illusions, isolation and helplessness. For the work I envision, I want people who are rich in heart and soul. We must no longer be content to talk about love, peace and fraternity, we must live them by learning to meet and make exchanges in areas where the values ​​advocated by society no longer count so much. Come and support my work, lend your strength, give an example of fraternal spirit. You claim to love your country, but what are you doing so that everyone can live there fraternally? You don't yet know how contagious your example could become."

"Sometimes I receive letters from brothers and sisters saying, ‘Oh Master, we would so like to be like you. You are an example for us.’ But I say that you should take the sun as your example, as I do. I look to the sun, and I point toward it to encourage you to go in that direction. Do not stop at me; go right past me to the sun, immerse yourself in its life, its warmth and its light, so that you can become like it. As for me, think of me as being a signpost that shows you the path you should take. So, do not stop at the signpost. When you travel along a road, and you see a sign that says Paris or Frejus, you do not stop there and hug it saying, ‘How I love you, dear signpost. How I love your beautiful lettering, and how well you point out the direction I should take!’ No, you keep traveling until you reach Paris or Frejus."

"On the surface it may seem that wars are caused by economic and political questions, but in fact they are caused by our wholesale slaughter of animals. The laws of justice are inexorable, and human beings are going to have to pay with their own blood … We kill animals, but nature is an organic whole, and by killing animals we are, as it were, affecting certain glands in that organism. When this happens, the balance of the organism is disrupted, and it is not surprising that before long war breaks out among men. Yes, human beings have slaughtered millions of animals for their meat, without realizing that on the invisible plane those animals are linked to other human beings, and it is they who will now have to share the fate of the animals. When we slaughter animals we are slaughtering human beings. Everybody agrees that it is time to establish the reign of peace in the world, that there must be no more wars. Yes, but war will go on just as long as we continue to slaughter animals, because by destroying them we are destroying ourselves."

"In 1923 he enrolled at the University in Sofia: After receiving diplomas in philosophy, psychology, and education, Mikhael continued to frequent the university. Stimulated by curiosity, he moved freely from one faculty to another, exploring the different disciplines, following courses in medicine, chemistry, and physics. He spent so many years at the university that his friends nicknamed him ‘the eternal student’."

"When he entered the conference room, in front of his listeners, there was an indescribable aura around him. Some days he was inhabited by a mysterious presence: perfectly still, his eyes closed, he spoke in a sober and concise manner; at other times he spoke with great force, like a prophet charged with shaking his contemporaries out of their ruts. But most of the time, he spoke like a father talks to his children, most simply. He knew how to laugh frankly with a spontaneity that testified to a deep joie de vivre. On the material level, there is a will that never knows how to act against others. He is a refined soul, filled with a sacred and impersonal love. He is an intelligence recognized by all his listeners as being particularly luminous and penetrating, possessing extraordinary powers of analysis and synthesis. What is more, he thinks what is divine, he feels it and he executes it."

"Everything was linked, coherent in the life of Brother Mikhaël. I could never discover a rift between his collective life, his words and his behavior. He never advised others of something that he himself did not put into practice in the privacy of his existence."

"According to Aivanhov one of the fundamental truths of initiatic science is that in the “subtle” world (the so-called “higher world”) all elements that make up reality, are linked and connected to each other in a specific way. Therefore, the realization of the Kingdom of God on our planet becomes an almost spontaneous and natural reality, if everybody makes efforts to realize this divine Kingdom within themselves, which then could bring about the... Golden Age. In order to describe the best way of how each individual can come closer to this significant ideal, Aivanhov reveals the eternal principles of initiatic science and defines the cosmic laws which reign both in the universe as well as in man; in the macrocosm as well as in the microcosm. At the same time, he also describes the constant exchange between “that which is above and that which is below”. A basis for this method is the conviction that human beings cannot attain the tangible realization of such a high ideal through faith alone, but that they also need knowledge about how ‘reality’ is organized. This knowledge will help to understand how the arrival of the Golden Age remains no longer a utopia, but becomes a certainty."

"Omraam Mikhaël Aïvanhov, OmraamWiki, 2 February 2019"

"Inverted heart, becomes the testicles of a man."

"How do I love thee? Let me count the days. If there are 50 ways to leave your lover then there are 50 ways to be left."

"There is an afterlife to love and there is love in the afterlife."

"Did you know orchids employ trickery to attract insects? They spray a deceptive scent resembling insect pheromones. Bad flower! Bad flower! Liar! Liar! Petals on fire!"

"Trigger Warning! Rape is a rape is a rape."

"Business models and value propositions expire like a yogurt in the fridge."

"I am very much pro-life. I'm pro the life of women who have lived for years as opposed to cells that have lived for weeks."

"[T]he rules are different for you and always will be; that you must be composed at all times and never scrap in the muck laid down by your opponents because your moral purity is measured differently to theirs."

"You can be told 20 days in (a) row that you should be raped and sodomised and beaten and strung up and thrown out and taught a lesson, but if on the 21st day you turn around and make a joke about firing men into the sun using a cannon, you are a scold who hates men and is teaching her son that he's a rapist."

"Could men just shut the fuck up?"

"Ms Ford was recently called out for signing a copy of her book with 'have you killed any men today? And if not, why not?'."

"Ford’s all-consuming hatred for men is absolutely dripping. She screams, “The framing of criminal acts like these as being somehow the result of depression or financial struggles or just a lack of appropriate emotional support cannot help but infest the circumstances with an air of sympathy and understanding.” She slams “traditional notions of masculinity”, rants about the “patriarchy” and then Lifeline’s number is listed at the end. The fact Ford blankly refuses to comprehend motivational factors contributing to human beings wanting out of life purely highlights why she was never, and should never be, given a platform to speak at any events by any suicide prevention organisation. Ever."

"Governance and leadership are the yin and the yang of successful organisations. If you have leadership without governance you risk tyranny, fraud and personal fiefdoms. If you have governance without leadership you risk atrophy, bureaucracy and indifference."

"The company is a living system. Employees are its lifeblood. Strategy is the brain and measurement and communication the central nervous system. Culture is the DNA. Leadership and continued entrepreneurial energy are its soul and spirit. Governance and accountability are its rhythms and disciplines, like exercise, a means of keeping this living organism fit and lean. Leadership gives a company energy. Governance assures its honesty.**"

"Disability is not a hindrance to reach the sky"

"The world is equally ours cease all you can get from it"

"Treat us the way you wish to be treated"

"What does it mean when people say I cannot walk by myself, I cannot travel by myself? I have a mouth to talk, I have a brain to think, I can walk, and I have a cane to find my way around. Then why can I not travel by myself? I was like a bird in a cage, not allowed to come out without an escort. But now my life has been transformed."

"Where were all these blind people? Why didn’t we see them walking on our roads? I decided I must be the one to make a difference."

"I envision a society without any physical or psychological barriers towards the blind – a barrier-free environment where the blind can walk freely, can travel, can work, think for themselves, and live proud and dignified lives like other citizens. Society thinks that we can only sing sweet songs, only become teachers and telephone operators in the bank. But we can do more. We can dance, we can fire juggle, we can do martial arts, we can become managers and directors of companies. But society is constantly interpreting what we can do and what we can’t. This has to change very soon."

"why don’t we root the positive in each and everyone’s life instead of searching the negatives in them”? Why don’t we love and accept others with their strengths and weakness?Why don’t we break the barriers and traditions that are followed blindly, which doesn’t help the community in which we are living? Why don’t we smile and acknowledge others at least for a second, which can cause a tremendous change in others lives?"

"For centuries, governments have been known to have kept much information (usually embarrassing) from their peoples, thereby consolidating their power to rule. Nevertheless, is it not surprising that for over 60 years, modern governments, aided and abetted by a cynical media, have, more or less successfully, kept from the public their certain knowledge of the reality of UFOs and the fact of their peaceful activity? (Preface)"

"Moreover, some governments have been guilty of denigrating the inhabitants of these ‘non-existent’ craft, have named them ‘aliens’, and accused them of all manner of atrocities against men and women of Earth. The reasons for this dishonest and undemocratic behaviour are discussed in this book, and the close collaboration existing between the ‘people of the UFOs’ (our Space Brothers) and the members of our own Spiritual Hierarchy is made clear for the first time. (Preface)"

"Our scientists assert that human life does not exist on such planets as Mars, Venus, Jupiter, etc. This assumption arises out of their ignorance of the etheric levels of matter. Their technology is still inadequate to measure the full range of the material planes. Had they etheric vision, they would know that all the planets of our system are inhabited and that many are far more advanced in evolution than we are on Earth. The time is fast approaching when a more open-minded view of life with its mysteries will supersede the arrogance of the ignorant, to the benefit of us all. (Preface)"

"To keep their populations under control, and to avoid ‘panic’, they have denied the experience of hundreds of thousands of intelligent, open-minded citizens. They have thus created a major myth: “‘Flying saucers’ do not exist but they are dangerous and rapacious to men of Earth”! Likewise, they have taught the people to deride the notion that crop circles are a legacy from Space, yet every government has unassailable proof of the existence, creativity and superior technology of these brave and harmless visitors from the sister planets of our System. Our profound ignorance of the subtle planes of matter has allowed the major governments of the world to maintain this deception for so long. (Part One)"

"There is an enormous amount of information of one kind or another about UFOs, some of it true, absolutely authentic, and masses of it utterly unreal and unauthentic. This is a huge and all-important subject. (Part One)"

"The solar system and the Plan. All the planets are engaged in one Plan, which also involves Earth. Most people on Earth do not even know that such a Plan exists. It is a Plan of evolution for our solar system, which works as a unit. We think of the Earth, the Sun and Moon, but pay very little attention to the other planets of our solar system, except through NASA and the Russian exploits. All the planets have their Plans. They are all part of our solar system and the solar system evolves together. (Part One)"

"Not all the planets are at the same point in evolution. Some are very low in evolution. Some, like Earth, are about halfway along the path. Some are very evolved indeed. As we have hundreds of thousands of lives to go from being an early animal man or woman to a Master, so a planet has seven expressions or rounds, each of which is millions of years long. (Part One)"

"Some, like Venus, are in their last round. Venus is the alter ego, the higher aspect, of Earth. Earth is about at the halfway point, in the middle of the fourth round. At that point a planet begins to find its course, its destiny. Its people begin to wake up. This is happening in the world today. Humanity is waking up from a long sleep in which it lost contact with reality, with the purpose and meaning of life on Earth. It became deeply embedded in the profound materialism in which it is still involved to this day. (part 1)"

"Our nuclear scientists believe they have total control of nuclear energy, which, demonstrably, they do not. They have no understanding of the four etheric levels of matter above the solid, liquid and gaseous levels and therefore a limited knowledge of what they know as nuclear energy. It is actually etheric, physical matter which we should not be using. Nuclear energy is, as it says in the Bible, “that which stands where it ought not”. Nuclear fission should not be utilized. It is deadly and is increasingly damaging the health of the people of this planet. The people of other planets spend countless hours mopping up this energy."

"Every planet is surrounded by a magnetic field. It is made up of lines of force that criss-cross, and where they criss-cross they form vortices.These vortices have been replicated on the dense-physical plane by our Space Brothers as part of a new energy grid that Maitreya calls the Science of Light. This energy grid in relation to electrical energy brought directly from the sun will give us the new Science of Light as predicted by Maitreya. It will give this planet, as on other planets, unlimited, safe power for all purposes, in ways that cannot be bought up or cornered by any group of men."

"This technology will not be given until we have abandoned war for ever. Most essential today is that we should abandon war for ever, come to a co-operative agreement among all people that war is a thing of the past. This will be the basic point of Maitreya’s early teaching. He will stress again and again that we have to make peace. Nothing short of peace will do because we can now destroy all life, human and subhuman, on planet Earth. Maitreya and the Masters come in part to make sure that we do not destroy our planet."

"If we did destroy the planet, it would have irrevocable consequences for the rest of the solar system, and the future for humanity would be dreadful indeed. We would have no planet to live on, and would have perpetrated a terrible crime against ourselves and the other planets. We would end up incarnating on some distant, dark planet, not at all evolved. We would have to start at the beginning, as we were millions of years ago, and take again the long slow climb upwards. It would be unbelievably painful and restrict our evolution for thousands, perhaps millions of years. Why choose that? Why, indeed, choose such an end?"

"The nature of the Space Brothers is to serve. They make great sacrifices to help our planet. In their thousands they have come, and they spend their time and energy helping us in every way. They create vortices which are visible as crop circles to be sure, but also invisibly across the world in general."

"The crop circles are only an outer tangential sign of their presence. If you have the eyes to see, this sign tells you that someone of tremendous intelligence, skill, tact and reserve has touched the edges of our garment, and said: “We are here.”"

"They could land, make a big noise and tell us that they are here, but they do not. They make contact quietly, sensitively – so that they do not drive us to panic. If they come down and people panic and are terrified, the Space Brothers just go away. If the people are not terrified, if they do not panic, then things might happen. The Space Brothers might introduce themselves, and they have introduced themselves, to thousands of people of this Earth. These are people who to this day have never mentioned their meeting with a spaceship and with spacemen who came out of it, who spoke to them without seeming to speak, but made them understand that they were visitors from far off planets come in peace to help us. The people who have been contacted have been afraid to speak, afraid to be ridiculed."

"Mars is a neighboring planet at about the same level of evolution as Earth, although technologically far more advanced, so they can be of help. They like to help fellow planets who are lagging behind, who are in trouble, who are misusing nuclear energy and causing the planet and themselves to suffer. They have a great heart and wish to help humanity. They do it out of love."

"Following an aircraft, they cannot be shot down – they have a force field round them. The spaceships, too, cannot be shot down – they also have a force field round them. They have often been fired at by fighter planes sent up to intercept them but there is no way the rounds can penetrate the force field of the ship, so it is a waste of time and energy."

"This time can be seen as a time when we are experiencing the birth pains of new civilization... It's not me. It's the power of the inner truth of the story..."

"He comes for all people, religious and non-religious alike. He wishes only to be called "the Teacher' because that's what He is."

"He says 'I have not come to found a new religion. People should continue to evolve within the framework of their own tradition, whatever that happens to be. 'I have come' He said 'to teach humanity the art of self-realization... when you share, you recognize God in your brother... all of us are spiritual beings, souls in incarnation... the soul is aiming to work out it's divine purpose through each of us as individuals."

"It is competition between nations which has brought us to the very, very harmful condition of our present existence. Throughout the world... and of course more painful in the developing world than even than in the developed world... this is something we can take hold of we can change our minds... our way of thinking. We don't have to be absolutely at the mercy of these piscean ideas of division, of separation."

"We can think in other terms. The energy of Aquarius is the energy of synthesis. So the energies of Pisces have left us divided... it has given us tremendous qualities... for example of individuality."

"Two thousand years ago, only a relatively small number of people had what we call... individuality. Others had a kind of herd concept, herd mentation and they were therefore at the mercy always of those who had individuality and they were the leaders, the kings, the chief men, the warriors... who competed and warred and spread around the world their concepts, how to keep what you had and to deny it to others."

"The fundamental... the basic law of life is the law of cause and effect... the law of Karma as they call it in the east. It was put out by Jesus very simply in His time in a way that would be understood by the farmers... as you sow, so shall you reap... it's the basic law of life."

"As we think. Moment to moment, as we act... we set into motion causes. Effects stemming from these causes make our lives for good or for ill... individually and socially and globally. So whatever we think has to be harmless."

"We now have no option but to end war forever because with the nuclear bombs and armament today, we can destroy all life... it's up to us. We have to do it. We have to make the decision."

"It's obvious that the number one thing we have to do is to get rid of war."

"Maitreya says 'To get rid of war is not so difficult. It's really very simple. You just have to have a change of heart. That's all. You just have to change your heart.' Send it out to be cleaned... dry cleaned heart... you have to look at life differently. You have to look at your self differently to understand what we're here, what we're here for, why we're in incarnation at all...."

"What's the meaning of life?... what's the purpose? ...Is God cruel and hurts some families by killing babies... allowing other nasty families to grow old...?"

"Many people think there's someone called 'God' who's arranging it all. God doesn't do that. We do the arranging... and we do it through the law of cause and effect. As we think, so we are. As we think... we create the conditions of what we see around us. We all do it. The pain and the suffering of the world is made by us, not by God."

"God's a completely different idea from most people's vision... Everybody... is God... Creative, rich in ideas, full of love. All of that is there in every single individual... at their very best, but most people are not at their best. Most people are at work... working all day... to get just enough food for their families... to pay the rent... the schooling... and everyone's involved in working for money to live. Are we born for that? Is that what life is about? I suggest that it isn't. It's become that because we have come to wrong conclusions and we have disobeyed the laws of life..."

"The fundamental law of life is the law of cause and effect and therefore we have to be harmless, because if we are destructive, we're destroying the equilibrium of everybody."

"You cannot be destructive and be creative at the same time...."

"Most of us think we have to be destructive because our governments are destructive... It's destructive men in governments in the Pentagon.. the White House... the House of Commons and in the various governments who make the laws... and these laws involve war but we cannot afford another war. Another war would destroy all life on earth. So what can we do?.... We only have one option and that is to end war forever."

"So how to we get at stopping war? We have to create trust. We have to get rid of injustice."

"America, Russia and China and the states of Europe can be as greedy and selfish and rich and powerful as they are, all of them, and there could be millions of people starving to death, as there are... and you could call it justice... a different kind of justice... to me there's only one kind of justice and that's social justice, it's what happens... between nations of people... there are millions of people starving to death in a world of plenty.... there's a huge surplus of food per capita."

"Sharing is just distributing it more sanely, more humanly. Nations... have fantastic... qualities of life but don't seem to think that other people have the same rights to... that quality of life. Why not? Because they are members of small countries who are not rich? But the world is rich! There is a huge quality of abundance in the world.... tremendous quality, if the food were distributed... not one child in the world would need to suffer starvation... people die in the millions, for want of the food that is rotting away in the storehouses of the developed world. ...it's insane, but it's true... the world is divided by those who think they have the right to everything and those who have no rights to anything.... there will never be peace if there isn't justice."

"Now there are 14 masters plus Maitreya... That is one group of helpers which come to help humanity get through this difficult period between the Age of Pisces and the Age of Aquarius... The other group, another major group are the Masters who come from some of the other planets of our own system.... This system like all systems is a cohesive unit. All the planets are related and all carry on their work in relation to the Plans of our own sun. Our sun is the center of this solar system and there is an interplanetary force, interplanetary being relationship at the center of this system as a whole, and the spiritual masters of this planet are in the closest contact with the spiritual identities in each of the planets of our system. There is an interplanetary parliament of which our Spiritual Hierarchy and Maitreya is the expression of this planet. All the planets have their representatives in the interplanetary parliament. At that parliament, Maitreya focused for the other planets, the aims and the problems of Earth. It was concluded that an extraordinary movement of succor of help for the Earth had to be mounted by as many of the planets as wished to. It is not without reason the first evidence of what came to be called flying saucers, UFOs... happened soon after the end of the war. (43:36)"

"In 1945-46... & so on... ordinary airline pilots, crew & passengers would see would see outside their planes... these extraordinary dome shaped... ships... and no one knew where they came from... no one knew what they were. In the beginning most the... governments thought... the Russians thought they were made by the Americans. The Americans thought they were made by the Russians... no one knew precisely how they came to be there, what they were doing and how they had this extraordinary freedom of the air, this ability to appear and disappear and to go at fantastic speeds way out of sight of the planes that they had stood beside for a few minutes... For a few years it was an unexplainable phenomenon. We made jokes about it. Flying saucers... no one knew..."

"In 1953 a book was published by... Desmond Leslie called "Flying Saucers Have Landed"... traced the history... of flying saucers, UFOs... down through the centuries... for hundreds and hundreds... thousands of years.. He had done tremendous amount of research and found that the phenomenon of flying saucers was pretty well universal and had existed on and off for thousands of years... then an American man called George Adamski came on the scene... it was arranged that they (space brothers & Adamski) met in the desert in eastern California... he made the story known. Desmond Leslie heard about it, they met & they published this book together, "Flying Saucers Have Landed" the last chapter which is about a meeting in the desert of GA with a man who... claimed to have come from the planet venus. Meanwhile there was group of Americans set back half a mile or so away who watched the whole scene through binoculars and could bear testimony to the event... Adamski became very well known... travelled the world & gave lectures....the idea of people coming from other planets was extraordinary... (50:33)"

"The governments of the world who are responsible for the covering up for over 60 years of the truth about UFOs, flying saucers... kept from the public the vital information that this planet is a conscious part of a solar system which acts together, which has a parliament for all the planets... The beings coming in the... UFOs are 100% friendly, 100% on a powerful deep spiritual mission to help humanity A) to avoid self destruction thru nuclear war and B) to aid & guide in every way possible those who can respond to them and who are not afraid of them.. and are aware that they are friendly 55:17, that they have never harmed a soul on planet earth... And yet have constructed against them mainly by the American government and its agencies, not necessarily by the American government, but by the agencies of the American administration a series of lies, of innuendos, of blinds which have made even the strongest awareness of and contact with UFOs such a nonsense to the majority that most people are too afraid or too embarrassed, too shy to do anything about it. And yet it is one of the great happenings in our life today that we are being helped in a great spiritual mission... (56:37)"

"The Awakening of Humanity is intended as a companion volume to The World Teacher for All Humanity published in 2007. That book focused on the nature of Maitreya, the World Teacher: His extraordinary capacity to express the qualities of wisdom and love as a great Spiritual Avatar, as well as a friend and brother of us all. The Awakening of Humanity focuses on the day when Maitreya declares Himself openly as World Teacher for the age of Aquarius."

"The achievements of the age, the aspirations of the millions, the readiness to share, the aid agencies, organizations like the United Nations and the various international groupings which, behind the scenes, unite people with people and give a sense of internationalism and co-operation, will be maintained and will grow; they can only flourish in the new situation. But those which stand in the way, those narrow, nationalistic structures based on competition, market forces and greed, will find it impossible to stand against the “onslaught of the new”, the ideas of the new time."

"First to go will be the world’s stock markets. They are, as Maitreya has said, about to crash. They will come down because they stand in the way of right relationship. They really bear no relation to the needs even of trade between countries. They are an anachronism, what Maitreya calls, very accurately, “gambling casinos” which have no part to play in the future time, at least in their present form."

"When the world stock markets collapse — as soon as it is obvious that they are on their final plunge — Maitreya will emerge. He will take up an invitation to appear on a major television network in the United States. The invitation has already been issued, but Maitreya will determine the timing... After the initial interview, all the networks will want to interview Him. However, He will not be introduced as Maitreya or the Christ, but simply as a man of extraordinary wisdom and love."

"Since the time is short indeed till mankind sees the Christ, it would be wise to consider, somewhat, the likely repercussions of that momentous event. Firstly, men will awaken to a new situation, one altogether unfamiliar and strange: nothing similar will have been the experience of anyone alive; no one, anywhere, will have heard before the thoughts broadcast on that day of days. Never, before, will men have heard the call to their divinity, the challenge to their presence here on Earth. Each, singly, and solemnly alone, will know for that time the purpose and meaning of their lives, will experience anew the grace of childhood, the purity of aspiration cleansed of self. For these precious minutes, men will know afresh the joy of full participation in the realities of Life, will feel connected one to another, like the memory of a distant past. Suddenly, men will realize that their life till now was a shallow thing, lacking, for the majority, all that makes life dear: brotherhood and justice, creativeness and love."

"Many will know for the first time that they count, that they matter in the scheme of things. An unfamiliar sense of self-esteem will replace their present hopelessness; drugs of all kinds will cease their hold on men. Quietly, men’s tears will flow in humble gratitude and longing for the good."

"A new spirit of sanctity will prevail upon the Earth; men will walk on tiptoe for a time. Soon, however, men will realize that the changes needed in the world are vast, manifold, requiring patience and dedication, imagination and trust. Before long, men everywhere will engage themselves in the work of reconstruction, the rehabilitation of the world."

"Succour for the poor and hungry will take pride of place, and so will end for ever a blasphemy in men’s midst: millions will know for the first time the quiet happiness of satisfied need – no more will the dying forms of the starving disgrace the screens of the affluent; no longer will men watch their brothers dying before their eyes. So will end a dark chapter in the history of the race."

"Maitreya does not come as a religious teacher, but as a spiritual teacher. We have to broaden our idea of what ‘spiritual’ is. We have to spiritualize every aspect of our lives."

"The problem is the commercialization of all aspects of life. We say it in two words — market forces. Market forces are the excuse for everything that we do. Maitreya says commercialization is more dangerous to the world than an atomic bomb."

"Maitreya will present to the world a choice: to continue as we are, in the old, greedy, selfish, very human ways, and destroy ourselves, or to demonstrate at last the divine potential in every person by grasping the realities of life: the fact of the oneness of the soul; of the oneness, therefore, of humanity as a group of souls in incarnation. This will be a revelation for most of humanity."

"He will talk about the needs of the world: the fact of the starving millions, “a blasphemy in men’s midst”, as the Master calls it. He will show that problem to be the first priority awaiting a renewed and regenerated humanity. He will show that without addressing the problem of hunger and starvation in the midst of plenty we will never take one step forward in the demonstration of the divinity of which He is giving people a sense, perhaps for the first time."

"When a Master (of Wisdom) says “All will be well”, He means that and says it to remove fear. Fear prevents action and if you have the conviction that all will be well you can work free from the fear which inhibits your action. It does not mean that you don’t have to act at all, on the contrary. The more you have trust and are free from fear, the more useful and large in scope can be your action. Trust and complacency are miles apart. If you have trust, you cannot be complacent. If you are complacent, then you do not have trust."

"Like painting and music or any other art... living requires the understanding of and adherence to the laws and rules under which the art can flourish. This essentially new concept of living relates it to the great Law of Cause and Effect (the Law of Karma in the East) and the connected Law of Rebirth, the basic laws of our planetary existence. The correct understanding and following of these two laws are prerequisites for the creation of harmlessness in every sphere of our lives and thus also for the creation of right human relations, itself the prerequisite for human happiness. Preface"

"Historically, the evolution of humanity would seem to be one of almost constant warfare, aggression and hatred. With the discovery of the atomic bomb we have perfected our ability to destroy each other in large numbers and at great distances. Is this destructiveness, then, the true, essential nature of man? And if not, why has he behaved so consistently as if it were? The answer lies in man’s unique position in the evolution of the kingdoms on Earth, the meeting point of spirit and matter. Man, in essence, is an immortal soul, divinely perfect, immersed in matter. For long ages in the incarnational process, the inertia of the matter aspect precludes any significant expression of the soul’s perfection. Eventually, the innate aspiration of man draws him upwards and onwards until the two poles of his nature gradually come together and are resolved in total union. Preface"

"Before long, a great change will take place in our approach to life. Out of the chaos of the present time will emerge a new understanding of the meaning underlying our existence and every effort will be made to express our awareness of that meaning in our daily lives... This will bring about a complete transformation of society: a new livingness will characterize our relationships and institutions; a new freedom and sense of joy will replace the present fear. Above all else, mankind will come to realize that living is an art, based on certain laws, requiring the function of the intuition for correct expression. p. 12"

"Since time immemorial, men have known of, and expected the coming of, a great teacher, an outstanding man of wisdom and revealed truth. Cyclically, age after age, have these Great Ones come forth. Today is no exception to this cosmic law. As the new era dawns, men stand expectant as never before for a sight of the Great Teacher Who, though they know it not, is already in men’s midst. p. 24"

"Throughout the planet, old and young, poor and rich, make ready for His Announcement, His Declaration of Mission and Purpose, His tryst with mankind. As the old century and era wind to their close, men’s minds are quickening to the new energies which will fashion the forms of the new civilization and impose their qualities on the consciousness of men. These qualities – of synthesis and fusion, tolerance and goodwill, harmlessness and brotherly love – will, in time, bring the race of men to the manifestation of its destined glory. Thus shall it be, and thus shall men enter again into their age-old Covenant with the Divine. p.24"

"Men will learn and understand the subtle laws which govern their lives: the basic law of life, the Law of Karma, of Cause and Effect, which controls the destiny of all; the related Law of Rebirth, which makes possible the journey of the Soul in matter; the Law of Harmlessness, which governs right relationship, and the great Law of Sacrifice by which all evolution proceeds. Through an understanding of these laws, men will come to resemble their Mentors, their Elder Brothers, and to demonstrate the Divinity shared by all. They will hearken to the teaching of the Wise Ones and, step by step, inherit their Birthright. Men are born to become Gods and nought can change that destiny; the timing, only, lies in men’s hands. Soon the world will know that the One for Whom men wait is now among us. p. 25"

"Co-operation is harmless. Lack of co-operation, which is competition, is in its very nature harmful. Yet every young American is brought up to believe that competition is the wellspring of life itself. It is not. It is harmful and degrading to the human spirit. It is corrupting and divisive, and the opposite, therefore, of harmless, incurring thereby the Law of Karma. p. 45"

"The art of living will provide the greatest freedom for the greatest number of people, the greatest opportunities for the greatest number of people, the greatest degree of justice for the greatest number of people. That is the art of living. When, in everything that we do – whether as ordinary individuals or in charge of great enterprises – we create conditions in which the greatest number of people find good, the Common Good is exalted, maintained and strengthened. That is what the art of living is about. p. 59"

"The Sword of Cleavage, curiously enough, is the reality, but maybe not the one you expect. The Sword of Cleavage is really the energy of love. The energy of love is the sword which creates cleavage in the world. Cleavage is difference, separation, and yet, when we understand it, that energy is released to the world by Maitreya Who is the Avatar of Love. He releases that love in the world and it stimulates everybody without exception, the good, the bad, the altruistic, the selfish, the greedy, the unselfish, and so on. Everybody is stimulated. The energy itself is purely impersonal, it is neither good nor bad. It is an energy which stimulates, it brings together all peoples, and even the particles of matter which hold the world together. The particles of matter in our body are held together by that same energy. It is God the Son, the Christ aspect, the Consciousness aspect. That energy of love holds and binds together the particles of matter without which there would be no world, and when it is released in a mass way, as it has been for many years, it creates the Sword of Cleavage. p.101"

"It stimulates the good, and people look at the good and see the good, but it also stimulates the bad, and people look at the bad, and see the bad... But at the same time, if they would look with educated eyes they would see a new world, they would see differences: more tolerance, new ideas, people like Nelson Mandela released after 27 years in prison, the end of apartheid, the reunification of Germany, the division into autonomous states in the Soviet Union where ‘unity’ was imposed by an elite on the people of Russia. The world has dramatically changed.... All of this is the action of the Law of Love. This creates the Sword of Cleavage so that humanity will see clearly what the choice is: do we share and recreate the world, make it possible for all people to live together in peace and plenty, “where no man lacks; where no two days are alike; where the Joy of Brotherhood manifests through all men”, as Maitreya said.. Or do we continue with the corruption and misery and eventually see the annihilation of our world? p. 102"

"Maitreya will emphasize this and people will see clearly. But people can see clearly even today. As far as Maitreya is concerned they are already seeing the choice which we have to make: between sharing and justice for everyone or a growing distance between peoples and a war which would destroy all life. That is the Sword of Cleavage."

"The pairs of opposites have never been clearer: gross materialism, stock exchanges reeling because of overwhelming greed, and at the same time people dying in millions from starvation."

"Maitreya’s Sword of Cleavage forces humanity to make a choice: to share or die. He states it clearly: “Men must share or die. There is no other course.” When it dawns on us that we share or we die, of course we will accept to share and that will create the conditions in which all can live in peace."

"Without spiritual tension we would not have the spiritual insight. The spiritual insight which we have we probably think comes from books or from hearing people speak. This we call our spiritual ideas and ideals. We live our life in relation to these, but pay not too much heed to the idea of spiritual tension. How do we know that these spiritual ideas and ideals are not themselves simply illusion? We can only recognize illusion from the spiritual insight which comes as a result of building up a spiritual tension. Spiritual tension is not continuous in most people throughout their lives. It is not something we are given and once we have it, we have it. It is like a clock which constantly needs winding up... The spiritual batteries have likewise to be wound up and this is the value of meditation..."

"Spiritual tension is the outcome of spiritual aspiration and service – meditation, or work connected with the emergence of Maitreya and the Masters, work which has a spiritual ideal as the generating energy for the work. The spiritual tension reaches a point which can then be seen in some creativity, when creativity is the result, when you have built up the spiritual tension to a point when the pressure forces you into spiritual action. And it is action. It is not going around with a lovely sense of yourself as a ‘spiritual person’. It is nothing to do with that; that is mainly glamour. This sense that one is a spiritual person, always looking slightly upwards, rolling the eyes and always talking quietly, never laughing out loud, only in a genteel manner, never saying anything strong or rude, or conflicting with other people, being ‘spiritual’ – that is glamour. Even the idea of ‘being spiritual’ is a glamour. If you are spiritual you do not think about it. p. 189"

"The spiritual batteries are charged by spiritual thoughts and spiritual thoughts are creativity. It is not thinking nice thoughts; it is being creative in whatever manner one is creative. That builds up spiritual tension. Meditation builds up spiritual tension, especially Transmission Meditation. It is action of a spiritual nature, and I do not mean that as what is normally called ‘good’ action – of course it will be good if it is spiritual action. But it does not have to be self-consciously good or ‘spiritual’. It is action for the good of the world. Whatever transforms the world into a better state; every such action is spiritual whether it is on the physical, emotional, mental, or soul plane. Whatever brings the person or humanity as a whole to a higher level is fundamentally spiritual. p. 191"

"We do not have even fragments of the teachings of former World Teachers given prior to certain knowledge of Their existence. We do not have the teachings of a Christ, or a Buddha, or a Krishna, except seen through the eyes of later followers. For the first time we are given the flavor of the thoughts and insights of a Being of immeasurable stature to enable us to understand the path of evolution stretching ahead of us which He has come to outline for us. The impression left in the mind by the Teacher is that the breadth and depth of His knowledge and awareness have no limits; that He is tolerant and wise beyond conception, and of amazing humility."

"Few could read from these pages without being changed. To some the extraordinary insights into world events will be of major interest, while to others the laying bare of the secrets of self-realization, the simple description of experienced truth, will be a revelation. To anyone seeking to understand the Laws of Life, these subtle and pregnant insights will take them quickly to the core of Life itself, and provide them with a simple path stretching to the mountain-top. The essential unity of all life is underscored in a clear and meaningful way. Never, it would appear, have the laws by which we live seemed so natural and so unconstraining."

"The new energy affects everyone — Everyone is being affected by the new energy pouring into the world. Those who believed in political, religious and philosophical systems have become disillusioned because they have failed to bring peace, prosperity and happiness. You can only solve the problems of the world with a sense of realism that is not clouded by ideology or market forces."

"The Middle East — Although the people are being made aware by the new energy, it is being blocked by political attitudes that cling to the past. This blockage is being flushed out in a wave of destruction.Political and religious leaders are confounded by events. But out of this confusion will come an awareness that will strike the people and create in them an aura of expectancy. People will begin looking for direction, guidance and understanding."

"Awareness and children — Awareness will be respected in the home and in the school as a sacred, God given gift. Awareness is the mother of creation. Awareness can never be divided, nor imposed. Textbooks cannot describe it, because there is no beginning nor end to it. Awareness can only be experienced. To inspire a very young child to look for God is undivine, because in this way you create isms. Awareness is a seed in all creation and in every individual. If you allow the child to have his natural growth, you will allow his awareness to grow; the child will enjoy normal life and will not be dogmatic. In awareness you do not possess children, yet they come closer to you. Even now, children as young as nine or 10 are raising funds to feed the hungry. Imagine what they will be like when they are tomorrow’s citizens. Children can do it. Politicians cannot do it."

"Life after death — Life in the universe is absolute; in creation it is always relative. That is why people should not cry at death; it is not something horrible or ghastly. Their friends and loved ones have simply returned to their homeland. The books and writings received by writers through channelled sources are a sign that this message about life on the other side of death is beginning to get through to humanity."

"The human race is now being inspired to experience a feeling of awareness. People will not be able to explain it. They just know that they feel different about life."

"Third World debt — The debt will be written off. There is no possibility of doing anything else. There is no way in which this debt can be recovered. It is not through an increased burden on taxpayers in creditor nations that the solution will be found to this dilemma. Instead, money which has hitherto been spent on defense will be found to meet this situation. Defense will no longer be the first priority as tensions begin to decrease around the world."

"You and I are One — Whoever, whatever, wherever you are, tread the divine water of cleanliness which is detachment. I have not come to teach you anything new. Be honest to yourself, sincere to yourself, and be detached. This method is so simple, so sweet, it is free from religions, ideologies, politics. It makes one experience who one is. Fulfill your role, yet be free."

"Part One... discusses at length the opposing ways of approaching and dealing with life: co-operating or competing. It traces the competitive spirit back to the animal kingdom and shows its gradual replacement by co-operation as humanity advances. Many of the problems of the modern world are seen in this context and co-operation is shown as the way, in line with our soul’s intent, to solve them."

"Part Two, ‘The Problem of Glamour’, tackles the ever present problem of illusion — glamour is illusion on the astral/emotional plane. It is shown as the fog that hides the truth of reality from most of humanity and causes the pain and suffering of the world. Under the impact of new and powerful energies these glamours are now focused as never before, leading eventually to a great leap forward in human evolution as we free ourselves from their age-old grip."

"Part Three, ‘Unity’, presents the idea of unity from an entirely new standpoint: as the fundamental state which all of us, knowingly or not, are seeking, since it reflects the identity and inter-relation of all atoms in cosmos. Co-operation is seen as an aspect of unity, and essential for its creation. Co-operation and unity are shown as soul qualities, more and more in evidence as humanity grasps the reality of life; and as prerequisites for solving the many problems facing us today. With the teaching and example of Maitreya and His group of Masters to inspire us, we are left in no doubt that we shall overcome these problems and continue joyfully on our journey of evolution."

"More and more, men are beginning to understand the severity of the problems which face them today. On all fronts — political, economic and social — these problems multiply and cause much heartache and sad shaking of heads. Add to these the environmental problems which man’s cavalier attitude to nature and its resources has engendered, and the future for mankind looks bleaker still. The realization is dawning that mankind’s life is in crisis and that something radical must be done before it is too late."

"Men must release themselves from the poison of competition, must realize it for the glamour which it is, and, seeing the Oneness of all men, embrace co-operation for the General Good. Only co-operation and justice will save men from a disaster of their own making; co-operation and justice alone will guarantee their future."

"The era of competition is fast coming to an end. With its demise, violence and war, starvation amid plenty, greed and separation, will likewise fade from the memory."

"The world is divided into two groups: those who are holding on to the old greedy and selfish nationalistic systems and who thus represent the reactionary forces of the world, and those who are opening to the new incoming energies of Aquarius, and who are looking for a way of brotherhood and co-operation, a realization of the interdependence that results from the fact that we are one humanity."

"If we look back at our history, we can think of competition as it relates to the animal kingdom. It is natural for animals to compete for food in the struggle for survival... But we are not just animals. Although we owe our bodies and certain of our instincts to the animal kingdom, we are souls in incarnation. As souls, something other than competition comes into play in the relationships between men and men, between groups, between nations... With the advent of agrarian civilizations, the necessity for competition diminished. Competition in terms of warfare still took place very often, but the very fact of turning to settled agrarian culture led man away from the necessity of chasing each other, or animals, for the pot. A different aspect evolved: co-operation. Tribes grew in size, little market towns grew up, trading took place... You cannot build a town or a trading station without co-operation. You cannot enlarge the range of human activities and become creative without cooperation. If some are digging the soil, it allows others to build the houses. If some are building the houses, it allows others to play the flute or the harp. These differentiations and specializations enrich human society, civilization and culture. Without the spirit of co-operation none of that richness can be fostered. It needs the sense of oneself as part of a group, a community, brothers and sisters sharing the resources of a particular place, and enjoying, therefore, the fruits of this cooperative interaction."

"We have arrived at a point today where, in practical, material terms, the world is probably richer than it has ever been. There are more products per capita in the world than at any time in human history. Never has there been felt the need for so many things. Never have there been so many storehouses bulging full with products. We have reached a point of massive overproduction, which takes co-operation to produce but has led to a sustained attack on each other in the competition to sell each other these goods"

"What makes karma a major problem for people is their inability to deal with it, to recognize their own responsibility for it, and to do something about it. Most people blame their problems on other people or on circumstances: it was their upbringing, the fact that their parents did not love them, or got divorced, or left them wanting, or that their husband left them, or did not leave them. All these experiences are shed onto someone else, but of course it is all to do with karma, our own responsibility."

"We have to learn to deal with karma equably and say: “That’s life; it is, simply, life. C’est la vie.”...What holds us back in evolution is the karma which is always sitting on our shoulders and is not burnt away in the fire of service. Burn up the karma in the fire of service and you will go..."

"Our maturity is evidenced by our beginning to take responsibility for our planet on a global scale, albeit in a very tentative, barely discernible way. We are beginning to realize what we are doing to our environment... We are beginning to see that we cannot go on despoiling the planet, polluting the air, rivers and oceans."

"Essentially, glamour originates in man’s sensuous, feeling apparatus — the emotional or astral body — and in man’s identification with its action. Through wrong identification with his feelings and emotions — his desire nature — he has surrounded himself with, and lost himself in, thick fogs of illusion and unreality. This constitutes the glamour in which most people live out their lives. Glamour is illusion on the plane of the emotions and provides the greatest obstacle to progress, for the individual and for the race."

"To come to grips with glamour, humanity must recognize its mechanism, by which means the central heresy — that we are separate — is created and maintained. All that tends to reinforce the sense of separateness is the result of the action of glamour, and all that seeks to undermine that heresy works for its destruction. Glamour resides in the notion that man’s desires are real, that they have their own intrinsic validity and purpose, whereas, in truth, they are the cause of all unhappiness; no more real, no less transient, than the mirage of the desert."

"What can be done to free humanity from this ancient thraldom, in part innate in the nature of substance itself? How can man free himself from wrong identification and the tyranny of his self-created thoughtforms? The answer lies in a shift of focus, from the self to the group; in a truer identification with the soul and its relation to all souls."

"The light of the soul, through the agency of mind, is the great dissipator of glamour, and long ago the Buddha taught the conquering of desire: the Noble Middle Path between the pairs of opposites. In the light of the soul the essential unity is seen, the astral waves subside and the aspirant finds himself at initiation’s gate."

"For some people the wait for Maitreya to emerge has been too long. They become angry, impatient, disillusioned, discouraged, alienated, cynical, frustrated, bitter, disaffected. In a word, they have lost faith, which in their case is rooted in their emotional aspiration rather than their soul intuition."

"We are really talking about evolution when we talk about glamour. Glamour is the biggest obstacle to evolution. Evolution is mainly the building-in of good character traits... The disciple must, above all, have courage, steadfastness, patience, the ability to ‘stay there’ and not run away from difficulties which have been placed before us to bring out the best in us... The disciple also needs humility and simplicity. We need the ability, probably above all, to renounce the lower for the higher, which is the Law of Sacrifice. This leads naturally to right detachment."

"We have to become aware of what glamour is and what it is not. Glamour is anything that hides the truth from our experience. Are we seeing reality? If so, there is no glamour involved. Or are we seeing reality through a fog of illusion? Most people... are seeing reality to some degree through glamour. Once the step beyond 1.5 to 1.6 is taken, the polarization shifts from astral (the seat of consciousness of the vast majority of people) to mental polarization. Over 90 per cent of all people are astrally polarized... Once you take the first initiation, you begin to awaken to the glamours. You will go on having them. You will go on being as blind as you ever were in finding your way through the labyrinth. But gradually you will see that it is a labyrinth, that there are doors leading nowhere. Gradually a light will start to descend as you progress and make more and more contact with your own soul — through service and meditation..."

"Unity must be sought for with all diligence. In unity there is not only strength but beauty. Cultivate unity as a wise gardener cultivates his garden, tending carefully each new bud and shoot. Unity follows every true manifestation of love and graces each achievement of the spirit. Take unity as your banner and walk the way of power. Unity makes all things possible. Without unity nothing is certain; the finest possibilities come to dust. Achievement lies in the right use of the given capacities; lacking unity, the highest potential may be wasted."

"Through sharing alone will justice be confirmed. Sharing alone will bring the peace desired by all the nations. When men share and destroy the walls of separation they will know at last the truth of their existence and flood the world with brotherhood and love."

"Take sharing as your guide into the future. Release your brothers from the grip of poverty and pain. Open yourselves to the impulses of the soul and establish in your midst the Will of God."

"Through unity alone will men conquer. The strength of unity will open all gates. Hold fast to the ideal of brotherhood and cease to mock your brother's efforts. Know that he, too, faces the storm and struggles in the dark."

"Whenever men meet together in large groups they adopt a different view of themselves and look at each other in a new way. They are emboldened, strengthened in their desire and gravitate to those who support their viewpoint. This may seem natural but why should it be so? Essentially, all men inwardly seek unity and find its reflection in conformity of thought and ideas. This instinct is behind the formation of political parties and other groups. The ideological consensus acts as a magnet and strengthens the potency of the whole."

"Groups and parties flounder when the inner unity is disturbed. Unity is a soul quality and essential for the cohesion of the group. Too great an emphasis on individuals and personality differences thus tends to weaken the unifying ties which hold the group together."

"The Masters do not look for perfection. If They did there would be nothing done because there is no perfection anywhere. They even accept some of the most glamoured individuals I have ever come upon as being useful in their way; information stemming from sources that to me are 100 per cent from the fifth astral plane. They accept that as useful in that it brings the idea of the Masters to the world."

"People are so immersed in themselves that they believe everything that they experience, including their astral dreams when they are awake. They believe it and think it is real, just as you think for a few seconds that your dream is real. You come out of the dream and say: “Ah, it was only a dream, what a shame,” or: “Thank God, it was only a dream.” Most times you are too busy looking and thinking and doing to pay attention to these astral imaginings."

"In some people these are so much with them that they get all sorts of intimations and they say: “I have a feeling; I feel that this is so.” If you are a disciple and you know something, you do not feel it, you know it. You know it or you do not know it, you never feel it. Astrally-focused people always feel it. “I have a feeling that this is happening or this is going to happen.” You can be sure that it is not, because it is just a feeling like any other dream."

"The sixth astral plane is where you get higher aspirational teaching. For example, A Course in Miracles was given by the Master Jesus to a disciple who works on the sixth astral plane. That disciple gave it to a medium (although she did not know she was a medium) who took it down. It is pretty pure. That is an example of a very high level of teaching coming from one of the Masters, which eventually reached the physical plane but from the sixth astral plane. This is a way in which quite high spiritual teaching can be given on the astral planes. Normally, the Masters eschew the astral planes. They never work on the fifth astral plane Themselves, but They do give work, or experiences, from time to time, on the sixth astral, the plane which is more to do with the heart than the solar plexus."

"Everybody in the world has the responsibility for maintaining the peace in the world... Everybody in the world, whoever they are have the responsibility for world peace... practically, those so called democracies who have some sort of say even if it is only by putting their votes down on a card in a system which may or may not work, is more or less imperfect have the responsibility of using it and bringing a result in that way. They have perhaps more responsibility than have the starving millions of the world... with no connection with any political structure and so have no means of making their needs felt. ...Needless to say, they are those with the greatest needs of all, but they have no voice and it is precisely that voice which Maitreya will give to them. He will give voice to the needs of the poor and the hungry and the displaced and the sitting in jail people of the world. Hundreds of thousands of people are in jail simply for the crime of having a different point of view from that of their present government and these people have no voice. It's taken for granted that they'll be incarcerated and languish in prison. Very often tortured to boot. Maitreya will speak for them and all who need and have no voice, but those who have today a voice, who have education, the voting system, who have a degree of democracy, have a special responsibility..."

"There are very powerful forces in the world who see things in different ways. It always has been like that and that habit of seeing things in a particular way has become institutionalized and the habit, the conditioning is so strong, the glamour goes so deep, that humanity as a whole... is going to take a long time and with much heart searching to find a consensus. So you should not look for dramatic changes in the immediate future. The changes will take place bit by bit with the minimum of upset, the minimum destruction or conflict in the societies of the world, so that it is acceptable. Whatever is acceptable will be implemented. What is not acceptable... will be held over until it is acceptable and it will only be acceptable when trust is created. That trust will be created by the economic change, the number one change, the answer to all our problems really, the starting part of the answer to all our problems is in the change in the economic redistribution of the world's resources, which... the masters [have] written over and over again is the key to all further changes because it creates trust and when you create trust, all things become possible.Then you get changes in the political field, changes in the political field make changes in the economic field easier and these make easier changes in the purely practical field of looking after the planet."

"Then, not only America, but the Europeans, Japan, and some of the more powerful industrialized nations will have to look very seriously at their plans for implementing an agreement like the Kyoto agreement but further agreements which will be brought forward and signed by large numbers of groups. In this situation, the United Nations will become the key factor. Then it will come into its own... The world owes the United Nations a tremendous debt. It is one of the great educators of the world. It is one of the great medical sources for millions and millions of people. Health care for groups who have no other means of healthcare... Without the United Nations, which is a triumph of modern society, millions and millions of people would go wanting, even more than they do (now)."

"The Great Approach: New Light and Life for Humanity is about the coming into the world of the Masters of Wisdom, with Their leader Maitreya, the Christ, as World Teacher; and about the implications for humanity, as well as for the Masters Themselves, of this great event. The book is divided into three independent but related parts. It includes articles from my Master, my own edited talks, and a very wide range of questions and answers arising from these talks."

"Part One, ‘Life Ahead for Humanity’, provides an overview of the background and history of the Masters and Their return to the everyday world. In particular, it focuses on the events leading to the gradual emergence of Maitreya and to the Day of His Declaration. This will be an extraordinary ‘Pentecostal’ experience for humanity, and the start of the gradual transformation of all our structures and institutions... Preface, p. ix"

"Part Two...deals with that most extraordinary event, the externalization of the work of the Spiritual Hierarchy onto the physical plane for the first time in 98,000 years in Their role as teachers. This is a climactic event for the Masters Themselves, as well as for humanity: They return to physical-plane activity, only now in group formation, in order to re-enact Their own life expression in preparation for the Way of the Higher Evolution. This is part of the long-term plan of the coming together of the Masters and humanity, and the evolution of Hierarchy Itself as a centre on this planet..."

"Part Three begins with my commentary on an article by my Master, ‘Let there be Light’, which was previously published in Share International magazine (December 1983). It deals with Light from the esoteric point of view, including the Light of Knowledge, the Christ Principle, Cosmic Electricity and the new Science of Light, which will transform our future."

"This information is about the total transformation of every aspect of our lives: political, economic, religious, social, scientific, cultural, educational and personal. If what I say is true, the current ways of thinking, living, relating and expressing our inner selves will be fundamentally altered in the time ahead. If this is your first acquaintance with this information, you may find it difficult to accept and believe, especially if you are approaching it from an orthodox religious or philosophical background. If you find it impossible to believe, please be assured that I shall not be the slightest bit offended or even disappointed. Preface, p. x"

"For myself, I am totally convinced that these are the true happenings of our time; that, even as I write, these events are unfolding. As they further unfold, I believe they will prove to your fullest satisfaction that this is the true condition of our present time in history. p. 1"

"My conviction is the result of my study, over many years, of the Ageless Wisdom Teachings. This body of teachings was given to the world by the Masters of Wisdom, in particular, that phase of them which was released to the world by the Tibetan Master, Djwhal Khul, through an English disciple, Alice A. Bailey, between 1919 and 1949... a body of teachings which follows sequentially on those given through Madame Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, founder of the Theosophical Society, between 1875 and 1889. The Theosophical teachings were the preparatory phase of the Ageless Wisdom Teachings... The Tibetan Master... predicted a further, revelatory, phase which He said would emerge worldwide... some time after 1975... revelations coming from the Masters, and above all from the Master of all the Masters, the Lord Maitreya, Who embodies the Christ Principle and is, therefore, the Christ on our planet. p. 2"

"My conviction is based on my own personal experiences and contacts. But having said that, I would like to assure you that what I say I present to you for your consideration only... If it appears to you to be right, logical, if it has the ring of truth... then by all means accept it, but otherwise not. I shall be perfectly content if people approach this information with an open mind. That is all I ask... I know that it is almost an impossibility."

"The Masters of our Spiritual Hierarchy, Who ought to know the age of humanity, put it at 18½ million years... None of us remembers it, but our unwritten history is there. One day the history of humanity going back to those times will be written and known, and even shown on television."

"Over the ages, if we had had a more open attitude to knowledge, to change of consciousness, to change of perception of the possibilities of life and the nature of the reality in which we live, people like Galileo or Copernicus would have had altogether easier lives."

"The world is divided, therefore, into two groups — the conservative, reactionary groups holding on, fighting a last ditch stand against change, and the newer, younger, progressive groups responding more to the quality and energy of Aquarius. That confrontation can be seen in political, economic, religious and social spheres in every country of the world. p. 6"

"The evolutionary path, humanity will come to understand, is a scientific one. It does not take place haphazardly. It is open to everyone, and we are all evolving at somewhat different rates. That is why some become Masters ahead of others. Our last few incarnations are marked off by certain great expansions of consciousness, five in number. These constitute the five major planetary initiations. Each one gives to the initiate a deeper insight into the plan of evolution, into the mind of the great cosmic Being, the Planetary Logos, Who ensouls this planet. p. 8"

"This planet itself is a living, breathing, incarnating entity. It does not incarnate in exactly the same way as we do, but does so in relation to the Plan of our Solar Logos. p. 9"

"The first group of Masters, the vanguard, came in 1975 — one into New York, one into London...Darjeeling...Tokyo...followed by one in Moscow and another in Rome. The one in Rome is probably the best known of all the Masters, the Master Jesus. The disciple Jesus, as He was in Palestine, was overshadowed by Maitreya, the Master of all the Masters."

"Maitreya embodies what we call the Christ Principle, the energy of love. He is the Lord of Love, as His brother the Buddha was the Lord of Wisdom. Six hundred years before Jesus, the Buddha overshadowed and worked through His disciple the Prince Gautama, and the Prince Gautama became Gautama Buddha. The Buddha showed the Wisdom of God in its perfection in a man for the first time. Six hundred years later, Maitreya, the Lord of Love, overshadowed His disciple, Jesus, who was not yet a Master but very near it, and showed the Love of God in its perfection in a man for the first time. In so doing, He inaugurated the Age of Pisces, which is now coming to an end. P. 9"

"At this very moment, we are dashing headlong towards the edge of a precipice which would mean the end of all life on this planet. I personally believe that will not happen. But unless we change direction, we would, through the Law of Cause and Effect, destroy all life, human and sub-human, on Earth."

"Very shortly we will be faced by Maitreya with a choice. We are already faced with it, but the vast majority of people do not even consider it something to take seriously. p. 10"

"The energies of Pisces have divided humanity because we have over-emphasized the individuality that the Piscean experience has given us. Our idealism has been very narrow and self-directed, so we have become fanatical believers in our own ideal — whether democracy, fascism or communism... These beliefs create the divisions and separations... We have to live and interact with other people, and we can do it through cooperation or through competition. p.12"

"Until now, the vast majority of humanity has decided that competition is the only way forward. That belief is driving us to a totally untenable position. Today the major expression of that tension is in the political and economic fields. Humanity is going through a great spiritual crisis which is focused through these areas of activity and must be resolved in them. If it is not so resolved, we will destroy all life on the planet."

"One-fifth of the world’s population, around 1,200 million people in the developing world, are living in official, absolute poverty...on less than $1 a day. They live miserable, stunted lives, deprived of all we take for granted. More than 30 million of them are actually dying of starvation in a world in which there is no shortage of food... We are so complacent that we do not even take it seriously. We think it is normal... Maitreya says: “How can you watch these people die before your eyes and call yourselves men?” p. 15"

"There is a special need all the time. This is a day-to-day problem, not something that can be solved now and again with a few dollars of aid. p. 19"

"What we call the “Space Brothers”, the people who use the vehicles we call UFOs, who come mainly from Mars and Venus but also from Jupiter, Mercury and a few other planets, have put around our planet a ring of light which keeps it on its axis... this ring allows it, within karmic limits, to be held so that the poles do not flip, which is predicted by many ‘prophets of doom’... Nothing can shift that ring of light which is put in place by our Space Brothers. Without their help this planet would probably be in chaos.One of the major activities of the Space Brothers is to neutralize the pollution with which we are destroying our planet — caused in the main by nuclear radiation which is pouring out from the nuclear powerhouses all over the world. p. 134"

"The political and economic transformation which will be initiated as a result of Maitreya’s and the Masters’ presence will free humanity from age-old inhibitions and limitations, and galvanize it into a great leap forward in consciousness. Conscious, meaningful living will replace the present confusion, doubt and fear. p. 304"

"All right-thinking people are deeply shocked by the assault on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. We are appalled by the event and the unbelievable death toll, and send our deepest sympathy to the American people. One positive thing to come out of it is that Maitreya has decided to come forward even sooner than planned to try to prevent precipitate action of revenge. One other positive thing that may come out of it is that the mass of ordinary Americans might have a more realistic view of the world than their media has allowed them in the past, feeding them 'soft' instead of 'hard' news. It is a change but in the long run it might be a change for the better, and prepare them for Maitreya's ideas."

"Every new cosmic cycle — we are entering a new one now, the Age of Aquarius — brings into the world a teacher. People like Hercules and Hermes, Rama, Mithra, Vyasa, Zoroaster, Confucius, Krishna, Shankaracharya, the Buddha, the Christ, Mohammed — these are all Masters who have come from the same spiritual centre of the planet, called the Spiritual, or Esoteric, Hierarchy, which is made up of the Masters and Their initiates and disciples of various degrees. p.6"

"God, in the esoteric meaning, is the sum total of all the Laws and all the energies governed by these Laws in the manifested and unmanifested universe. So God is impersonal. Nevertheless, that transcendent God is manifest in every aspect of creation, including ourselves. We are not separate from that creation – from God. Every human being has the potential of the knowledge, the awareness, of all in creation that we can think of as meaning God. The Masters are God-realized, which is a very specific state, in that They have brought Their consciousness, in terms of the divine spark, the Absolute, the Self, into complete at-onement with Themselves as men on the physical plane – the personality and the divine aspect are totally integrated. God is also the great Cosmic Being Who ensouls this planet. For all its solidity, its cities and aeroplanes and television studios and the like, this planet is really the body of expression of a Cosmic Being Who gives the planet its life, and Who has a plan of evolution for all the kingdoms in nature, including the human kingdom."

"We, at our different levels, from the mineral kingdom up to the Kingdom of God itself, are carrying out an evolutionary process, which, in its summation, will make this planet a perfect expression of the thoughtform in the mind of the creating Logos... There is the God Who ensouls the solar system. Our planetary Logos is only a part, a centre in the body of the solar Logos, Who in turn is a centre in the body of the galactic Logos. And on and on, galaxy after galaxy. There is no end to God; it is transcendent and also immanent in every part of creation. Every aspect of God, including ourselves, has the potential one day to know all and be all of that, and to work with the energies which create the universe. God is everything that exists, and all space between that which exists, between you and me, and around us, around everything. All of that is God. God manifests through its creation, which is made of energies at particular vibrational rates. The form depends on the particular frequency of the nucleus and the electrons of these forms. p. 11"

"Modern science has been able to break down cellular structures and show that at the centre of every atom is a nucleus with electrons around it, vibrating at a specific rate, and that every atom in the universe is made in the same way. There is nothing but energy in all of the manifested universe. The difference between that totally scientific view and that which an esotericist would hold is that the esotericist goes further and says, indeed, all is energy, but energy follows thought, is acted upon by thought. Thought is the agency by which creation takes place. The Great Pyramid at Giza was created by thought. The blocks of stone were actually moved by thought. It is very simple when you understand how to do it. You create a formula, like E=mc2, the great formula of Einstein which has transformed our whole concept of both energy and matter: energy equals mass times the speed of light squared, the speed of light being 186,000 miles a second. That formula has transformed our physics, and so we see matter and energy as interchangeable."

"The only difference between the Christ and ourselves, the Buddha or Krishna and ourselves, is that They have manifested Their divinity. They know that They are Sons of God, and They demonstrate it."

"Two thousand years ago He [the Christ] overshadowed His disciple Jesus for three years, and Jesus became Jesus the Messiah, or, translated into the Greek, Jesus the Christ. The Christ Himself is Maitreya. His consciousness, from the baptism to the crucifixion, manifested through Jesus and inaugurated the Piscean age which is now coming to an end. Maitreya has come back into the world now to carry on what He began through Jesus, and will complete in the age of Aquarius which is now beginning... Jesus taught through Mohammed. As Maitreya had taught through Him, so He taught through Mohammed. The Buddha taught through the Prince Gautama and Mithra, and Maitreya also taught through Krishna and Shankaracharya at previous times. p.29"

"The Master Jesus... in Palestine was a very advanced disciple, a fourth-degree initiate, just short of a Master. He took the fourth initiation, the Crucifixion, openly, on the outer plane. Normally you are not expected to die on a cross when you take the fourth initiation. He did that to symbolize for us, dramatically, that great experience of renunciation. He is now a Master, becoming a Master in His immediate next life as Appolonius of Tyana, who opened an ashram in north India, where He is buried. From that fact has come the legend that somehow Jesus did not die on the cross, that He was secreted out of Palestine and went to India and is buried there. It was the Being who was Jesus, but in His next incarnation as Appolonius. Jesus is now a very advanced Master. In the seventh to eighth century He went to America and taught the Indian populations, then went out into the Pacific and taught the Polynesians. They all have the legend of a white man who came and taught, and the names are all related to the word `Jesus'."

"Gradually, through the process of incarnation and reincarnation, we do, indeed, create a body through which the spirit aspect can, to a very full degree, manifest. When that happens we become perfected Masters."

"You might say that esotericism is the philosophy, or the science, of the evolutionary process, as it pertains to the human and the subhuman kingdoms. But it is about the evolution of consciousness, not of the physical form. If you want to know about the evolution of the physical form, turn to Darwin — he has pretty well summed up the nature of evolution as regards the form of the animal and the human kingdoms. But in terms of the evolution of consciousness, you have to turn to the esoteric — esoteric only so far; for that which is esoteric gradually becomes exoteric."

"Evolutionary progress is based on the process of rebirth; reincarnation is the method of our evolution of consciousness...The effects from our previous deeds, good and bad, create the conditions of our life today, and the results of our deeds today create the conditions of the next period of life, either now or when we return in our next body."

"The word spiritual means the active betterment of life for all people, for the most people. Spiritual is anything which brings a man or woman to a higher state of life, whether that is on the physical, the emotional-astral, the mental, or on the spiritual or soul plane. Anything which is towards the betterment of humanity is fundamentally spiritual; it is not only a religious thing. The religious path is only one path. So we have to create structures — political, economic, and social — which are fundamentally spiritual..."

"It is a new age that we are entering, the age of Aquarius, and of course this is an astronomical, not an astrological event. It is to do with the relationship now being formed in cosmos between our solar system and the constellation of Aquarius. For the next 2,500 or so years we will be absorbing the cosmic energy of Aquarius, which will transform all life on the planet. It is a synthesizing energy: it draws together, fuses and blends, while the energy of Pisces, the age now ending, has separated and divided the world. This process will go forward for 2,500 years and, gradually, humanity will understand the reality of its spiritual nature. This has enabled the Masters to begin to come into the world..."

"There is a tremendous misunderstanding about the anti-Christ, certainly among Christian groups... The anti-Christ is not a man, as Christians believe, who will come out before the Christ, and could even be mistaken for the Christ. The idea comes from the Revelation of St. John: the beast, 666, is unchained for a time, and then chained down for a time and half a time. This refers to the release of the energy we call the anti-Christ. It is not a man but an energy, a destructive force which is deliberately released to break down the old order, the old civilization. It was released in John's own day, through the Emperor Nero, to bring about the end of the Roman dispensation, to prepare the way for Christendom. It was released again in our time through Hitler, a group of equally evil men around him in Nazi Germany, together with a group of militarists in Japan and a further group around Mussolini in Italy. These three groups, the Axis powers in the war from 1939 to 1945, embodied the energy we call the anti-Christ. That destructive force was released to prepare the way for the return of the Christ to the world now..."

"The anti-Christ is behind us; it has been, it has done its destructive work, it has gone. Now it has to be "chained down for a time and half a time". This means sealed off to its own domain for the age of Aquarius — that is "the time" — and half the following age, the age of Capricorn, when it will be released again. In the middle of the age of Capricorn the `beast' will be released once more, there will be another great war, this time fought out on the mental planes. That will be the third phase of the manifestation of the anti-Christ. It was the war between the forces of light and the forces of evil, as we call them (the forces of materiality as they are called by the Masters), which destroyed the ancient Atlantean civilization some 100,000 years ago."

"For the last 100,000 years that war has been waged on the astral planes. It was precipitated onto the physical plane in 1939 by Hitler and his group, along with the Italians and the Japanese groups, thus manifesting, for this time, the anti-Christ. Now it has to be sealed off to its own domain. The forces of materiality have a role to play: the upholding of the matter aspect of the planet. If they would do only that, there would be no evil involved. But they do not restrict their activity to the involutionary arc, which is their natural sphere of activity. Their work overflows onto the evolutionary arc, where we are, and is inimical to our spiritual progress; it has, therefore, to be countered. The anti Christ forces are sealed off to their own domain by lifting humanity above the level where they can be used, contacted, influenced, by these materialistic forces. That is the work of the Christ and the Masters in the age of Aquarius which is now beginning."

"There is not an individual who is the devil. You could say the opposite of good is the devil, and that is in every one of us. It is just the selfish, greedy personality expression of individuals."

"We are about to enter an era in which the innate spiritual nature of humanity will begin to express itself in a mass form. Countless millions throughout the world will awaken to the true purpose of their lives. A deeper, more soundly-based attitude to life will develop and people will... come to understand the purpose of their incarnation, and, more and more, they will take a conscious part in their own evolution, creating modes of freedom and justice which this world has never before seen. Freedom and justice, and therefore peace, will allow the divine, spiritual aspect of humanity to come to the fore and be given expression, not only as a religious experience, but in every department of life. In politics, economics and education, in art and science"

"The US stock market, the Dow Jones Index, is at an all-time high. Historically, the major collapses of the US stock market (or any stock market, for that matter) occur when it is at its highest-ever point. The stock markets of the US and Britain are poised, now, for a major collapse, which will become world-wide, and will bring to an end this divisive economic system based on market forces and their corollary, commercialization. p. 6"

"Maitreya calls market forces “the forces of evil”. They have inequality built in them, and benefit the few at the expense of the many. Market forces are based on a great deception: that every nation is trading on a ‘level playing field’, that all the nations are starting from the same point. Obviously, they are not. We cannot compare America, the European states, or Japan, with Tanzania, Zaire or any of the Third-World countries. And yet, through the pre-eminence of market forces, Third-World countries are forced to compete in the world’s markets with countries like Japan, America, Germany and France. Maitreya calls commercialization, which is the tool, the agency, of market forces, more dangerous to the world than an atomic bomb... Commercialization — running life as if it were a business, whether in education or health care, for example — will bring this present civilization to the verge of disaster."

"The developed world usurps and wastes three-quarters of the world’s food, and 83 per cent of all other resources. Therefore, the so-called Third World, with three-quarters of the world’s population, must make do with one-quarter of the world’s food, and only 17 per cent of other resources. As a result, those in the Third World live in utter poverty and degradation, and die in their millions. The developed world sees this as their right to decide who will eat and live, and who will starve and therefore die. I say “they”, but that is us. We are the developed world. We are the ones who are playing God, and deciding who will live and who will die. It is our greed, our selfishness, our complacency that makes possible a situation where millions of people starve to death in a world overflowing with food, a huge surplus per capita. p. 7"

"At the same time in the developed world, because of its worship at the altar of market forces, commercialization is reaching a point where more and more people are being made unemployed. Competition forces companies to cut their expenditure on everything, beginning with people. In every developed country of the world there is growing unemployment, growing crime, and a declining standard of living — less housing, more and more homeless people, and more poverty in the midst of plenty."

"Why do we create such pain and suffering for ourselves and for our brothers and sisters in other countries? Maitreya would say because of complacency, which He says is the root of all evil. When we are complacent, we say: “I am all right, thank you very much. The rest of the world can look after itself.” This comes from the false idea that we are separate. This is the great illusion, the great heresy. Each one of us, whether we know it or not, is a soul in incarnation, a perfect, divine, spiritual Being in incarnation. p. 8"

"Without recognizing it as such, humanity is undergoing a great spiritual crisis that is focused through the political and economic field. That spiritual crisis can only be resolved by the resolution of our political and economic problems, which are based on the false sense of separation. If we would evolve, develop as a race, we must realize our oneness, realize that we are brothers and sisters of one family, under the one Divine Source, and identical with that Source. What happens in a normal family? They share whatever they have. A mother will not feed one child better than another, give one child 17 per cent and another 83 per cent of the food. We have to realize that we are one family, and therefore must share the resources of the world more equitably around the world."

"Maitreya puts it like this: “Sharing is divine. When you share, you recognize God in your brother.” He also says: “The problems of humanity are real but solvable. The solution lies within your grasp. Take your brother’s need as the measure for your action, and solve the problems of the world. There is no other course.” These sound like political or economic solutions. They are actually spiritual solutions, because the problem is a spiritual one."

"We do not know our true identity as souls, as brothers and sisters of the Kingdom of Souls. Maitreya has come, with His group of Masters, to teach us how to live correctly, as brothers and sisters of one humanity, creating therefore freedom for all, justice for all, and peace for everyone. If there is no sharing, there will never be justice in the world; if there is no justice, there will never be peace in the world; if there is no peace, there will be no world, because now we can destroy all life, human and subhuman alike."

"Those who await Maitreya as a religious teacher will probably not recognize Him. He has said: “I have not come to found a new religion; people should continue to evolve within their own tradition, whatever it is.”"

"Maitreya has not come to create followers. In fact, He says: “If you follow Me,” in the sense of running after Him, claiming Him, trying to put Him in your pocket, “then you will lose Me.”"

"Spirituality is the essential nature of our being, simply needing demonstration in outer forms. Whatever we can conceive of as human activity can be, in fact must be, spiritual. True morality is not to do with a code of values which humanity evolves to suit a certain society or a certain religious belief, but something which is intrinsic in our spirituality. p. 136"

"Many people await the return of the Christ with trepidation and fear. They sense that His appearance will promote great changes in all departments of life. His values, they rightly assume, will necessarily alter their ways of thinking and living and they blanch at such a prospect. Besides, so mystical has been the view of the Christ presented down the centuries by the churches that many fear His judgement and omnipotent power; they await Him as God come to punish the wicked and reward the faithful."

"It is sadly to be regretted that such a distorted vision of the Christ should so have permeated human consciousness. No such being exists. In order to understand the true nature of the Christ it is necessary to see Him as one among equal Sons of God, each endowed with full divine potential, differing only in the degree of manifestation of that divinity. p. 30 Full text of this article"

"When we create an economic system based on co-operation and sharing rather than on competition and market forces, we will create a more moral economic structure. When the stock exchanges collapse, humanity will be brought face to face with its illusions about the nature of reality. p. 136"

"“The pool of knowledge accessible to all”... will be largely, but not exclusively, scientific and technological. Throughout the world, scientists and technicians... will publish their work in a way accessible to all. Gone for ever will be the scientist selling his discoveries to the highest bidder. Gone for ever will be the time when great corporations can buy up technological masterpieces and put them on a shelf so that their existing products can go on and on. We have lived through a period of a tragic waste of the world’s resources. That has to stop... All knowledge will go into the computer system... the Internet... where the wisdom, the accumulated thoughts and knowledge of thousands of years of inspired writings will be available. The up-to-date inventions, the scientific knowledge which will speed up the invention process, will go on to this... which anyone, anywhere in the world, can access... When we share this body of knowledge, when everyone who has any use for it has access to it, the whole process of discovery, science, technology, will speed up amazingly. Because it will not be conditioned by commercialization, market forces, it cannot be cornered by those who make a particular brand of computer, where you have to buy the programme to make it work for you. It will do away with commercial competition. p. 181-183"

"The stress which exists in the world today is a result of competition and fear, the fear of failure, disease, death, war, calamity, and economic disruption... inevitably results in psychosomatic diseases... When we establish equilibrium in our lives through a restructuring of our political, economic and social institutions, we will find that the health of humanity will improve dramatically... Illness prevention will become the norm. p. 229"

"Today, most education, for what it is worth, is education for jobs. People are simply fitted to make their living in the outer commercial world under the whip of competition. p. 252"

"The Masters are the stimulus behind the women’s liberation movement . They see it as essential that women take their full place in total equality with men in this new age, the age, as it will come to be known, of Tara, the Mother. The Age of Maitreya is the age in which the Mother aspect manifests. The female is the Mother, the nourishing aspect; it nourishes the child, the family, the civilization... it is essential that women play their full part with equal status in the life of humanity. In the West this is becoming very largely a fact, but in large areas in the East this is sadly very far from being the case. Women are often seen as little more than chattels. A great change has to take place. That is why the women’s liberation movement was inspired by the Masters. p. 379"

"Time itself is an illusion, but timing is very important. Timing is sensing the window of opportunity. This is not conditioned by time but by the cyclic movement of life itself. That creates the condition in which a window of opportunity opens for that individual, a karmic opportunity, an opportunity in which his astrological relationships will provide him with a field of energies, a sudden influx of energies, which, if acted upon, will carry him forward — and if not acted upon will be lost. p. 553"

"Shakespeare said: “There comes a tide in the affairs of men which, if taken at the flood, moves on to fortune.” Shakespeare was initiate. He knew all about this, and throughout his works are the answers. The aim is to recognize the window of opportunity, to be so skilled and so in the rhythm of your work, that when it opens, you are there. If there is no rhythm, you could be asleep. If you set a rhythm and never sleep — I do not mean never go to sleep in bed — but if you are not mentally asleep, and do not turn off your consciousness, if you keep your consciousness alive and aware all the time, then when the window of opportunity comes you recognize it because you are in that rhythm. If you are not in the rhythm, you could miss it. This is the importance of rhythm, which of course has nothing to do with time. It is to do with awareness, a rhythmic awareness of setting, not goals, but a pattern of action, so you are always ready, “brush in hand”. p. 554"

"If you love work, then understand it as a substitute for time... Work and time are two opposites in human consciousness. When you are working with full concentrated attention, with all your faculties focused on it and not with one eye on the clock, you do not go through these pressures of time, this tremendous wear and tear on the nervous system. p. 556 Most people think of life as temporary, because they are conscious only of being a physical-plane personality... p.559"

"Evolution is not an illusion. Time is the illusion. Evolution does not proceed in time, because time does not exist. But evolution does proceed... Evolution necessarily takes place, because it is part of the great outbreathing of the Creator, which creates all that exists. It is the Becoming of the Creator. Under the Law of Cause and Effect, and in relation to the Law of Rebirth, evolution proceeds, not in relation to time as we imagine time but in relation to time in the sense of cyclic unfoldment — cyclic activity followed by cyclic inactivity, followed by cyclic activity; this repeated infinitely, for ever and ever. p. 583"

"We have had the vision for centuries: the brotherhood of man, freedom, fraternity, equality. The French Revolution was built on that. The Russian Revolution was based on freedom for man. It is like the American.... If you read the Russian Constitution and the American Constitution, you will find that they are almost the same....we keep this vision of the brotherhood of man, peace, equality, justice, all the wonderful divine things, but never put it into practice. Why? Why do we wait for Maitreya to show us how to do it? We could do it tomorrow. p. 591"

"Krishnamurti says: “My memory is my enemy.” Exactly so. Do you know what your memory is? Your memory is yesterday, the past. While you are thinking about the past you are not living in the Now. If you have studied Krishnamurti, almost the whole of his effort was to show his readers, his listeners, that there is only this moment; there is no time. p. 605"

"Your memory is your enemy because you identify with your memory... If you identify with the past, you cannot be identifying with the Now. That is the point. You cannot do both at the same time. There is only the Now. As soon as you identify with your memory, you cut out the experience of the Now. Get rid of your memory... and you experience the Now as you have never done before."

"How do we overcome our grief, pain, and our fears of our memory of abuse that traps us in time?... The way to do it is to give it up; do not identify with it. Ask yourself: “Am I this memory?” Obviously you are not. While you identify with your memory and pain, your grief, with the abuse that is trapping you."

"in time, whatever you identify with, holds you. That is what you are. You are pain, grief, abuse, unhappiness, all of these things. The way not to experience that pain, grief, unhappiness, is not to identify with it. Identify, rather, with who and what you are. Ask yourself: “Who am I?” But without saying: “I should not feel this pain. I should not feel this grief, this unhappiness and abuse — all the things that pain me.” Because as you say it, you are doing it. As long as you are trying to rid yourself of it, or indulging it, experiencing it, going over and over it in your mind and relating to it, you are identifying with it."

"Whatever you identify with is what you are. If you identify with the physical body, then to all intents and purposes you are the physical body. That traps the Self in the physical plane and causes all the illness — stomach aches, ulcers, and all the rest, of the physical body. p. 606"

"We are standing at the beginning of an extraordinary period in the history of the world ---- a crossroads at which humanity is undergoing a great shift in consciousness. This reflects itself in new relationships ---- political, economic, religious, social, scientific, and cultural ---- which in their manifestation will create a completely different type of civilization, one in which the true, spiritual nature of humanity, consciously recognized and demonstrated, will become manifest for the first time. p. 3"

"These changes are the result of new energies and forces entering our world. A new age is dawning. This is not a concept created by ‘new age’ groups, nor is it simply an astrological prognostication, but a scientific fact which can be verified at any astronomical observatory. It is the result of the precession of the equinoxes or, in layman’s terms, of the movement of our solar system around the heavens in relation to the 12 constellations of our zodiac."

"Approximately every 2,150 years, our sun comes into an alignment, a particular energetic relationship, with each of the constellations in turn. When we are in that alignment, we say we are in the age of that particular constellation, and are the recipient of powerful cosmic energies streaming from it. For approximately 2,000 years, our sun has stood in that relationship to the constellation Pisces. We have been in the age of Pisces."

"Our present civilization ---- now coming to an end ---- has been created by our response to the energies of Pisces. These energies have given us certain great qualities ---- above all, that of individuality. Humanity has emerged from the herd over the last 2,000 years and increasingly become individual. Each of us is more able to demonstrate our individuality as unique, conscious souls in incarnation. This is a great step forward in the evolution of the race."

"We do not make the journey alone. Throughout the history of humanity (which according to the esoteric teachings is 18 & 1/2 million years), we have never been alone. We have been led and guided, taught, stimulated and protected ---- sometimes openly, but often from behind the scenes ---- by a group of, from our point of view, perfected men."

"This group of perfected men is known by many names: the Masters of Wisdom and the Lords of Compassion, the Great White Brotherhood, the Society of Illumined Minds, the Spiritual or Esoteric Hierarchy, the Guides and Elder Brothers of Humanity.... They have beneficently overseen the evolution of humanity for countless millennia."

"Much of the work of the Masters is carried out by Their disciples, men and women in the world ---- people such as Da Vinci, Mozart, Lincoln, Einstein, and Madame Curie. By a gradual stimulus of our conscious awareness, the Masters have brought humanity forward to the point where we now find ourselves today. Under such stimulus and guidance, our civilizations have risen, flowered, crystallized, died and been renewed again age after age."

"At the beginning or end of each age, the Hierarchy of Masters send one of Their Great Ones into the world to act as a teacher for the coming time. We know some of these great teachers historically as Hercules, Hermes, Rama, Mithra, Confucius, Zoroaster, Vyasa, Krishna, Buddha, the Christ, and Mohammed."

"Two thousand six hundred years ago, Gautama Buddha made a prediction that at this time would come another great teacher who would inspire humanity to create a new and brilliant golden civilization based on righteousness and truth. His name would be Maitreya, a Buddha like Himself."

"Two thousand years ago in Palestine, the Lord Maitreya’s consciousness entered into that of His disciple, Jesus, at the Baptism. For three years, Jesus demonstrated the consciousness of the Christ ---- the Lord Maitreya ---- and became Jesus, the Christ, or Messiah. Five hundred years earlier, the Buddha worked through His disciple, the Prince Gautama, and Gautama became Gautama Buddha. p. 6"

"On 26 February 1987 Maitreya gave an interview to the major American television company, Cable News Network (CNN). He was interviewed under His ordinary, everyday name, and did not call Himself the Christ. He did say, however, that, among other names, He was known as Maitreya [...] The CNN interview was made available for possible showing in 26 [...] countries in Europe, Scandinavia, North Africa and the Middle East, but was not broadcast in the United States. The CNN office in Atlanta explained that they could not see a framework in which to present the interview."

"Sharing on a world basis is possible if you have the concept and the will. It is simply a recognition of the need and finding a way to fulfill it. The Masters have a very simple plan which has been worked out, not by Them but with Their help, by a group of initiates, economists and financiers of international standing, but who are also members of the Spiritual Hierarchy: Each nation will be asked to make an inventory of what it has and what it needs. In this way the world’s ‘cake’ will be known. Each nation will be asked to make over into a common trust that which it has in excess of its needs in any given commodity... a very sophisticated form of barter will replace the present economic system. p 143"

"The increased use of robots in manufacturing processes will inevitably create even more unemployment. This is already happening world-wide, especially in industrially developed countries. However, the use of robots creates more wealth, and with a rational world economy based on co-operation and sharing of resources and technology, the ability to supply human needs and also to increase leisure becomes practically possible. The coming Technology of Light, in particular, will free humanity from much of its self-imposed limitations today."

"The new politics will no longer be molded by the ‘isms’ of capitalism or socialism, but created from self-respect in individuals and nations...Capitalism, in its pure form, is at an end in Europe. It has no future whatsoever. Instead, countries will model their governments on a form of democratic socialism."

"Capitalism without socialism is like a great shark in the waters that will eat up everything in sight, and has no group sense or social responsibility. We need to take the best of both systems and bring them together....a fusion of the best aspects of both. Both are necessary."

"The sense of justice, brotherhood and social caring... is necessary for the West, but the sense of freedom of the individual in movement, expression and thought is necessary in the East. That is something which will... gradually become the norm in Europe and eventually throughout the world.... not capitalism or communism, but social democracy or democratic socialism with full participation of all peoples in their own government."

"All thoughts which lead you to selfishness lead you away from awareness."

"Hope is different from belief. Belief is a function of the mind. It is something which, on the mental level, appears to you to be true, valuable, magnetic, attractive – a set of ideas which together make an ideology in which you can believe. It seems to answer the problems of life, to provide answers to various questions which arise about the meaning, the purpose, of life, and so on. That is a very different thing from hope."

"Hope, I would say, is of two kinds: there is the hope which is a wish-fulfilling fantasy... It can go a long way in sustaining the person in difficult circumstances. It is the kind of hope of Mr Micawber, a famous Charles Dickens character. He was always in dire straits, impecunious, but always living in hope, waiting “for something to turn up”. That kind of hope is astral desire, and will take you, as it took him, through a whole book, but will not of itself do other than sustain your ability to live life from day to day."

"Hope, in the more occult sense... is the realization of the inner connectedness of all things; of your life and your daily activity with the cosmic scheme of things. The awareness of who you are, that you are the Self – that gives you faith or hope. Faith and hope stem from the same inner, intuitive realization of who you are, that you are here for a purpose and that nothing on Earth can shake that.... To have hope is to have complete faith in life. It does not mean to say that everything is going to go smoothly. It does not mean that on the outer, physical plane you will have a life of ease... and when you are telephoning people they will always be there and you will never have to try again. Many people think that if everything works easily and smoothly they are somehow on the right track. Following the line of least resistance is not necessarily the right way to live one’s life..."

"The Mystery Schools are the schools in which the training and disciplines for initiation are received... The Mystery Schools themselves will be of two categories: preparatory and advanced... There will be a preparatory school in Japan, an advanced one in China; a preparatory one in Scotland, an advanced one in Ireland; a preparatory one in the American Midwest, an advanced one in California; a preparatory one in New Zealand, and advanced one in Australia; a preparatory one in Greece, an advanced one in Egypt; a preparatory one in Sweden, an advanced one in Russia; a preparatory one in France, an advanced one in Italy. Thus, the world as a whole will be covered to give precise teaching to those disciples who are ready for preparation for initiation. p. 181"

"After the stock-markets crash the number one priority will be the provision of adequate food for all the people; two, the provision of adequate housing for all the people; thirdly, the provision of adequate healthcare and education for all the people. These are the basic human rights needed everywhere by all people, yet there is no country in the world in which all of these pertain as a universal right. When the economic collapse occurs, humanity will begin to recognize its oneness, and the need to co-operate and share the world’s resources."

"Maitreya will present the nations with an alternative way of living, of conducting economic and political affairs... The new government which will emerge after the stock market crash will reflect the will of the people and stand for the people. Chapter 4, Economic Change"

"The stock market crash which Maitreya says is inevitable will obviously lead to changes. These have been predicted to take the form of a reorientation of priorities by governments around the world. Adequate food, housing, health care and education, as universal rights, will become the aim. This can hardly be called ‘‘hardship.’’ To achieve this for all, of course, will require a fairer distribution of the world’s resources and therefore some sacrifice on the part of the presently richer nations"

"After the preliminary shock, the nations will meet together to discuss the means of coping with the future in ordered fashion. Those who have stood most emphatically behind the rule of market forces will find themselves outvoted in the dispensation which will pertain, and those advocating co-operation will gain the ascendancy. This will not happen overnight. The process will be gradual, but will not be long delayed. p.137"

"The coming stock market crash will inevitably cause much unemployment. This will lead to a complete change of government priorities: the supplying of adequate food, shelter, health-care and education will become paramount responsibilities of all forward looking nations. The waste of resources as today, in armaments and competitive practices, will cease. A rational and sustainable economic structure based on sufficiency will become the norm. Leisure will be the natural by-product of such a structure. p.156"

"Maitreya, the Christ, has been in London since July 1977. He lives as an ordinary man concerned with modern problems ---- political, economic and social. Since March 1978, He has been emerging as a spokesman for the Pakistani-Indian community there. He is not a religious leader but an educator in the broadest sense, pointing the way out of the present world crisis."

"He comes as the head of that group of enlightened men known as the Spiritual Hierarchy of Masters. The existence of such a group was first made public in the writings of H. P. Blavatsky and later Alice A. Bailey, whose book, The Reappearance of the Christ describes the events which are now unfolding."

"In every age great teachers have emerged from the Spiritual Hierarchy to guide humanity through its next evolutionary step. We know Them historically as (among others) Sankaracharya, Krishna, the Buddha, the Christ and, later, Mohammed. (p.13)"

"All the great religions posit the idea of a further revelation to be given by a future Teacher. Christians hope for the return of the Christ, the Buddhists look for the coming of another Buddha (the Lord Maitreya), while Moslems await the appearance of the Imam Mahdi, the Hindus a reincarnation of Krishna, and the Jews the Messiah. Students of the esoteric tradition know these as different names for one and the same individual, the World Teacher, the head of the Spiritual Hierarchy of Masters, and they look for His imminent return now."

"According to esoteric teaching, the Christ manifested Himself 2,000 years ago in Palestine by ‘overshadowing’ His disciple Jesus, now the Master Jesus. This time Maitreya (the personal name of the Christ) comes Himself, as World Teacher for the Aquarian Age. From an astronomical viewpoint, we are now in the transitional phase between the Age of Pisces and that of Aquarius. To guide us safely through this difficult period, Maitreya has taken the extraordinary step of entering the modern world. (p.13/14)"

"The media in London have informed the authorities and certain representatives of religious and governmental bodies, with a view to ascertaining their reactions to an announcement of Maitreya’s presence. In each case the response has been rather negative, and in some cases hostile. In this way, an atmosphere not conducive to bold action has been generated and a policy of ‘wait and see’ has developed. How long this can be maintained is difficult to say. It depends very much on which faction within the media involved has its way. (p. 20)"

"Maitreya appears now, actually ahead of schedule, as the Agent of Divine Intervention, to mitigate the effects of earthquakes which have been mounting in frequency and intensity throughout the world over the past 150 years. If He were to come before the world, uninvited, He would infringe, to some degree, human free will. This He is reluctant to do (and would do only as a last resort) because it would limit, to some extent, His ability to act as the Agent of Divine Intervention. The result would be greater human suffering from earthquake activities."

"The energy He may use on our behalf is related to the invocative appeal we make to Him...The more energy used by humanity to invoke Him, the more energy He may use on our behalf. (p.21)"

"Humanity has invoked Maitreya into the world in a broad sense; His decision to reappear was made between 1936 and 1945. But He still has to be invoked into the general arena of the world. The fact that the media, who represent the people, are not really responding to the hypothesis of His presence means that humanity is not either. This is governing His emergence. He must see the non-response of the media as a sign of the non-responsiveness of humanity to His presence. Whether this means that humanity is not ready for the transformations when He does come before them is another matter. I would think humanity is ready. Obviously in my work I have tended to create the most hopeful picture which could galvanize human response and hope and expectancy. It may well be that His problems are greater than I envisage, but I do not think any delay in His declaration to the world will affect the speed of our response. Maitreya Himself said: ‘‘All else failing I shall emerge into a world ready, but unprepared, a world which knows not yet that I am among you. Far better would it be for Me to come before you as the expected one.’’ So Maitreya knows that humanity is ready. (p.22/23)"

"The... earthquakes, hurricanes, floods...are the result of the wrong thoughts and actions of humanity... All atoms in creation are interconnected. There is no separation anywhere. If, as today, we create conditions in which two-thirds of the world’s population must make do with one-fourth of the world’s food, and therefore starve and die in the millions, then catastrophe is inevitable."

"Commercialization, an economy based entirely on market forces and competition, has become the new world creed. It is today the greatest threat to this planet and will bring this civilization, He says, to the very verge of destruction."

"Until now, every Teacher who has come to the world has given His teaching to a small group. It has then taken centuries for the Teaching to be disseminated----and in the process distortions and discolourations of the original teaching have crept in. For the first time in our history the Teacher can speak directly to all through the linked media networks..."

"Many people have a rather naive view of events like the appearance of an Avatar or World Teacher, believing----through prophecies often centuries old----that they are scheduled for some exact day in some particular year and in some particular manner. (Some people believe the date of the Christ’s reappearance is to be found in the mathematics of the Great Pyramid, for example.) This is not so. Chapter One"

"There is a general time period, cosmically determined, but the exact timing of such events depends on humanity’s readiness and ability to respond."

"I do not know how many prophecies there are in the Old Testament concerning the coming of the Christ in Palestine, but even had there been 3,333 the facts are that the timing of His appearance through Jesus was not involved in them ---- nor did the people of the time respond to Him; only the few recognized Him. The others, interpreting the prophecies through their religious and nationalistic hopes, fears and prejudices, rejected Him. Chapter One"

"There is not only one ‘false Christ.’ There are several wellknown teachers who believe themselves, or are believed by their followers, to be the Christ, and from my personal experience alone I know scores of deluded people who are convinced that they are the Christ. Discrimination and Spiritual Recognition are the key. I suggest that on the Day of Declaration, by the overshadowing and telepathic rapport which He will establish with all humanity simultaneously, you will have no doubts about His true status."

"A tree is known by its fruit and it is by His love, wisdom, spiritual potency and work for humanity that you will recognize Maitreya and know Him for what He is."

"Any hostility I have encountered has come from two sources: the Christian fundamentalist groups and certain esoteric groups----and for the same reason: they are both defending territory. They are, both of them, the prisoners of their own dogmas. It is not a hostile environment, however, which has delayed Maitreya’s emergence but the non-response of humanity---- through its representatives, the media, to the information that He has awaited discovery in London since May 1982. As for His safety, that is assured. He is invulnerable. Chapter One"

"He will be concerned with inspiring humanity to create the conditions in which world peace can be guaranteed. He will show that this requires, above all, the acceptance of the principle of sharing. This will insure a harmonizing of the imbalance caused today by the tremendous discrepancies in the living standards of the developed and the developing nations. His immediate proposal will be to launch a crash programme of aid to save the starving millions in the Third World. Then, over the next few years, the restructuring of society along more just lines will gradually form the basis for a new civilization. He will inspire humanity to create the new world. His initial task is really one of reconstruction. Chapter Two"

"One of the great tragedies of our present outlook on existence is our attitude to that recurring event which we call death. We approach it, for the most part, with fear and loathing, seeking by every means to resist its call, prolonging, often beyond its usefulness, the activity of the physical body as a guarantee of ‘‘life.’’ Our dread of death is the dread of the unknown, of complete and utter dissolution, of being ‘‘no more.’’ Despite the vast amount of evidence gathered over the years by the many Spiritualist groups that life of some kind continues after death; despite the intellectual acceptance by many that death is but an awakening into new and freer life; in spite of the growing belief in reincarnation, and notwithstanding the testimony of the wisest Teachers down the ages, we continue to approach that great transition with fear and trepidation. What makes this attitude so tragic is that it is so far from the reality, the source of so much unnecessary suffering. Our fear of death is our fear that our identity will be obliterated. It is this which terrifies. Did we but realize and experience our identity as an immortal Being which cannot die or be obliterated, our fear of death would vanish.(p. 250)"

"It seems obvious that a true realization of the implications of reincarnation (and not simply an intellectual acceptance) will transform the whole Western approach to reality. The idea that life is not short, brutish and arbitrary; that there is purpose and plan; that we are undergoing a process of gradual perfectionment; above all that the great Law of Cause and Effect governs our existence, must change our viewpoint. The need for right human relationships, for harmlessness, will become abundantly clear. (p. 271)"

"(Annie) Besant is correct. To be exact, my Master says it is 4,700 years. The Buddhist figure of 200,000 years refers back to the major decline of spirituality in late Atlantean times which led to the destruction of the Atlantean land-mass and civilization nearly 100,000 years ago. This can be seen as the beginning of a ‘dark age'. [Text is Creme's reply to Q: Besant says that Kali Yuga was the last 5000 years. Buddhism had always said 200,000 years. Which is correct?] (p. 300)"

"To my mind, the Agni Yoga teachings constitute one of the major attempts of Hierarchy to prepare humanity for the new age. They are entirely relevant to the present----and future time. The first book of the series, The Call, was given by Maitreya Himself, and was intended to alert disciples to the fact of His imminent return. The Master Morya, as I have said elsewhere, is one of the first group of Masters to be seen by humanity, and is the stimulus behind the occult groups of all kinds. His immediate task is to regenerate and purify the teaching of these groups... [The Agni Yoga Teachings were given] by mental telepathy through Helena Roerich (a disciple of the Master Morya) in Russian... My information is that The Call is His [Maitreya's] sole personal contribution to the Agni Yoga series.. The Call is also titled: Leaves of Morya’s Garden, I. (p. 300/1)"

"My information (from my own Master) is that the broad general outline and scope of The Secret Doctrine was conveyed verbally to H.P.B. (Helena Petrovna Blavatsky) by the Masters K.H. and Morya, while the bulk, the esoteric lore, was given to her telepathically by D.K.. She herself gave the correspondences between the esoteric science and the exoteric science of her day. It was in fact a group work. (p. 301/2)"

"Historical perspective... 1986 Maitreya contacts media representatives at the highest level in Britain who agree to make an announcement that a man claiming to be the Christ is indeed living in the Asian community government officials. Under pressure from high religious and government officials, however, this statement was withheld."

"Today, large numbers of people live deeply unfulfilled lives, dedicated only to "earning a living"... Through no fault of their own they remain passive on-lookers of a life which passes them by... On all sides today can be seen bafflement, confusion and anger... Freed by machines from the burden of unnecessary work, millions will find within themselves a creativity absent up till now, and will contribute their share to the glowing tapestry of joyful living which will become the hallmark of the new age."

"The solution to the problem of hunger and starvation in the midst of plenty will be His primary concern. To focus world opinion on the need to end this blasphemy will be His aim, giving voice therefore to the aspirations of millions for a better, more just world. Thereafter, His plans concern the stabilization of the world's political imbalances; the restructuring of the economic order along more rational lines... When the alternatives before the race for peace through sharing; or war and self-destruction are clearly understood, millions will align themselves with the advocacy of the Christ, and call for an end to injustice, misery and war."

"The outstanding attitude of the new time will be the attempt to create right relationships, to express goodwill. A massive shift in emphasis from the individual to the group will re-orientate humanity... Stage by stage, century following century, man will build a civilization which will demonstrate his growing manifestation of divinity..."

"Until now, man's attention has been focused on the dense physical plane while the causes of disease are to be found in the misappropriation of the energies flowing through the subtler bodies. Man is on the verge of a great discovery: that disease is the result of imbalance; that correct balance is maintained by correct thought and action and that such correct thought and action involves his brothers and sisters everywhere."

"Present day political structures are of three main types... Each of these forms today is characterized by a spirit of intense rivalry and exclusiveness. The followers of each are convinced that they alone have the answers to man's need for structure and organization and are ready, if need be, to plunge the world into catastrophic war to uphold their particular system... A true Democracy in which all men participate will take the place of the present sham."

"Many people await the return of the Christ with trepidation and fear. They sense that His appearance will promote great changes in all departments of life. His values, they rightly assume, will necessarily alter their ways of thinking and living and they blanch at such a prospect. Besides, so mystical has been the view of the Christ presented down the centuries by the churches that many fear His judgement and omnipotent power; they await Him as God come to punish the wicked and reward the faithful. It is sadly to be regretted that such a distorted vision of the Christ should so have permeated human consciousness."

"Little by little, a new consciousness is awakening humanity to its inner needs. The old, competitive spirit dies hard, but nevertheless a new spirit of Cooperation is likewise to be seen. This augurs well for the future, for it is by Cooperation alone that mankind will survive; by Cooperation alone that the new civilization will be built; by Cooperation only that men can know and demonstrate the inner truth of their divinity... Competition has led man to the precipice; Cooperation alone will help him find the path."

"An understanding of the continuity of all life, incarnate or not, will replace the present fear; the old phobia of death as the end of everything will vanish in the new light which will illumine the minds of men. Into the darkest corners of superstition and ignorance this new light will shine, awakening men to an awareness of their divinity as immortal souls... The true understanding of the maxim of the Christ, that what we sow we reap, will transform human existence in all its aspects. Tolerance and harmlessness not known before will replace the present separation, as men recognize the justice and the logic of the Law."

"All outer events notwithstanding, the forces of Light are in the ascendant and steadily inculcate a new and higher rhythm and purpose in men's lives. This being so, naught can disturb the plan for the rehabilitation of the world. The outer signs of turmoil and violence, of hatred and fear, are but the death-throes of a dying civilization under the impact of the new. When the smoke of battle has cleared humanity will find itself entering into a dispensation unlike aught known before, into, as Maitreya has said, "a simpler life where no man lacks, where no two days are alike, where the Joy of Brotherhood manifests through all men"."

"Throughout the world today there is a growing sense that great changes are necessary if humanity is to survive. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the political and economic fields... The divisions between the nations yawn wide, yet somehow, men know, they must be bridged. The tensions of the present can be supported for little longer."

"Within humanity today a growing number of people are achieving continuity of consciousness and are thus retaining the experiences of the sleep state. This makes for faster evolution as no time is lost in waiting for the filtering down of information to the brain to take place. It also ensures the reception of more accurate information leading to more correct action and results."

"Without doubt, the greatest hindrance to change is the present state of mass consciousness. The masses of humanity are deeply fearful of changes the outcome of which they cannot foresee... Nowhere is this more obvious than in the political field. Millions today live in conditions of abject misery and abuse, exploited by tyrants masquerading as their leaders. Yet the people, for the most part, suffer in silence, fearful that resistance will make the unbearable even worse."

"In today's sense, education is a feeble thing indeed, ensuring only the minimum requirements for an understanding and control of man's environment... Few there are who learn more than the rudiments of life's meaning and purpose, caught up, as most people are, in the daily struggle for existence... Education for jobs has replaced education for life while, more and more, the stresses and strains of such imbalance erupt in violence of all kinds."

"The growing strength of the people's voice and the growing determination to make that voice be heard... is the most important political event of our time. Throughout the world, the peoples of the nations are taking control of their destiny and demanding their rights. The inner call for freedom, intrinsic to their divinity, unites people of all races and creeds, and, in growing crescendo, will echo and re-echo until the last bastions of tyranny crumble and men can inherit their birthright."

"The question arises: why, in a world so well endowed, does hunger exist to such degree? Why, with food enough and more for all, do millions still sadly starve and bring disgrace on man's divinity? By what law do men assume the right to mark those who shall live and those who must die? From what complacent depths are such judgements made? ...Man, of his own free will, must choose the path to future glory: the path of brotherhood and love, justice and sharing... The signs are there for all to see: the signs of the new time, when hunger will be no more."

"The sickness at the heart of the present dispensation is selfishness, complacency and fear. Where these three reign, separation and exploitation, handmaidens to ruthless greed, inevitably flourish. Only a rethinking of the meaning and purpose of life will suffice to steer men from the edge of disaster... When man's erstwhile temples, the stock markets of the world, crumble and crash, that key will turn and reveal a new beauty waiting to be born."

"There will come a time when humanity will look back on this time as the 'barbarian age'. So far from the possible ideal is the present dying civilization that future men will wonder how, and for so long, were we able to sustain it."

"Since mankind has, for the most part, rejected the rule of Law, it has experienced a series of disasters which it has interpreted as 'acts of God'. These 'acts of men' bear little resemblance to the planned evolution of this Earth. When men realize this, they will make a concerted effort to readjust their thinking and actions, and thus set to rights the 'Rule of Law'. Gradually, the rhythm of the Law will impose itself on life and a new harmony and greater equilibrium will result."

"Transmission Meditation is a form of meditation which is also a transmission of energy. We would not be human beings if we did not knowingly or unknowingly act as transmitters of energy. If the human kingdom were for some reason or other removed from this planet, all the lower kingdoms – animal, vegetable and even mineral – would eventually die. They would no longer receive their quota of energy from the sun at a potency which they could absorb. This is because the human kingdom (as do all kingdoms) transmits energy, albeit in a unique fashion. Whether we know it or not (and in the future we shall know it and act consciously as such), we are transmitters, a clearinghouse for energies received from the kingdoms above us. These energies are transformed by passing through us to the lower kingdoms."

"Towards the end phase of our evolutionary journey our soul brings us into meditation. In the first life in which this occurs, it may be fleeting, but some contact with meditation is made. In the next life much more is made, until after several lifetimes, meditation becomes a natural activity of the individual in incarnation. This eventually makes the journey inward to the soul automatic."

"The purpose of our evolutionary existence, then, is to manifest the soul’s qualities on the physical plane, and so to spiritualize matter. Meditation provides a more-or-less scientific means, depending on the meditation, of contacting the soul and gradually becoming at one with the soul, so that it can manifest clearly and potently on the physical plane. When we see such individuals, we perceive them as radiating meaning and purpose – for example, exceptionally creative artists, scientists, politicians or educators. Such persons are quite obviously governed by a force altogether different from the norm. It is the energy of the soul which is pouring through them, making them the creative beings who enrich our culture and civilization."

"Transmission Meditation is the simplest method I know to accomplish this soul contact. Many meditations require that the individual master a powerful concentrated mental activity, which is more than most people can do. What people call meditation is often not meditation but simply concentration or even just reverie. There are five stages of meditation, each one leading gradually into the next: concentration, meditation, contemplation, illumination, and inspiration. Transmission Meditation can enhance all of these. Since the declaration by the Christ in 1945 that He would reappear at the earliest possible moment, there is as never before an enormous potency of energy at the disposal of the Masters. When He made that decision, He became the channel for colossal cosmic and extra-systemic spiritual forces. These need to be ‘stepped down’, or they simply bounce off the bulk of humanity. By the work of Transmission Meditation groups, however, these forces become transformed and readily available and accessible."

"In a Transmission group, you simply let yourself be an instrument, while the energy is put through your chakras by the Masters. You act as a positive, poised, mental channel through which the energy is sent in a highly scientific manner. It is directed by Them, by Their thought, to where it is most useful and most needed."

"To form a Transmission Meditation group, all you need is the intention and desire to serve, and two other people who agree to transmit with you. Of course, the more people the better, but three in itself is a group. The meditation used is simple, but it is the most dynamic I know. It requires no extraordinary expertise. It is a simple aligning meditation – the alignment of the physical brain and the soul by the act of holding the attention at the ajna centre (chakra) between the eyebrows."

"Humanity has been given an extraordinarily potent tool whereby the energy of the Masters can be invoked at will. It is called the Great Invocation. The Christ Himself used it for the first time in June 1945, when He announced to His Brothers, the Masters of Wisdom, that He was ready to return to the world at the earliest possible moment, as soon as humanity took the first steps towards sharing and co-operation for the general good. It was translated by the Masters and released to the world by the Tibetan Master Djwhal Khul through His amanuensis Alice A. Bailey. The Great Invocation is a very potent prayer. By its use, any group of transmitters can invoke the energies of the Christ and the Masters, and, acting as instruments, allow these energies to pass through their chakras in a simple, pleasant and scientific manner."

"The important thing is regularity. What is required is for the group to meet regularly, at least once a week, always at the same time. In this way the Masters can depend on a group of individuals being physically present at that time. By the use of the Great Invocation, the group aligns itself with Hierarchy, and the Masters transmit the energies through the group to the world."

"Transmission Meditation is really a combination of two yogas: Karma Yoga, the yoga of service, and Laya Yoga, the yoga of the chakras, the energies. This is the true yoga of the coming age. By taking part in Transmission Meditation, your evolution is propelled forward at an extraordinary rate, because of the potency of the spiritual energies sent through the chakras. The energies galvanize and activate the chakras as they pass through them. The Masters register the point in evolution of any individual by looking at the state of the chakras."

"To take part in Transmission Meditation, you only have to hold your attention at the ajna centre. In practice you will find that the attention will not stay there. It will keep dropping to its usual level somewhere around the solar plexus. As soon as the attention drops and you become aware of that, you have to bring it back to the ajna centre. This is done by thinking, inwardly, the mantram OM. As soon as you think OM, you find that your attention automatically comes back to the ajna centre. While your attention is held at the ajna centre, a connection, or alignment, is formed between the physical brain and the soul. The energies do not come from your soul. They come from the Masters, from the Kingdom of Souls. But they proceed from the soul level. While the alignment between the physical brain and the soul is kept, you are in the Transmission. As soon as your attention drops from the ajna centre, you are no longer taking part. As you think OM, the attention rises again, you are aligned. The process is one of being aligned, for a moment not aligned, and then, once again, aligned, back and forth."

"The easiest way to do Transmission Meditation is to join an existing group. If there is no group in your area within a reasonable distance, you can form your own group by joining with two other people. More people are more useful, but a basic group of three is a practical working group."

"Many people practice some form of kundalini yoga and deliberately arouse the kundalini energy at the base of the spine. This is extremely dangerous unless done under the supervision of an advanced initiate teacher. The fact that the fire of kundalini can be so roused does not constitute either initiation or enlightenment. It could lead to madness if the chakras are not prepared in advance to receive it. p. 97"

"The Master DK wrote (through Alice A. Bailey) about a specialized form of Laya Yoga which will be the yoga of the New Age. Laya Yoga is the yoga of energies, of the centres. This specialized form of Laya Yoga is indeed already known. It is called Transmission Meditation... a fusion of two yogas: Laya Yoga, the yoga of energies, and Karma Yoga, the yoga of Service. It combines precisely the two most potent forms of evolution. Nothing moves a man or woman so quickly along the path of evolution than being engaged powerfully, potently, in some form of service. That is Karma Yoga. It is the lever of the evolutionary process. The other equally important leverage is meditation. p. 177"

"When the world is ready to receive Me, I shall speak to men everywhere as the One Who is awaited, the One they have called, the One Who comes to lead them into the New Age... When I make Myself known, I shall express the hope of all mankind for a new life, a new start, a readiness to change direction; to see the construction of a New World in which men can live in peace; can live free from fear of themselves or their brothers; free to create from the joy in their hearts; free to be themselves, in simple honesty."

"I am the Stranger at the Gate. I am the One Who knocks. I am the One Who will not go away. I am your Friend. I am your Hope. I am your Shield. I am your Love. I am All in All."

"The Messages are relayed by me to the audience. No trance or mediumship is involved, and the voice is mine, strengthened in power and altered in pitch by the overshadowing energy of Maitreya. They are transmitted simultaneously on all the astral and mental planes, while I supply the basic etheric-physical vibration for this to take place. From these subtle levels, the Messages impress the minds and hearts of countless people who are gradually made aware of the thoughts and the Presence of the Christ. He releases in this way fragments of his Teaching, to prepare the climate of hope and expectancy which will ensure his being accepted and followed, quickly and gladly. (Foreward)"

"It is an enormous, and embarrassing, claim to have to make ― that the Christ is giving messages through oneself. But if people can rid their minds of the idea of the Christ as some sort of spirit, sitting in "heaven" at God's right hand; if they can begin to see Him as indeed He is, as a real and living man (albeit a divine man) who has never left the world; who descended, not from "heaven," but from His ancient retreat in the Himalayas, to complete the task he began in Palestine; as a great Master; an Adept and Yogi; as the chief actor in a Gospel Story which is essentially true, but much simpler than hitherto presented; if people can accept that possibility, then the claim to receive telepathic communications from such a closer and more knowable Being is also, perhaps, more acceptable. In any case, I leave it to a study of the quality of the messages themselves to convince or otherwise. For many people, the energies, which flow during the overshadowing, convince. Many who come to these meetings are clairvoyant in various degrees, and their visions of the overshadowing as it takes place is for them the most convincing evidence of all. (Foreward by Benjamin Creme)"

"In this coming time, I shall show you beauties and wonders beyond your imaginings, but which are your birthright as sons of God. My children, My friends, I have come more quickly, perhaps, than you expected. But there is much to do, much that needs changing in the world. Many hunger and die, many suffer needlessly. I come to change all that; to show you the way forward ---- into a simpler, saner, happier life ---- together. No longer man against man, nation against nation, but together, as brothers, shall we go forth"

"My Brothers, the Masters of Wisdom, are scheduled to make Their group return to the everyday world. As Their Leader, I, as one of Them, do likewise. Many there are throughout the world who call Me, beg for My return. I answer their pleas. Many more are hungry and perish needlessly, for want of the food which lies rotting in the storehouses of the world. Many need My help in other ways: as Teacher, Protector; as Friend and Guide. It is as all of these I come."

"I come to take you with Me into the New Country -- the Country of Love, the Country of Trust, of Beauty and Freedom. I shall take you there if you can follow Me, accept Me, let Me lead and guide. And, if this be so, together we shall build a New World: a world in which men can live without fear, without mistrust, without division; sharing together the Earth's bounty, knowing together the Bliss of Union with our Source... Allow Me to help you. Allow Me to show you the way -- forward, into a simpler life where no man lacks; where no two days are alike; where the Joy of Brotherhood manifests through all men."

"Many await My Coming with reverence and also with some fear. This is inevitable. My Coming will mean the end of the old order of things. All that is useless, no longer serving the purposes of man, can now be discarded. This will cause many to grieve but so it must be. My friends, My children, I am here to show you that there exists for man a most marvelous future."

"My plan is to release into the world a certain Teaching, which will show men that there exists a new approach to living, a new way forward into the future time."

"My plan is to show you that the way out of your problems is to listen again to the true voice of God within your hearts, to share the produce of this most bountiful of worlds among your brothers and sisters everywhere."

"Man's problem today, as always, is of his own making... By the misuse of his divine freewill, man has placed his future, and that of all the kingdoms, in jeopardy. Many today are beginning to realise this and are taking such steps as they can to avert catastrophe. This is good. But not all men see the danger which faces mankind in increasing potency. Time is short indeed for the reconstruction of our world along lines more befitting man's true role and purpose."

"Mankind has lost its way, has strayed far from the path prepared for it by God. Many there are now in the world who know this, who search and pray, and work towards the light; but many more are blind and would rush towards disaster. My plan is to halt this headlong plunge and to turn the tide. My Presence, already, is effecting changes in men's thinking, in men's hearts, and causing them to wonder."

"Will you be among those who pave the way? Will you take part now in this Great Work and fulfil the world’s need? There is no higher call than that to serve the world. There is no greater commitment than to serve your brother."

"Many will see Me soon and at first may be surprised at My appearance, for I am not the Preacher of Old, but have come simply to point the way, to show the path which must be trodden, back to the Source and into Harmony, Beauty, and Justice. My task is a simple one: to show you the way. You, my friends, have the difficult task of building a New World, a New Country, a new Truth; but together we shall triumph."

"The subject of a coming Avatar or World Teacher or Christ is one that has enthralled men of all backgrounds and teachings for centuries. Even the most sceptical will often express the wish that such a desirable event were possible, however unlikely. To these, this paper is presented as an interesting hypothesis."

"We are moving into a period of climax, leading to events which will fundamentally alter life as we know it... To some people, this portends the Second Coming of the Christ. To others it is the realisation that only through a profound inner change and readiness for a new direction in our political, economic and social life can humanity survive. Is it not possible that both of these approaches are correct?"

"Mankind will soon see that there is no alternative to sharing the produce of the world. Every other method has been tried and failed, and has led inevitably to war, suffering, degradation and misery."

"Women's liberation... It is absolutely necessary that humanity realizes that the male and female are in polarity. Energetically, both are necessary on the planet - not the domination of one by the other."

"We must show our ability to become One with All, the whole of this planetary life: with our fellow beings... We must stop exploiting the planet and misusing its resources; stop exploiting the lower kingdoms and misusing their life; show that this is One World, One Humanity, One Life. This is the destiny of mankind."

"In the esoteric tradition, the Christ is not the name of an individual but of an Office in the [esoteric spiritual] Hierarchy. The present holder of that Office, the Lord Maitreya, has held it for 2,600 years, and manifested in Palestine through His disciple, Jesus, by the occult method of overshadowing, the most frequent form used for the manifestation of Avatars."

"He has never left the world, but for 2,000 years has waited and planned for this immediate future time, training His disciples, and preparing Himself for the awesome task which awaits Him..."

"The Masters of the Hierarchy are now ready to return, for the first time in countless thousands of years, to the everyday world... Under Their great leader, the Master of all the Masters, the World Teacher, the One known in the West as the Christ, the esoteric Hierarchy will walk openly among us and lead us into the Aquarian experience. They stand now, waiting for us to take, of our own free will, the needed first steps in the direction of unity, cooperation and fusion. Then They will emerge with the Christ at Their Head, and Their Presence in the world will be an established fact."

"He [the World Teacher] will show humanity the steps which it should take to regenerate itself, and to create a civilisation based on sharing, cooperation and goodwill, leading inevitably to world brotherhood."

"The Churches have gone very far away from the religion which the Christ inaugurated; which is to do with sharing, with love, with brotherhood and right relationship."

"The history of humanity really can be seen as the history of man's response to certain great ideas which are put into the mind-belt, into the mind of humanity... So it has been down through all the ages [...]"

"It is not primarily as a religious leader that He is coming. You may look for Him rather as an educationalist in the widest sense of the word, advocating changes in our political, economic and social life."

"The major area of concern in the immediate future will be the problem of leisure: how mankind will utilize the leisure which he will have. A great many people today, because of the world labour situation, have endless leisure. They do not want it, they do not want to be unemployed, but they have leisure. However, they have not been educated, for the most part, to use that leisure correctly. In this coming time, gradually (I am not talking about something that is going to happen overnight, but eventually) mankind will create machines which will do the work which today is done by the bulk of humanity. Mankind will be released into a state of leisure which will give him the opportunity to explore his own inner nature, to know what he really is, the great divine Being he really is, and allow him to manifest that quality."

"Today, freedom from enforced activity; freedom from want; freedom from hunger; freedom to explore the nature of one's own Being; the freedom to create, is known to a relatively small number of people. It is the privileged few who have this kind of freedom. Most people work to earn enough money to keep themselves and their families, and the vast majority of the people in the world work at deadly, mechanical work which bears no relation to man's true nature, his creativeness... Some people, of course, enjoy their work immensely, and get a great emotional, mental and spiritual return in terms of energy from that work... It engages their creativity. But for the vast majority of mankind this is not so."

"In the future... The nature of work will change. We shall have to learn to live much more simply, not geared to this great mechanical civilization we have built around ourselves, especially in the industrialized West. The Christ and the Masters will show that we can live perfectly happily, even more happily, in a much simpler way, with fewer things. But those things will be beautiful. They will be made because they are needed, and they will be made with the creativeness of man behind them, whether they are man-made or machine-made."

"A completely new attitude will take place in relation to work."

"Through the power of sound, man will build and create the artefacts of his civilization and control his environment, relating it to his real needs."

"When he comes into correct relationship to his brother and his Source, he will inherit that Divine Science, which is his birthright, but is known today only by the Masters of Wisdom."

"Whatever of significance happens in any country at all happens under the inspiration of Hierarchy. There is an entire department in the Hierarchy, the Department of the Manu, which deals with the politics of the world: the great movements of the races; the building of races; the forming of nations; the destiny of nations; the working out of the political, governmental and racial divisions of humanity."

"Great experiments are going on in China and Russia, America and Great Britain."

"One of the most interesting today is what is happening in China... It is watched with extreme interest by Hierarchy, and could still go in many directions, well, or not so well. The changes which have taken place have had traumatic, chaotic effects in China, for example, the great Cultural Revolution. The kind of changes that I am envisaging, which will take place in the five centres at first, will take place without these traumatic effects; in the normal democratic way, by logical legislation and general agreement. All sections of society will take part, which will ensure the adoption of the various changes, whereas in China, and Russia, many of them were imposed. In America and Britain, today, many social changes are opposed by finance rather than by decree, but the result is the same."

"We do not have democracy today, true democracy. There is no true democracy in the world - not in China, Russia or Britain."

"We are all moving towards a more perfect expression of the governmental and political systems that we live under. In the future, the not too distant future, we will come to see that all political systems are divine expressions."

"There is more in common between true democracy and true communism than there would seem to be today. What is called communism today, as it exists in Russia, China and the communist world, is in no sense true communism, but it is an evolving structure, moving towards a more perfect expression of the thoughtform as it exists in the Divine Mind; likewise with democracy."

"Very soon we shall become aware that all political systems, without exception, are in a state of transition, more or less. All of them are changing, all of them are coming to a purer expression of the Hierarchical energy and the Divine intention which is behind them... All of them will shortly be seen to be in this state of transition, and therefore not so mutually exclusive as they now appear to be and a much greater world harmony will result from this. You will see very shortly the healing of the wounds between the nations. Over this coming year you will see things taking place which you would not have thought possible. There will be greater detente, greater synthesis."

"There is standing behind the Christ a great Avatar... It works only through groups; through the United Nations Assembly, through Hierarchy, through humanity as a group, ... through the New Group of World Servers; and it is bringing humanity together, making humanity One on the physical plane, which it already is on the inner plane."

"Another great entity standing behind the Christ is the Spirit of Peace or Equilibrium. He is overshadowing the Christ, in a very similar way to the way the Christ overshadowed and worked through the disciple Jesus in Palestine. He works very closely with the law of Action and Reaction, and His function is to transform the prevalent discord, confusion, chaos, turmoil in the world into its opposite, so that we shall enter an era of tranquility and peace - in exact proportion to the present discord."

"The violence and hatred of today will be transmuted into goodwill, and again, in exact proportion to the intensity of the hatred and violence. This is the great Law of Action and Reaction functioning. The law stated is that action and reaction are equal and opposite, and this great Cosmic Entity, the Spirit of Equilibrium, is working now through the Christ, producing the transformation of the world."

"Russia has, fundamentally, the good of humanity at heart; has, at the basis of its approach to life, the idea that men are brothers. This is true despite the harsh and cruel imposition of a system where there is a lack of free speech, movement and belief. Despite that, fundamental to the Soviet people, is this belief that men are One, that humanity is One. And, basically, in the Chinese revolution is the same idea."

"Very soon, the nations of the world will realize that all political systems have much in common. There is a similarity of intention in America, Russia and Britain for instance (Britain representing the Commonwealth of Nations; Britain in Europe represents a larger body of thinking along the same lines). They are not identical but there is a wide common ground and that common ground will find its expression in the transition of each of their political systems into something which will not be identical - there is no reason at all why each nation should have exactly the same political system - but they will grow into a kind of relationship which makes coexistence not only possible but natural and inevitable. The acceptance of the principle of sharing will make this inevitable. p. 175"

"There are two kinds of thoughtforms: those which are mental and those which are the result of man's fears - these are unreal. But they become real, because every thought is real. Even if it is an astral thoughtform, it is still a potent force although it has no essential reality."

"What is happening at present is that the forces of evil are fighting a last-ditch stand, because they know that with the Christ and the Hierarchy in the world they are doomed. They are going to be sealed off to their own domain for 3,000 years, and they will not be able to affect mankind in the same way. Hence their present desperate fight to foment, as potently as they can, this fear reflex in mankind. They work through fear. They work mostly on the physical and astral planes, but also on the lower mental planes. They create fear, anxiety and chaos. They are doing this by focusing their attention on and stimulating these thoughtforms of destruction and catastrophe, so that they should become a reality. If mankind surrounds himself with a thoughtform potently enough, sooner or later he creates a situation in which that thoughtform works out. That is how our actions work out. p. 177"

"The Aquarian Age will be the age of right relationship, the age of reason, the age of brotherhood and love. This right relationship, of which reason, brotherhood and love are the expression, will be right relationship between all the kingdoms: between Man and his Source, which is Reality or God, however you envisage God; between man and man; and between man and the animal, vegetable and mineral kingdoms."

"All the kingdoms will come into a very active, dynamic relationship as humanity comes, more and more, into a conscious relationship with the next kingdom, above the human - the Spiritual Kingdom or the Kingdom of Souls, which is made up of the Masters and initiates in the Hierarchy. Through the teaching of the Masters and through the grounding in the human consciousness of the Plan which issues from Shamballa, mankind will come to realize his true destiny, which is to act as a great clearing house for energies flowing through him to the lower kingdoms. So he will see that he has a great responsibility, on the planet, to the other kingdoms in Nature, and a change in his relationship to the animal kingdom will take place. p. 193"

"Inevitably, out of this change will come, generally, a vegetarian diet for mankind. This will be the norm. That is not to say that the eating of meat today by large masses of mankind is wrong. There is no single group diet today - one diet for all men. There are groups in the world today where the eating of meat is not only normal and right but essential... In time, when the true relationship between man and the lower kingdoms is seen, a more sane and balanced approach to diet will come about... Vegetarianism becomes the norm, becomes essential (but I do not mean to make that "essential" an imperative) for the man who seeks to take initiation; who is making a conscious effort to advance along the evolutionary path; who is taking a hand in his own evolution. At some point along that evolutionary path vegetarianism does become necessary. Not simply because it is 'wrong' to kill animals, but because the vibrational rate of the animal body, in particular the blood of the animal, is inimical to the higher vibrational rate which he is seeking to establish..."

"Common sense is the great thing in all this. You eat what you find through a minimum requirement keeps your body healthy. Each individual and each group finds for itself the diet which suits its purposes, climate, tradition and background."

"An essential fact to bear in mind in relation to UFOs is that they are etheric in nature. They are etheric-physical, not dense-physical. What we see is the result of their ability to lower the vibrational rate of themselves, or their vehicles, temporarily, to a level where we can see them and know them. The phenomenon of their disappearing is the shift of their vibrational rate up again. This is something which the Masters, too, can do. Those who have control over matter can do this."

"They protect us within karmic law. They can go so far and no further, of course. But for the work of the initiates and the disciples in the world, giving them the karmic right to 'interfere', they could do little. With the Christ and the Senior members of our Hierarchy working outwardly in the world, however, a much closer and more open liaison with the Space Brothers becomes possible."

"The planets are of two kinds. Those which are sacred planets, and those which are non-sacred. The Earth is not one of the sacred planets... Sacred planets have no evil."

"Mars is a planet which has three levels or zones - zones A, B and C. Zone A is very advanced, has beings who are very advanced indeed. Zone B has beings who are really quite advanced. Zone C has beings whom you would not want to meet on a dark night! Notwithstanding, the kind of evil there is not of the same kind as we get on this planet, because the planet Mars as a whole is within the mainstream of the Will of God, so to speak. Mars is also in the middle round, its fourth round, is not a sacred planet, and so it has evil."

"Contact is possible throughout cosmos through the common denominator of mind, if the consciousness is high enough. But of course, it is only the very highest Beings Who have this cosmic consciousness (Telepathy is a fact, an inborn fact in nature, a natural part of man's being.) Evil on other planets exists, but it is contained in a way that evil on this planet is not so easily contained... we are protected; it is all under law."

"The reality is that this planet, and humanity on this planet, are part of a brotherhood which embraces the whole of the solar system, and each is closely interrelated. The energy from this planet streams into every other planet, and the energy from every other planet streams into all planets, including this one. It is a close energetic co-relationship. We have to realize this, and that our thoughts and actions create an effect on the aura of this planet which in turn affects every other planet in this system. If we are responding in a certain way, so that the light and energy emitted from this planet is at a relatively low vibration, we are holding up the advancement of the solar system as a whole."

"I love space exploration; I think it is a great thing. What space exploration has done for mankind is to begin the process of realization that we are only one tiny centre in a huge solar system which itself is a tiny centre in a great galaxy, a fantastic Entity, which we call 'space'."

"Mankind is beginning to realize that it is not alone in the universe, not alone in the solar system."

"The space people are our brothers. We are part of a family which embraces the whole of the solar system, not necessarily on the same plane of manifestation as we are. In fact, the matter aspect of the different planets varies... if you went to Venus you would see nothing. Venus is inhabited, but our highest etheric energy is their lowest."

"In fact the advance of the space programmes, in both Russia and America, has only been possible by the direct impression of the minds of the scientists by Hierarchy; not only our Hierarchy, but by the Hierarchy of some higher planets as well. So, you see, it is exactly along the line of Hierarchical planning that this takes place. p. 211"

"Egypt was a late colony of the Atlantean civilization which covered a large part of the world. The Great Pyramid of Cheops in Egypt is far older than we imagine - the civilization of Egypt is far older - in fact, below the area around the Great Pyramid and the Sphinx is a city, a colonial Atlantean city, which one day will be excavated and revealed."

"The Sphinx, and of course the Pyramid, were connected with the Ancient Mysteries, the Mysteries of initiation, for initiation and the Mystery Schools go back to Atlantean times. The process of initiation was instituted in mid-Atlantean times, and the remains in Egypt, South America - Mexico and Peru - and also in Chaldea and Babylon, relate to these ancient civilizations. They are degenerated forms of it, for the Atlantean civilization was a tremendous, scientific civilization, such as the world has not seen since."

"The religion of ancient Egypt is, fundamentally, Spiritualism; the religion of China, for the last 4,000 years, is a kind of Spiritualism. We call it ancestor worship, but of course it has nothing to do with ancestor worship. It is the worship of the fact of the sacredness of life continuing after death - that continuity of life - so that the ancestors coexist with the men and women of today; the recognition and acceptance of that fact."

"This is the core of the ancient Atlantean and Egyptian religions; hence the apparent over-emphasis on death, the almost morbid interest, even today, in South America, in the trappings of death. But the South American peasants see a lot of death. They are very familiar with it. They are poor. Most of the coffins are very small - for children, who die in large numbers. These people live closely with death through no fault of their own. It is largely because of non-distribution of the food and modern medical knowledge that their children die."

"Egypt was the home of magic - Atlantean magic... Black magic was tremendously rampant in Atlantean times, and ...there was a great war, between the forces of Light and Darkness, which brought that civilization to an end. As a result of that war the Hierarchy of Light became occult. They removed Themselves from the everyday world to Their mountain and desert retreats, leaving mankind to fend for itself, and to learn through trial and error. They return now among us, one by one."

"Man is divine. He is also human and he has free will. And he is given the chance to exert that free will."

"Humanity must evolve out of its sense of what is right for it; has to bring its will into line with the divine will, which issues from Shamballa, where the Will of God is known."

"When the will of man and the Will of God coincide, you have right living - the Plan goes forward... When you have a divergence of man's will from God's Will for long enough, disaster comes."

"In the better civilizations you are thinking of, the Atlantean, men grew selfish, exerted their little self-will, and the eventual result was disaster. This time, man is far more evolved, is much more an adult, mental unit, and can make decisions as to his future in the light of the evidence which will be highlighted for him by the Christ. He will see that there is no alternative today to sharing and co-operation, and on that basis will go into the future. p. 224"

"I read, among many others... Sri Ramana Maharshi..., whose Path of Self-knowledge I sought to follow. Through his meditation on "Who am I?", I found myself precipitated into a sense of identity with the whole phenomenal world: the earth, the sky, the houses and people; the trees and birds and clouds, I saw to be myself. I disappeared as a separate being, yet retained full consciousness, a consciousness expanded to include everything. I saw that this was the true Reality, that one's normal waking consciousness simply covers this, keeps it hidden, through wrong identification with oneself as this body. I also saw this phenomenal world as a kind of ritual, a ritualised shadow-play, acting out a dream or desire of That which alone existed, alone was Real, which was also myself."

"Environment and energy will be the top priorities of the new era. Last will be defense, because there will be nothing to defend. When light is at your command you do not need guns and bullets."

"Maitreya is sending a clear message to the world's political leaders: no wars can now be won, and spending vast amounts of money on international arms programmes is a complete waste."

"Our prime task now is to look after the environment. This will become the responsibility of every individual, politician, guru, saint and scientist. Our energies will be spent in making it healthy again. When that happens there will be less suffering, disease and poverty."

"The time is fast coming when there will be no need for prisons, as individuals can be controlled from space. Terrorism will disappear because there will be no place for terrorists to hide."

"The Technology of Light will meet all our energy needs in the 21st century. It will need no huge budgets to maintain because it will be devised and controlled by intellectuals who do not look for billions of pounds of profits to satisfy them... Once built, the technology will last for 2,500 years, 'until the next cycle of evolution.'"

"The ambition of the politicians is now moving into space, from where all movement on earth can be controlled. But Maitreya warns that if the politicians play with this science of light and abuse it, it will destroy them. Humanity has naively believed that they are the only ones in space. But there are others there, far advanced, who have always watched over us, He says, teaching us not to kill, to respect others, and to learn to be happy and free. They have always protected humanity, and they will not allow it to destroy itself by the exploitation of science in space."

"The world stock market crash... will reorient the governments of all countries towards a more equitable redistribution of food, housing, health care and education, which as universal rights will become the priorities of all governments. After the crash, the first duty of governments will be to feed people with the right food. Their second duty will be to ensure adequate housing. Health and education will be the next priorities. Investment along these lines in other parts of the world will follow, and lastly, defense. In short, the crash will lead to a reordering of priorities."

"We think, and our leaders think, that we can go on in the old ways, exactly as we have done — more competition, more greed, more of the same, and it will just go on, we will win. It is not so any longer; it does not work. If two-thirds of the world's population are living in poverty then the economic system does not work. If we think that they will go on without asking that it work for them, then we are sorely out of step with reality. Maitreya will make that clear."

"An immediate collapse of the economic structures, a stock-exchange crash in Europe and America, would bring Maitreya forward right away. That would bring us into reality. That is one of the factors that He is waiting for, that sense of reality which it would bring about. We would see that it does not work. We thought it was working, it seemed to work for some of us, but through our complacency we did not even think of those for whom it does not work. One of Maitreya's major tasks is to throw cold water on this complacency, make it very uncomfortable to be complacent. I can remember people coming to a meeting of mine and saying: “I thought this was going to be a message of hope, but I feel awful. I feel so unhappy. I feel so guilty and horrible.” I said: “Jolly good. That is what we call love.” You have to cut through that complacency. If people only want to be, “Ah, lovely”, it is not going to change the world. It is important that they know that the Christ is in the world and not alone, and that the world is ready for change and will change. But if they only want to be made to feel good, it is not going to help the world because they are not the people who are actually working in the world."

"My information is that... [Maitreya] is emerging very, very soon – even by our standards. I have been told for 30-odd years that He is emerging ‘soon’, but that is by the Masters’ standards of time. They work in 2,000-year cycles, so a few years to the Masters is just like a Sunday afternoon. Maitreya’s emergence is based on certain laws, above all the laws governing our free will. At any time in the last 26 years He could have been invoked by humanity, by humanity performing just a few actions which would have allowed Him to come forward. At a press conference in May 1982 I talked to almost a hundred journalists from all the major networks... and revealed Maitreya’s exact whereabouts... I invited them to come to London and to...[look] for Maitreya. They did not have to find Him...But if one or two or three journalists... with clout, would come to London and simply go through the motions of looking for Him, Maitreya would come forward to them. And nobody did anything... The timing of His emergence is up to humanity. If we do not act, Maitreya cannot act. There are laws governing an Avatar of such a stature as Maitreya. He cannot simply come in when you or I would like, or even when He would like."

"There is certainly a very large decision to be made by humanity when we are faced with it, and there are many reactionary forces in the world resistant to change. War and the production of armaments is a very lucrative business for some people who will resist change to the last. The present world economic collapse (presented as a 'downturn' or 'recession') is in fact the signs of the end of the old order, and is already bringing about a change in attitude among many people, young and old. When these same people hear Maitreya speak of the need to simplify and share resources to attain peace through justice, they will respond willingly to His call. His teaching and advocacy will inspire a huge response of desire for sharing, justice and thus peace. It is up to ourselves, we have to want peace enough to relinquish the past and work for the one humanity. I am sure we shall do so."

"He (Maitreya, the World Teacher) comes to help humanity see life realistically – not through rose-coloured spectacles of [money-making] schemes of gambling on the stock-markets and fantasy working which they all are. All that we have been witnessing – the financial world – is the result of fantasy. Maitreya sees the stock exchanges of the world as the gambling casinos of the world – which they are. They are nothing to do with the real world and the real economy. They are about gambling, mainly with price or value of currencies. And that is what has to go. Humanity’s main illness, it is a major disease, is this need to make more money out of the money they already have and then go on making more and more."

"Millions of humanity believe, ignorantly, that speculation and competition are the best things in life. They bring out the best in a person. From Maitreya’s point of view they bring out the worst in anyone. They bring out all the separation, the malice, the greed, the need to win. They separate humanity because they put brakes on the aspiration of humanity for a better life, and lead us into a super-commercialization which is destroying all life today. Commercialization reduces people to being pawns on a chessboard: they are useless unless they can bring more profits to the company that employs them."

"Maitreya will call for the creation of trust. There is no trust between the nations. No one trusts anyone. So no one can do anything. Banks don’t lend as they did before. He will talk about the need for trust, and without it how nothing can happen for the good. And competition of course destroys trust. It is the opposite. Co-operation is necessary for humanity. We are all hooked on greed and competition – and you see the result, we are living it. Every time you turn on your television you hear about firms going out of business, the banks don’t lend and so on. That is the result of competition and greed, and it is folly. Sharing is the only solution."

"By the time of Creme’s death in 2016 the world was still awaiting the Day of Declaration. When pressed by journalists or members of the public about why the Maitreya was holding back, he maintained that the free will of humankind could not be infringed and that we had to meet the Maitreya halfway by promoting peace, justice and equality in the world. And then there was the ongoing struggle with the forces of darkness and the fact that the hierarchy measured time in 2000-year cycles, and so it was unrealistic to expect precise times and exact dates from them..."

"Creme’s telepathic communications with his Master and Maitreya can be seen in the same light as the communications of Blavatsky, Leadbeater and Bailey with various Masters from the hierarchy... Creme’s belief that the Maitreya would manifest on Earth can be found in Besant and Leadbeater; but where the latter held that the Maitreya would overshadow Krishnamurti, Bailey maintained that the Christ would return in his own physical body... For Bailey, the Christ announced his imminent reappearance at the height of the World War of 1914–1945, in order to try to re-establish peace and harmony and to usher in the new Aquarian Age."

"For Creme, the Maitreya reappeared, albeit incognito, in 1977, when New Age spiritual seekers were promoting the love, peace and brotherhood Bailey had considered a prerequisite for the reappearance of the Christ. Creme’s emphasis on sharing and equality was an apt response to the rise of global capitalism under Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. Creme maintained that the Maitreya had predicted the global financial crisis in 1988, and in December 2008, three months after the collapse of Lehman Brothers, Creme claimed to work closely with the space brothers but regarded them in a Theosophical light as part of the Great White Brotherhood, and rejected the disturbing accounts of abductees as being a product of astral imagination. While Creme embraced the work of previous Theosophists, particularly that of Blavatsky and Bailey, he maintained his charismatic authority by dismissing contemporary channellers and attributing their communications with Maitreya and the hierarchy to the glamour of the astral plane."

"[In 1959]...he experienced his own epiphany, claiming to have had his first telepathic communication with one of the same Hierarchy of Masters who had been in contact with Blavatsky and Bailey. This Master, Creme maintained, instructed him to pave the way for the coming of Maitreya. Creme gathered a small group around him and began to hold public lectures to spread his message... it was not uncommon for some to report having witnessed Creme suffused in a golden glow, or to have seen the face of Maitreya super-imposed on his. Creme was a genial and cultivated man with a compendious knowledge of art, philosophy and classical music, and a love of cricket... He lived modestly in a semi-detached house in Tufnell Park, North London, receiving no money for his talks, and claiming that it was actually “embarrassing” to have been “chosen” as the emissary of the new Christ... Over the years, Creme became accustomed to ridicule and mockery, which he treated with equanimity. “Scepticism is fine,” he once said. “But I don’t like cynicism. I say, keep an open mind.”"

"He is particularly remembered as chief populariser of the esoteric Maitreya narrative. The related millenarian programme as advocated by Creme... highlights the vitally important role played by humankind’s "Space Brothers." This chapter focuses on them and the wider ufological context in Creme’s teachings."

"A staunch flagbearer of Theosophical thought specifically indebted to Alice Ann Bailey (1880–1949), Benjamin “Ben” Creme (1922–2016) was one of the major protagonists of the New Age."

"In the 1950s, Creme developed a keen interest for the incipient UFO phenomenon when he came across George Adamski... and Desmond Leslie’s... jointly authored Flying Saucers Have Landed (1953), as well as its sequel, Adamski’s Inside the Space Ships (1955).. Driven by a surging fascination, he would become member of George King’s... London-based Aetherius Society from 1957 to 1958, the involvement in which was to exert a lasting influence upon Creme’s ufological system. Moreover, it enabled him “to transmit the cosmic spiritual energies from the Space People”... vesting Creme with the power to heal. When he parted with King he intensified his telepathic collaboration with the Space Brothers, commencing, albeit unknowingly, his work towards the emergence of Maitreya and the externalisation of the Hierarchy. At the time, Creme, allegedly, alongside George Adamski was, for a short while, part of a group of contactees, who gathered regularly in out-of-the-body meetings deliberating on their missions received by the Space Brothers."

"In 1959, eventually, Creme was telepathically approached by an individual, himself member of the Hierarchy, who was later to become his Master. He was informed first-hand of the Cosmic Plan, the expectation of the Christ’s imminent descent, and that once it had transpired he would be called to publicly promulgate His coming."

"In fact, next to Creme, supposedly four other “disciples,” residing in New York, Geneva, Darjeeling, and Tōkyō, were requested by the Hierarchy to engage in this task, but only Creme was to accept."

"Creme states that Mars is bustling with nine billion people; typical Martians would look like smaller-sized humans. Overall, Mars is spiritually on a par with Earth but technologically tremendously superior because they did not make the many “mistakes” humankind did... Creme divides Martians into three categories of spiritual evolution: those who are like gods to us; those of lesser but still remarkable spiritual progress; and those of very low spiritual quality."

"Creme explains that etheric matter is tantamount to dark matter, which had already been discovered by Wilhelm Reich. He called it the “orgone.” In this regard, Creme recommends scientists to turn to the esoteric literature such as Blavatsky’s The Secret Doctrine in lieu of, for example, building cyclotrons worth many billions of pounds..."

"Creme unveiled that the universe would follow the Big Bounce scenario... so the current scientific mainstream theory of Big Rip/Heat Death would be wrong. According to Creme, spiritual progress generally expresses itself in rarefying matter density be it in people or entire planets; hence, upon completing its seventh evolutionary round Vulcan shifted to the most subtle etheric matter.. In this regard, Creme, for example, confirms Adamski’s famous account in which he reported to have attended a meeting of the Parliament in late March 1962 on Saturn."

"Born... into a Jewish-Catholic family as the second, and only boy, of three children in Glasgow, Creme — by his own account—early on attracted the attention of the “Hierarchy” and, in particular, his later unnamed Master... The existing scholarship on Creme is scarce. Scattered encyclopaedic or otherwise relatively terse mentions aside (see, e.g., Hammer 2015: 356; Kranenborg 1994; Melton 2001: 352), I am only aware of two very recent papers thoroughly addressing Creme’s teachings (cf. Poller 2019; Pokorny 2021)."

"“We are doing this because, no matter what odds we are against, we have to keep trying. Because the moment we stop trying is when we lose our humanity.” — in relation to the humanitarian aid mission she joined."

"“We were 12 peaceful volunteers sailing on a civilian ship carrying humanitarian aid on international waters… We did not break laws. We did nothing wrong.” — after her deportation/interception in international waters."

"“The words we will use to describe people who are standing on the wrong side of history, supporting or committing war crimes, those words do not exist yet, those slurs do not exist yet, but we will be using them …” — addressing political leaders during the Gaza-aid flotilla."

"“I think the world needs many more young angry women, to be honest, especially with everything going on right now.” — comment after being described as “angry” by a political figure."

""If watching children being systematically starved, over two million people being systematically starved by Israel is not enough to motivate you to get out of the couch, then what is it going to take?"

""If you care about a habitable planet you should also care about humans. … We can’t pretend to care about the environment while we ignore the suffering and oppression of people.”"

""Of course it’s good that the Palestinian cause is more on the agenda, but these symbolic gestures will lead nowhere unless they are accompanied with real action.”"

""For me, there is no way of distinguishing the two. We cannot have climate justice without social justice. … No matter the cause of the suffering—CO₂ or bombs or state repression—we have to stand up.”"

""Our governments and the international community are failing to uphold human dignity. They contribute to the impunity of those responsible for ecological and human genocide. That leaves us as the only adults in the room.”"

""We are speeding in the wrong direction on the climate crisis.”"

""We are doing this because, no matter what odds we are against, we have to keep trying. Because the moment we stop trying is when we lose our humanity.”"

"We were 12 peaceful volunteers sailing on a civilian ship carrying humanitarian aid on international waters. We did not break laws. We did nothing wrong."

"absolutely nothing compared to what people are going through in Palestine and especially Gaza right now”"

"“I was very clear in my testimony that we were kidnapped on international waters and brought against our own will into Israel,”"

"“This is yet another intentional violation of rights that is added to the list of countless other violations that Israel is committing.”"

"“Also to send solidarity and say that we see you, we see what is happening and we cannot accept just witnessing all this and doing nothing.”"

"“I think the world needs many more young angry women, to be honest,”"

"This mission is about Gaza, it isn’t about us. And no risks that we could take could even come close to the risks the Palestinians are facing every day."

"We have drones flying above us every night, but for Palestinians, especially in Gaza, those drones are dropping bombs constantly,"

"We must always stand up and speak up against oppression, imperialism, war, all forms of discrimination and racism. To stand with Palestine is to be human. We cannot allow ourselves to be silenced,"

"“We cannot remain silent. No one can remain silent when there is an ongoing genocide and when people are denied the most basic human needs,”"

"“We need to stop hosting climate conferences in places like Azerbaijan, a country that is repressing its own population to an extreme degree… If we are standing up for justice, that has to mean justice for everyone.”"

"“As the COP29 climate meeting is reaching its end, it should not come as a surprise that yet another COP is failing. … The people in power are yet again about to agree to a death sentence to the countless people whose lives have been or will be ruined by the climate crisis.”"

"Sweden in particular is very good at greenwashing and framing themselves as a climate leader, when we have very high emissions per capita … So we are not a climate leader at all.”"

"We can’t give them any legitimacy in this situation, which is why we are standing here … saying no to greenwashing and no to the Azerbaijani regime.”"

"It is nauseating to see the hypocrisy and double standards of holding a climate-focused conference in Azerbaijan."

"“We are in a planetary emergency and we are not going to stand by and let people lose their lives and livelihood and be forced to become climate refugees when we can do something.”"

"“Sweden is unfortunately not unique in completely ignoring the climate crisis, not treating it as an emergency at all. But actively trying to greenwash, deceive and lie in order to make it seem like they are doing enough… So we are not a climate leader at all.”"

"It is clear that private jets are incompatible with ensuring present and future living conditions on this planet. So we’re not going to let this continue. We’re not going to let the rich, who are responsible for the majority of aviation emissions, get away with sacrificing people and the planet in order to maintain their extreme lifestyles."

"We must remember who the real enemy is.”"

"We are here because we are facing an existential crisis. We are in a planetary emergency, and we are not going to stand by and let people lose their lives and livelihood and be forced to become climate refugees when we can do something.”"

"The climate crisis is only going to get worse and so it is all our responsibilities, all of those who have an opportunity to act must do so.”"

"We are in a planetary emergency (…) It is our duty to demand justice for the future generations.”"

"We feel like we have no other choice but to try new, different methods in order to get our voices heard.”"

"We are not going anywhere. This fight has only just begun."

"We can no longer let the people in power decide what is politically possible."

"We need to think about new things, new ways."

"We did nothing wrong."

"Yesterday I was part of a group that peacefully protested the expansion of a coal mine in Germany. We were kettled by police and then detained but were let go later that evening... Climate protection is not a crime."

""If we do not [phase out fossil fuels], it will be a death sentence for countless people."

"We are still rushing towards the cliff. We could trigger feedback loops that are beyond human control, that would throw countless billions under the bus."

"The coming months and years – right now – will be crucial to what the future looks like. It is what we decide now that will define the rest of humanity’s future."

"We won’t stop speaking out about Gaza’s suffering – there is no climate justice without human rights."

"2023 was the hottest year ever recorded. Climate disasters, wars, oppression, and inequalities further intensified – killing and displacing countless people."

"We have the science on our side."

"This summit, like the one before it, is a pure act of greenwashing."

"The world must pay attention. The people of Georgia deserve to have their voices heard."

"yes, please do enlighten me. email me at [email protected]"

"The Cops are mainly used as an opportunity for leaders and people in power to get attention, using many different kinds of greenwashing. [The Cop conferences] are not really meant to change the whole system... As it is, the Cops are not really working, unless of course we use them as an opportunity to mobilise."

"We are never going back to normal again, because "normal" was already a crisis. What we refer to as "normal" is an extreme system built on exploitation of people and planet. It is a system defined by colonialism, imperialism, oppression and genocide by the so-called Global North to accumulate wealth that still shapes our current world order. Some people say that the system is now malfunctioning, but that is not true. The system is doing exactly what it is meant to be doing. If economic growth is our only priority, then what we are experiencing now should be exactly what we should be expecting."

"I am pleased to announce that I've decided to go net-zero on swear words and bad language. In the event that I should say something inappropriate I pledge to compensate that by saying something nice. #COP26,"

"They invite cherry-picked young people to meetings like this to pretend that they listen to us. But they clearly don’t listen to us. Our emissions are still rising. The science doesn’t lie. We can no longer let the people in power decide what is politically possible. We can no longer let the people in power decide what hope is. Hope is not passive. Hope is not blah, blah, blah. Hope is telling the truth. Hope is taking action. And hope always comes from the people."

"I’m just a teenager... My opinions on this doesn’t matter​. You should rather look at the science and whether his policies are in line with the Paris agreements and to stay below 1.5 or even 2 degrees Celsius, and then you can clearly see that, no, it’s not nearly enough in line with the science. That’s not me saying, that’s just black and white, looking at the facts​. I would just like you to basically just treat the climate crisis like a crisis. They have said themselves that this is an existential threat... They are just treating the climate crisis​ ​as it was a political topic, among other topics and, yeah, treat it as a crisis, that’s the No. 1 step​. So what we need now is to raise awareness and to create public opinion to treat the crisis like a crisis. Because if people are not aware of the crisis that we face, of course they wouldn’t put pressure on the elected leaders. So I would just tell him to, to tell the situation as it is... how can you expect support and pressure from voters if you are not treating the crisis like a crisis."

"People need to enhance their knowledge about the environment and demand action against climate change... We need to educate ourselves to understand the global processes linked to the climate crisis, to see what’s happening to our planet. People must learn as much as they can – there’s unlimited amount of information – and spread this information to create a social movement and shift the social norm. Because if we are enough people who demand change and advocate climate action, we will reach a critical mass and will no longer be possible to ignore. It’s not a small task but it’s something that we simply need to do because there’s no other option. Restoring Nature is not only a solution to the climate crisis, but also to the biodiversity crisis and so on."

"The worst-case scenario I guess I’ll buy second-hand, but I don’t need new clothes. I know people who have clothes, so I would ask them if I could borrow them or if they have something they don’t need any more. I don’t need to fly to Thailand to be happy. I don’t need to buy clothes I don’t need, so I don’t see it as a sacrifice. I’m not telling anyone else what to do, but there is a risk when you are vocal about these things and don’t practise as you preach, then you will become criticised for that and what you are saying won’t be taken seriously.... I don’t think it’s selfish to have children. It is not the people who are the problem, it is our behaviour..."

"May 2021 be the year of awakening and real bold change. And let's all continue the never-ending fight for the living planet."

"You can shove your up your arse."

"Inside COP they are just politicians and people in power pretending to take our future seriously, pretending to take the present seriously of the people who are being affected already today by the climate crisis. Change is not going to come from the inside; that is not leadership. This is leadership."

"We say no more blah blah blah. No more exploitation of people and the nature and the planets … no more whatever the fuck they are doing inside there."

"We are sick and tired of it and we are going to make the change whether they like it or not … We are not going to let them get away any more."

"If you want to truly cover the climate crisis, you must also report on the fundamental issues of time, holistic thinking and justice."

"First, the notion of time. If your stories do not include the notion of a ticking clock, then the climate crisis is just a political topic among other topics, something we can just buy, build or invest our way out of. Leave out the aspect of time and we can continue pretty much like today and ”solve the problems” later on. 2030, 2050 or 2060."

"Second, holistic thinking. When considering our remaining carbon budget we need to count all the numbers and include all of our emissions. Currently, you are letting high income nations and big polluters off the hook, allowing them to hide behind the incomplete statistics, loopholes and rhetoric they have fought so hard to create during the last 30 years."

"Third, and most important of all, justice. The climate crisis isn’t just about extreme weather. It’s about people. Real people. And the very people who have done the least to create the climate crisis are suffering the most. And while the Global South is on the frontlines of the climate crisis, it’s almost never on the front pages of the world’s newspapers."

"To … minimize the risks of setting off irreversible chain reactions beyond human control, we need immediate, drastic, annual emission reductions unlike anything the world has ever seen. And as we don’t have the technological solutions that alone will do anything close to that in the foreseeable future, it means we have to make fundamental changes in our society. This is the uncomfortable result of our leaders’ failure to address this crisis."

"The media must hold the people in power accountable for their actions, or inactions."

"We can still avoid the worst consequences, we can still turn this around. But not if we continue like today. You have the resources and possibilities to change the story overnight."

"Whether or not you choose to rise to that challenge is up to you. Either way, history will judge you."

"We are still speeding in the wrong direction. The five years following the Paris agreement have been the five hottest years ever recorded and, during that time, the world has emitted more than 200bn tonnes of CO2. Distant hypothetical targets are being set, and big speeches are being given. Yet, when it comes to the immediate action we need, we are still in a state of complete denial as we waste our time, creating new loopholes with empty words and creative accounting... Leaders should be telling the truth: that we are facing an emergency and we are not doing nearly enough. We need to prioritise the action that needs to be taken right here and right now, because it is right now that the carbon budget is being used up. We need to stop focusing on goals and targets for 2030 or 2050... We need to implement annual binding carbon budgets today. There is hope … we are the hope – we, the people... For me, the hope lies in democracy – it is the people who have the power. If enough people stand up together and repeat the same message, then there are no limits to what we can achieve."

"We are in a global emergency, which affects all of us. But everyone is not suffering its Consequences equally... Africa is being disproportionately hit by the climate crisis, despite contributing to it among the least."

"We can have as many meetings as we like, but the will to change is nowhere in sight. Society must start treating this as a crisis...On Thursday 20 August, it will be exactly two years since the first school strike for the climate took place.... Today, leaders all over the world are speaking of an “existential crisis”. The climate emergency is discussed on countless panels and summits. Commitments are being made, big speeches are given. Yet, when it comes to action we are still in a state of denial. The climate and ecological crisis has never once been treated as a crisis. The gap between what we need to do and what’s actually being done is widening by the minute. Effectively, we have lost another two crucial years to political inaction...."

"We understand the world is complicated and that what we are asking for may not be easy or may seem unrealistic. But it is much more unrealistic to believe that our societies would be able to survive the global heating we’re heading for – as well as other disastrous ecological consequences of today’s business as usual... This mix of ignorance, denial and unawareness is at the very heart of the problem... The only way forward is for society to start treating the crisis like a crisis... We can still avoid the worst consequences. But to do that, we have to face the climate emergency and change our ways. And that is the uncomfortable truth we cannot escape."

"Still waiting for the EU and individual democratic nations to officially condemn the police brutality and attacks on the free press escalating the USA. For how long are we going to stand by, watch and say nothing?"

"The last 2 months the European Central Bank has injected 7,6 billion € into fossil fuels. Allow me to doubt the seriousness of the EUs' so called "green" recovery plan..."

"Devastating to see the development taking place in the USA. Centuries of structural and systematic racism and social injustice won’t go away by itself. We need a global structural change. The injustices must come to an end. #BlackLivesMatter"

"Today is a shameful day for Europe, as we open up a brand new coal power plant. We have signed up to lead the way to avoid a climate disaster - and yet this the signal we send to the rest of the world? How dare you indeed"

"On Saturday @uniper_energy and Finnish state owned @Fortum will open a brand new coal power plant #Datteln4 in Germany. Those in power clearly lied when they said they cared about their children’s future. If you needed proof that their words and promises were empty, this is it."

"In Sweden @FortumSverige is running a huge “green” campaign saying that “The future is already here”, and that they ”have decided to take care of the future”. This takes #greenwashing to a whole new dimension."

"I’m asking everyone to step up and join me in support of UNICEF’s vital work to save children’s lives, to protect health and continue education... Like the climate crisis, the coronavirus pandemic is a child-rights crisis... It will affect all children, now and in the long-term, but vulnerable groups will be impacted the most."

"It seems like the people in power have given up...They say it’s too hard — it’s too much of a challenge. But that’s what we are doing here. We have not given up because this is a matter of life and death for countless people.... Either we choose to go on as a civilization or we don’t... That is as black or white as it gets. There are no gray areas when it comes to survival."

"Very honoured to receive Human Act Award. The prize money - USD $100’000 - will be donated to @unicef . Human Act will match this donation with an additional USD 100,000. Today we’re launching a funding campaign to support UNICEF in the corona crisis."

"I felt very alone that I was the only one who seemed to be worried about this... I was the only one left in this sort of bubble. Everyone else could just continue with their lives as usual, and I couldn’t do that... I thought what the Parkland students did was so brave... Of course, it was not the only thing that got me out of that feeling. I did it because I was tired of sitting and waiting. I tried to get others to join me, but no one was interested and no one wanted to do that. So I said, ‘I’m going to do this alone if no one else wants to do it.’"

"Because you grown-ups don’t give a damn about my future, neither do I. My name is Greta, I am in ninth grade, and I am going on strike from school for the climate. (Her twitter bio)"

"I have been on the road and visited numerous places and met people from all over the globe... I can say that it looks nearly the same everywhere I have been: The climate crisis is ignored by people in charge, despite the science being crystal clear. We don’t want to hear one more politician say that this is important but afterward do nothing to change it. We don’t want more empty words from people pretending to take our future seriously... It shouldn’t be up to us children and teenagers to make people wake up around the world. The ones in charge should be ashamed."

"[In response to Time editor Edward Felsenthal question about how she dealt with all the haters] I would like to say something that I think people need to know more than how I deal with haters."

"A teenager working on her anger management problem (her Twitter profile after Trump told her to chill out)"

"I’m very weak in a sense... I’m very tiny and I am very emotional, and that is not something people usually associate with strength. I think weakness, in a way, can be also needed because we don’t have to be the loudest, we don’t have to take up the most amount of space, and we don’t have to earn the most money...We don’t need to have the biggest car, and we don’t need to get the most attention... We need to care about each other more."

"We can’t just continue living as if there was no tomorrow, because there is a tomorrow. That is all we are saying."

"I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day. And then I want you to act. (to the annual convention of CEOs and world leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in January)"

"I see the world in black and white, and I don’t like compromising... If I were like everyone else, I would have continued on and not seen this crisis. (if her brain worked differently, she explained) I wouldn’t be able to sit for hours and read things I’m interested in."

"One person stops flying doesn’t make much difference. The thing we should look at is the emissions curve—it’s still rising. Of course something is happening, but basically nothing is happening. The change is going to come from the people demanding action, and that is us."

"People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction. And all you can talk about is money and fairytales of eternal economic growth. How dare you!"

"I want people to unite behind the science... And that is what we have to realize, that that is what we have to do right now.. I’m not the one who’s saying these things. I’m not the one who we should be listening to. And I say that all the time. I say we need to listen to the scientists."

"We have lots of unions who are planning to strike, so, I mean, adults striking from their work. And that is so incredibly important to show that this is such an — this is not just for children or teenagers. This is for everyone. And what we are doing, we are not, of course — I mean, we are striking to disrupt the system..."

"We are facing an existential crisis... it will have a massive impact on our lives in the future, but also now, especially in vulnerable communities. And I think that we should wake up, and we should also try to wake the adults up, because they are the ones who — their generation is the ones who are mostly responsible for this crisis, and we need to hold them accountable."

"I have Asperger's syndrome and that means I'm sometimes a bit different from the norm. And - given the right circumstances - being different is a superpower. It makes you think differently. And especially in such a big crisis like this one we need to think outside the box. We need to think outside our current system, that we need people that think outside the box and who aren't like everyone else."

"It’s insane that a 16-year-old has to cross the Atlantic in order to take a stand, but that’s how it is. It feels like we are at a breaking point. Leaders know that more eyes on them, much more pressure is on them, that they have to do something, they have to come up with some sort of solution. I want a concrete plan, not just nice words.”"

"That happens all the time. That’s basically all I hear. The most common criticism I get is that I’m being manipulated and you shouldn’t use children in political ways, because that is abuse, and I can’t think for myself and so on. And I think that is so annoying! I’m also allowed to have a say – why shouldn’t I be able to form my own opinion and try to change people’s minds? But I’m sure you hear that a lot, too; that you’re too young and too inexperienced. When I see all the hate you receive for that, I honestly can’t believe how you manage to stay so strong."

"Many people, especially in the US, see countries like Sweden or Norway or Finland as role models – we have such a clean energy sector, and so on. That may be true, but we are not role models. Sweden is one of the top 10 countries in the world when it comes to the highest ecological footprints, according to the WWF – if you count the consumer index, then we are among the worst per capita. In Sweden, the most common argument that we shouldn’t act is that we are such a small country with only 10 million inhabitants – we should focus more on helping other countries. That is so incredibly frustrating, because why should we argue about who or what needs to change first? Why not take the leading role?"

"Avoiding climate breakdown will require cathedral thinking. We must lay the foundation while we may not know exactly how to build the ceiling."

"You lied to us. You gave us false hope. You told us that the future was something to look forward to. And the saddest thing is that most children are not even aware of the fate that awaits us. We will not understand it until it’s too late. And yet we are the lucky ones. Those who will be affected the hardest are already suffering the consequences. But their voices are not heard."

"You don’t listen to the science because you are only interested in solutions that will enable you to carry on like before. Like now. And those answers don’t exist any more. Because you did not act in time."

"For way too long, the politicians and the people in power have gotten away with not doing anything to fight the climate crisis, but we will make sure that they will not get away with it any longer. We are striking because we have done our homework and they have not."

"I often talk to people who say, ‘No, we have to be hopeful and to inspire each other, and we can’t tell [people] too many negative things’ . . . But, no — we have to tell it like it is. Because if there are no positive things to tell, then what should we do, should we spread false hope? We can’t do that, we have to tell the truth."

"This target is not sufficient to protect the future for children growing up today. If the EU is to make its fair contribution to stay within the carbon budget for the 2C limit then it needs a minimum of 80 percent reduction by 2030, and that includes aviation and shipping... There is simply not enough time to wait for us to grow up and become the ones in charge."

"Unite behind the science, that is our demand. (Thunberg told a plenary session of the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC)."

"We need to focus every inch of our being on climate change, because if we fail to do so than all our achievements and progress have been for nothing and all that will remain of our political leaders’ legacy will be the greatest failure of human history. And they will be remembered as the greatest villains of all time, because they have chosen not to listen and not to act."

"We have been told that the EU intends to improve its emission reduction targets. In the new target, the EU is proposing to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to 45 percent below 1990’s level by 2030. Some people say that is good or that is ambitious. But this new target is still not enough to keep global warming below 1.5 °C. This target is not sufficient to protect the future for children growing up today. If the EU is to make its fair contribution to staying within the carbon budget for the 2 °C limit, then it means a minimum of 80 percent reduction by 2030 and that includes aviation and shipping. So it is around twice as ambitious as the current proposal."

"Our house is on fire. I am here to say, our house is on fire. [...] Adults keep saying: “We owe it to the young people to give them hope.” But I don’t want your hope. I don’t want you to be hopeful. I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day. And then I want you to act. I want you to act as you would in a crisis. I want you to act as if our house is on fire. Because it is."

"Some people say that the climate crisis is something that we all have created. But that is just another convenient lie. Because if everyone is guilty then no one is to blame. And someone is to blame. Some people – some companies and some decision-makers in particular – have known exactly what priceless values they are sacrificing to continue making unimaginable amounts of money."

"I think it is insane that people are gathered here to talk about the climate and they arrive here in private jets."

"There are no emergency meetings, no headlines, no breaking news. No one is acting as if we were in a crisis. Even most climate scientists or green politicians keep on flying around the world, eating meat and dairy. … Today we use 100 million barrels of oil every single day. There are no politics to change that. There are no rules to keep that oil in the ground. So we can't save the world by playing by the rules. Because the rules have to be changed. Everything needs to change. And it has to start today."

"You only talk about moving forward with the same bad ideas that got us into this mess. Even when the only sensible thing to do is pull the emergency brake. You are not mature enough to tell it like it is. Even that burden you leave to your children."

"We are about to sacrifice our civilization for the opportunity of a very small number of people to continue to make enormous amounts of money. [...] But it is the sufferings of the many which pay for the luxuries of the few. [...] You say that you love your children above everything else. And yet you are stealing their future."

"We cannot solve a crisis without treating it as a crisis. [...] And if solutions within the system are so impossible to find, then maybe we should change the system itself?"

"We have not come here to beg world leaders to care. You have ignored us in the past and you will ignore us again. You've run out of excuses and we're running out of time. We've come here to let you know that change is coming, whether you like it or not. The real power belongs to the people."

"For 25 years, countless of people have stood in front of the United Nations Climate Change conference asking our nations’ leaders to stop the emissions. But clearly this has not worked, since the emissions just continue to rise. So I will not ask them anything. Instead, I will ask the people around the world to realize that our political leaders have failed us, because we are facing an existential threat and there is no time to continue down this road of madness."

"[...] why should I be studying for a future that soon will be no more, when no one is doing anything whatsoever to save that future? And what is the point of learning facts within the school system when the most important facts given by the finest science of that same school system clearly means nothing to our politicians and our society?"

"Today we use 100 million barrels of oil every day. [...] There are no rules to keep that oil in the ground. So we can't save the world by playing by the rules. Because the rules have to be changed. Everything needs to change. And it has to start today."

"We need to change the whole capitalist system"

"a new generation of climate activists are emerging all across the globe. The Youth Strike for Climate, also known as Fridays for Future, began in 2018 after Swedish youth activist Greta Thunberg staged a protest in front of the Swedish parliament holding a sign that read "Skolstrejk för klimatet" (School Strike for Climate). Her actions, along with those of several other brave students, resulted in an international movement of students of various ages that demonstrated and walked out of Friday classes to demand climate action, a transition to renewable energy, and a commitment to stopping the climate crisis. By 2019, over one million demonstrators, primarily students, across 150 countries had participated in the protests."

"Climate activist Greta Thunberg has joked that she is adopting a "net-zero" approach to cursing, an apparent response to criticism of her use of strong language at a demonstration earlier this week... On Monday, Thunberg joined other "Fridays for Future" activists at a demonstration at Festival Park in Glasgow, near the UN climate summit, where she once again mocked politicians for their inaction on climate. She said the politicians and delegates gathered at the COP talks were "pretending to take our future seriously." Over the weekend, the environmental campaigner received a rock star welcome when she was mobbed by supporters at Glasgow's Central Station... After traveling north from London by train, Thunberg appeared to be in good spirits, giving photographers a thumbs-up as she made her way through the station upon arrival, surrounded by police and fellow climate activists."

"Climate change activist Greta Thunberg implored President Biden to get serious about tackling environmental issues facing the world and suggested the new administration has not done enough in the arena during his first two months in office."

"I heard this young girl from Sweden. I really felt: Oh, there is real hope from our younger generation who really thinking this environment and these things... Our generation has created problem of climate change. When I heard Greta speaking on issue climate change I felt there was hope from younger generation. I really admire her. It was really encouraging that a younger member of human community was showing courage to fight for environment. We should let the younger generation help resolve the problem of climate change."

"Greta Thunberg says she has stopped buying new clothes but does not sit in judgment on others whose lifestyle choices are less environmentally friendly than her own, in an interview to mark her 18th birthday... Asked what she thought of celebrities who talk about the climate emergency while flying around the world, the teenager declined to criticise them, although warned that others might. “I don’t care,” she told the Sunday Times magazine. “I’m not telling anyone else what to do, but there is a risk when you are vocal about these things and don’t practise as you preach, then you will become criticised for that and what you are saying won’t be taken seriously.” Avoiding long flights is one of the most effective ways individuals can reduce their carbon emissions but the biggest impact is from not having children, according to studies. Nevertheless Thunberg was not about to tell people not to procreate. “I don’t think it’s selfish to have children,” she said. “It is not the people who are the problem, it is our behaviour.” While her lifestyle is far removed from that of most western teenagers, Thunberg says she does not feel she is missing out. On clothes, she said: “The worst-case scenario I guess I’ll buy second-hand, but I don’t need new clothes. I know people who have clothes, so I would ask them if I could borrow them or if they have something they don’t need any more. I don’t need to fly to Thailand to be happy. I don’t need to buy clothes I don’t need, so I don’t see it as a sacrifice.”"

"The world is speeding in the wrong direction in tackling the climate emergency, Greta Thunberg has said, before a UN event at which national leaders have been asked to increase their pledges for emissions cuts. Thunberg, whose solo school strike in 2018 has snowballed into a global youth movement, said there was a state of complete denial when it came to the immediate action needed, with leaders giving only distant promises and empty words."

"Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg said Wednesday the foundation set up in her name would donate 150,000 euros ($175,000) to charities working to support "people on the frontlines of the climate crisis in Africa." The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, the solar power-focused NGO Solar Sister, as well as advocacy group Oil Change International, would each receive 50,000 euros ($59,000) for their efforts in Africa... In August, the 17-year-old... returned to school after taking a year off to campaign to curb climate change."

"Greta Thunberg and a group of other children have pushed forward their legal complaint at the UN against countries they accuse of endangering children’s wellbeing through the climate crisis, despite attempts to have it thrown out. The 16 children, including the Swedish environmental activist, lodged a legal case with the UN committee on the rights of the child against Argentina, Brazil, France, Germany and Turkey last September. They alleged that the countries – which are legally obliged to protect children under the UN convention on the rights of the child – breached those obligations by failing to protect them from the “direct, imminent and foreseeable risk to their health and wellbeing” posed by the climate crisis."

"Greta Thunberg, the Swedish climate activist, is partnering with UNICEF on a campaign to help children around the world who have been affected by the coronavirus pandemic. The campaign aims to stop the consequences of the pandemic, by protecting children from food shortages, strained healthcare systems, violence and lost education, according to the statement from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). The campaign will also provide items like soap, masks, gloves, hygiene kits, protective equipment to medical centers in need. Thunberg donated $100,000 to UNICEF to start the campaign along with Human Act, a Danish NGO, that is matching her donation."

"I find a scrum of reporters interviewing a child in a purple puffer jacket, pink mittens, and a homemade-looking knit hat. It takes me a minute to realize that it’s Greta. She is 17, but could pass for 12. I can’t quite square the fiery speaker with the micro teen in front of me... Of course, this is emphatically wrong. Greta Thunberg has Asperger’s, which, she says, gives her pinpoint focus on climate minutiae while parrying and discarding even the smallest attempt at flattery. We stand near the Swedish Parliament house, where less than two years ago Thunberg started her Skolstrejk för klimatet, School Strike for Climate. Back then, it was just Greta, a sign, and a lunch of bean pasta in a reusable glass jar. Then it was two people, and then a dozen, and then an international movement. I mention the bravery of her speeches, but she waves me away. She wants to talk about the loss of will among the olds."

"Thunberg stated that, at the current rate, we have eight years to change everything. Thunberg’s face was controlled fury. This was the persona: an adolescent iron-willed truth teller. The Davos one-percenters clapped and rattled their Rolexes. It has become a disconcerting pattern for Thunberg appearances that would be repeated at the European Commission: Greta tells the adults they are fools and their plans are lame and shortsighted. They still give her a standing ovation. A few minutes later, she was gone and the audience dispersed into a fleet of black BMWs and Mercedes, belching diesel into the Alpine sky."

"“The phrase ‘A little child shall lead them’ has come to mind more than once,” Al Gore tells me in Davos, before sharing his favorite Greta moment. It was at the U.N. summit last fall. “She said to the assembled world leaders, ‘You say you understand the science, but I don’t believe you. Because if you did and then you continue to act as you do, that would mean you’re evil. And I don’t believe that.’” Gore shook his head in wonderment. “Wow.” He then gives a history lesson: “There have been other times in human history when the moment a morally-based social movement reached the tipping point was the moment when the younger generation made it their own. Here we are.”"

"Greta’s rise was the activist version of a perfect storm. Her ascension from bullied Swedish student to global climate icon has been driven by both a loss and a regaining of hope. It is not a coincidence that her ascent happened immediately in the aftermath of the election of Trump. It’s impossible to see a Greta-like phenomena emerging during the Obama-driven run up to the Paris climate talks, when it actually looked like nations of the world were getting their shit together to deal with global warming."

"On 20 August 2018, the first day of the school year, 15-year-old autistic school student Greta Thunberg began a solo school strike demanding government action on climate change. Instead of going to class, she printed leaflets declaring "We kids most often don’t do what you tell us to do. We do as you do. And since you grown-ups don’t give a shit about my future, I won’t either. My name is Greta and I’m in ninth grade. And I refuse school for the climate until the Swedish general election." Then she headed to the Swedish parliament building where she protested alone. Within a couple of days a handful of people began to join her, and she gave numerous interviews to journalists, making headlines around the world. Within a few months, hundreds of thousands of schoolchildren in hundreds of towns and cities around the world organised their own walkouts. While Thunberg as inspired many young people, some commentators have pointed out that she received much more favourable media coverage than Indigenous youth who have been using direct action and fighting police to protect biodiversity and fight climate change for years in places like Standing Rock in the United States."

"Her image has been celebrated in murals and Halloween costumes, and her name has been attached to everything from bike shares to beetles. Margaret Atwood compared her to Joan of Arc. After noticing a hundredfold increase in its usage, lexicographers at Collins Dictionary named Thunberg’s pioneering idea, climate strike, the word of the year."

"So many people have made death threats against her family that she is now often protected by police when she travels. But for the most part, she sees the global backlash as evidence that the climate strikers have hit a nerve. “I think that it’s a good sign actually,” she says. “Because that shows we are actually making a difference and they see us as a threat.”"

"The politics of climate action are as entrenched and complex as the phenomenon itself, and Thunberg has no magic solution. But she has succeeded in creating a global attitudinal shift, transforming millions of vague, middle-of-the-night anxieties into a worldwide movement calling for urgent change. She has offered a moral clarion call to those who are willing to act, and hurled shame on those who are not. She has persuaded leaders, from mayors to Presidents, to make commitments where they had previously fumbled: after she spoke to Parliament and demonstrated with the British environmental group Extinction Rebellion, the U.K. passed a law requiring that the country eliminate its carbon footprint. She has focused the world’s attention on environmental injustices that young indigenous activists have been protesting for years. Because of her, hundreds of thousands of teenage “Gretas,” from Lebanon to Liberia, have skipped school to lead their peers in climate strikes around the world."

"Tokata Iron Eyes, an environmental activist, invited Thunberg, a fellow 16-year-old, to her homelands on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota, after befriending her... the duo spoke at the Standing Rock high school about the burgeoning youth-led climate movement that has seen millions of people strike from school and protest against fossil-fuel projects around the world. “This is a global fight; this is not just in my home country in Sweden,” Thunberg said. “We as teenagers shouldn’t be the ones taking responsibility. It should be the ones in power.” Iron Eyes said... “No 16-year-old should have to travel the world in the first place sharing a message about having something as simple as clean water and fresh air to breathe,”... In a closing ceremony, Thunberg was gifted with a Lakota Native American name, Maphiyata echiyatan hin win, which translates as “woman who came from the heavens”."

"Thunberg's blithe disregard for the benefits of economic growth is not uncommon for people from wealthy countries who are already living in an industrialized world built by the fossil fuels of yesteryear. For them, they associate additional economic growth with access to high fashion and luxury cars. But for the billions of human beings living outside these places, fossil-fuel-driven industrialization can be the difference between life and death."

"Greta has the sense of moral clarity and laser focus that is one of the things I love and value about myself and other autistic people. We’re different — I’m brown, she’s white, and I feel more political commonality with Black and Brown young climate activists like Isra Hirsi and Autumn Peltier who are making connections between colonialism, racism and climate justice. But when I look at Greta’s unsmiling, outraged face, I feel a sense of autistic intimacy. But women are supposed to smile and be polite, don’t you know? Women and non-cis guys are supposed to be gracious and gentle and apologize and make eye contact. Autistic women and non-cis guys are often under even more pressure to keep up with traditional, neurotypical gender standards. We are not supposed to just say what the fuck we believe, call people out, and not smile doing it. We are not supposed to be autistic in public, without apology, let alone have any kind of radical politics. But Greta is."

"Greta Thunberg is one of the great truth-tellers of this or any time. Let me refresh your memories about some of her most iconic lines. To the U.N. climate negotiators in Poland last December, she said: “You are not mature enough to tell it like it is. Even that burden you leave to us children.”"

"To the British MPs who asked her to speak, she asked, “Is my English OK? Is the microphone on? Because I’m beginning to wonder.”"

"To the rich and mighty at Davos who praised her for giving them hope, she replied, “I don’t want your hope. … I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day. I want you to act. I want you to act as you would in a crisis. I want you to act as if the house is on fire, because it is.”"

"She also told them that not everyone is to blame for the climate crisis. No, she looked them in the eye and said that they were to blame. And we will always love her for that."

"People can sneer all they want at Ms. Thunberg, just as their predecessors sneered at earlier protest movements and called them a waste of time. But many of those campaigns did have an effect. Some stopped wars. Some brought about laws that outlawed racist policies. Some stopped whales from being butchered indiscriminately. No, Greta Thunberg is not going to save the planet on her own. But at least she is holding those in a position to do something about climate change to account, speaking hard truths many others are afraid to. She is not an attention seeker. She is a young person frightened to death about the state of the world she is inheriting. Sure, mumble that she is a disillusioned naif if you wish. I prefer to think of Ms. Thunberg as something else: a powerful and vital new voice in the climate debate. And someone who deserves support, encouragement and thanks from her fellow global citizens."

"Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old Swedish climate activist who started the Friday school strikes, has graduated from secondary education with 14 As and three Bs. She got these excellent grades despite being absent from class far more than most of her followers: As the leader of a movement, an international celebrity, and a Nobel Peace Prize nominee, she traveled extensively during her last school year."

"The contrast between Thunberg’s academic achievement and her attendance record raises important questions. What kind of example does she set for the millions of kids who skipped school to participate in the climate protests? Should attendance be compulsory and, if so, why should it be required for someone like Thunberg? In Sweden, nine years of full-time education are mandatory and home-schooling is practically illegal..."

"What if Thunberg is offering policy makers two messages for the price of one? The first is, of course, about climate. But the second is that the world wouldn’t come to an end if the school week were shortened by a day. Going to a rally and reading up about the issues involved might do more good than polishing a chair in class... Homeschooling isn’t the answer... For her part, Thunberg is done wasting her time, at least for now. She is taking the next school year off to continue her climate change campaign. Whatever school she ends up in next is unlikely to make stringent attendance demands on a potential Nobel Peace Prize winner."

"Greta is built in a laboratory! She has the proper face, the proper pigtails, the proper illness, she is properly little... She and all her family settled down forever, but it is evident that they are used. After two days she shook hands with miss Christine Lagarde, who leads the IMF. She is pure laboratory creation."

"In recent days, she has sharply rejected criticism of the strikes from educational authorities, telling the Hong Kong Education Bureau: “We fight for our future. It doesn’t help if we have to fight the adults too.” She also told a critical Australian state education minister his words “belong in a museum”."

"The students striking from schools around the world to demand action on climate change have issued an uncompromising open letter stating: “We are going to change the fate of humanity, whether you like it or not.” The letter, published by the Guardian, says: “United we will rise on 15 March and many times after until we see climate justice... Thunberg, now 16 years old and who began the strikes with a solo protest beginning last August... was one of about 3,000 student demonstrators in Antwerp, Belgium on Thursday, and joined protesters in Hamburg on Friday morning..."

"Keeping track of the fast growing number of strikes is difficult, but many are registering on FridaysForFuture.org. So far, there are almost 500 events listed to take place on 15 March across 51 countries, making it the biggest strike day so far. Students plan to skip school across Western Europe, from the US to Brazil and Chile, and from Australia to Iran, India and Japan."

"Over the past six months, she has become a superstar of the climate change movement. Her school strike, which started out with her sitting alone on a camping mat next to parliament, was swiftly highlighted by the media...She speaks softly, often simply nodding when addressed... she only speaks when necessary."

"She says her dad often asks her to tone down her speeches, which she writes herself. “He becomes scared when he reads it, he is like, you shouldn’t say this, it is too provocative,” she says..."

"Sixteen-year-old climate action leader Greta Thunberg stood alongside European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker Thursday in Brussels as he indicated—after weeks of climate strikes around the world inspired by the Swedish teenager—that the European Union has heard the demands of young people and pledged more than $1 trillion over the next seven years to address the crisis of a rapidly heating planet."

"In 1429 Joan of Arc (17) led French troops to victory over English forces at the Siege of Orleans after she had a vision. Today, eco warrior Greta Thunberg (15) is leading the battle against the ravages of climate change. Greta has vision. She’s taken the leadership mantle from Joan of Arc whether she knows it or not. Some things in life just happen! For nearly three decades, the global movement to fix climate change has been stuck in low or no-gear ever since the nations of the world agreed to cut greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in 1992 at the Kyoto Protocol. It’s been a dry run ever since, nothing of consequence happens. Fortunately, Joan of Arc’s contemporary counterpart Greta Thunberg has swept onto the scene from Sweden.... Greta is equally committed to justice as Joan of Arc, but it is climate justice rather than recapturing sovereign territory. Several weeks ago Greta went on strike from school to protest, sitting on cobblestones outside parliament in central Stockholm, handing out leaflets to adults, informing them of their failure to fight the climate crisis."

"As government ministers from around the globe gather in Katowice, Poland, for the final days of the 24th U.N. climate summit, we speak with 15-year-old activist Greta Thunberg, who denounced politicians here last week for their inaction on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. She has garnered global attention for carrying out a weekly school strike against climate change in her home country of Sweden."

"Thurnberg has an uncanny ability to concentrate... “I can do the same thing for hours,” she said....She began researching climate change and has stayed on the topic for six years. She has stopped eating meat and buying anything that is not absolutely necessary. In 2015, she stopped flying on airplanes, and a year later, her mother followed suit, giving up an international performing career. The family has installed solar batteries and has started growing their own vegetables on an allotment outside the city. To meet me in central Stockholm, Thunberg and her father rode their bikes for about half an hour; the family has an electric car that they use only when necessary."

"The ideal of this brotherhood is to draw angels and men, two branches of the infinite family of God, into close cooperation. The chief purpose of such cooperation is to uplift the human race. To this end the angels, on their side, are ready to participate as closely as possible in every department of human life and in every human activity that holds cooperation in view. Those members of the human race who will throw open heart and mind to their brethren of the other sphere, will find an immediate response, and a gradually increasing conviction of its reality."

"While the angels make no conditions, and impose no restrictions or limits to the activities and developments resulting from cooperation, they assume that no human brother would invoke them for personal and material gain. They ask for the acceptance of the motto of the Brotherhood and its practical application to human life in every aspect."

"Let this be the motto for you all—THE HIGHEST —and let all who join our ranks pledge themselves to that motto. We, too, will pledge ourselves, and every time this inward pledge is uttered by a man, an angel shall repeat his pledge and bear it like a torch to add to the great reservoir of power apportioned for our work. Let each who would so pledge himself, retire into solitude, the private room, some grassy height, some woodland shade, or, if he needs them not, into the chamber of his heart. There with fixed purpose let him first meditate, seeking to penetrate into the depth and meaning of our great ideal; then, having envisaged it, let him make firm resolve that he will ever strive towards it throughout this and his future lives; remembering that to the great all things are great."

"Thus, perchance, we may remove the blight that threatens your race, the blight of apathy; in which you are sunk so deep that only wars, earthquakes, fires and floods, famines and sudden death can stir your somnolence. Your higher selves —your angel selves—strive continually to awaken you, to send a vision through your dreams, and here and there a sleeper stirs and stretches, all too often to return to sleep; your dreams must be disturbed by the force of things external to your selves."

"Wars come to rouse you, and you pray to God to save you from more wars! Pestilence and famine stride hand in hand across your heedless lives, and only as you see them threatening your repose do you awake, and, for a time, become your greatest selves. Yet from these, you pray unto your Lord, asking Him to deliver you! The deliverer from these is with you all the while, it is your innermost self; but as you will not be aroused by the Self within you, you must be awakened by the Self without. Know that in wars, plagues, cataclysms, you see yourselves, the expressions of your soul, striding torch in hand, through the dormitories in which your bodies lie, to stir you from your sleep, to drive away the dark shadows of self-satisfaction and content."

"In our Brotherhood, we must begin to hold aloft this great idea—THE HIGHEST —and each must pledge himself that nothing else will satisfy his soul. You must preach this gospel—that the cause of all things, good and ill, lies within ourselves, that the good may be made better and the bad disappear, only by action from within. It is the lives of men you must reform, not their laws; lives can only change when they conform to THE HIGHEST, instead of trifling with the lowest."

"Messenger after messenger has come and spread the truth abroad. It is you who have locked up such truths in temple, church, and mosque, and taken refuge in the courts of law, till self-denial is unknown, and is displaced by denial of the Self. Still you laugh contemptuously, when told that love shall save the world—or purity, or truth, or law, or sacrifice. You have hardened your hearts; yet He still comes, the embodiment of love, purity and truth, of law and sacrifice, to teach you once again the ancient truths, lest war—an even greater war—should take His place as Teacher of Angels and of Men."

"Chapter I, Definition of Terms"

"Since in this book certain familiar words are used in a special sense and certain ideas unfamiliar to most. Western readers are presented, this first Chapter consists of a definition of terms and a brief exposition of the philosophic basis upon which the book is founded."

"The Deity, In Occult philosophy, the Deific Power of the universe is not regarded as a personal God. Although imbued with intelligence, It is not an Intellect. Although using the One Life as vehicle, It is not Itself a Life. Deity is an inherent Principle in Nature, having Its extensions beyond the realm of manifested forms, however tenuous."

"The Immanence of God is not personal, neither is the Transcendence. Each is an expression in time, space and motion of an impersonal Principle, which of Itself is eternal, omnipresent and at rest. Finiteness is essential to the manifestation of THAT which is Infinite. Ideas, rhythms and forms are essential for the expression of THAT which is Absolute. God, then, may best be defined as Infinity and Absoluteness made manifest through finite forms. Such manifestation can never be singular or even dual alone; it must always be primarily threefold and secondarily sevenfold. Point, circumference and radii; power, receiver and conveyer; knower, known and knowledge; these must ever constitute the basic triplicity without which Absoluteness can never produce finiteness, at however lofty a level."

"From these concepts of the Deity there emerges inevitably the idea of a divine purpose, a great plan. That plan is assumed throughout this book to be evolution, but not of form alone. The word “evolution” is herein used to connote a process which is dual in its operation, spiritual as well as material, and directed rather than purely natural or “blind”. This process is understood to consist of a continuous development of form accompanied by a complementary and parallel unfolding of consciousness within the form. Although man cannot completely know the evolutionary plan -from his Superiors, Sages and Spiritual Teachers throughout the ages he learns that the motive is to awaken and bring to fulfilment that which is latent, seedlike, germinal. Divine Will, divine Wisdom, divine Intellect and divine Beauty, these are latent in all seeds, Macrocosmic and microcosmic. The apparent purpose for which the universe comes into existence is to change potentialities into actively manifested powers."

"Chapter II, Science, Ancient, and Modern"

"The age old teachings of occult science are founded, not upon speculations but upon the continually repeated, direct observations of highly trained occult investigators. With the inner eye itself fully operative and the technique of its use fully developed as a result of training under their Adept seniors in evolution, these seers perceive direct the phenomena of Nature on all planes of existence and corroborate the findings of their brother seers who have gone before. For this reason, “to the Occultists who believe in the knowledge acquired by countless generations of Seers and Initiates, the data offered in the Secret Books are all sufficient” (The Secret Doctrine, H. P. Blavatsky, Adyar Edition, Vol. IV, p. 269)"

"The assertions of occult science are “made on the cumulative testimony of endless series of Seers who have testified to this fact. Their spiritual visions, real explorations by, and through psychical and spiritual sense untrammelled by blind flesh, were systematically checked and compared one with the other, and their nature sifted. All that was not corroborated by unanimous and collective experience was rejected, while that only was recorded as established truth which, in various ages, under different climes, and throughout an untold series of incessant observations, was found to agree and receive constantly further corroboration."

"In common, I believe, with the majority of fellow Christians, in my early years I accepted the Bible as the inspired word of God, a direct message from Deity to man. Later, however, a more critical approach to the Scriptures revealed incredibilities, impossibilities, and even obscenities, which both shocked and repelled me. Finding myself unable either to ignore these barriers to belief or to adopt a tolerant, uncritical acceptance of Holy Writ, two alternatives presented themselves to me. One was to discard entirely the orthodox concept of the Bible as an error-free and infallible source of spiritual wisdom and moral counsel, and the other to undertake a detailed study of the whole text. This latter course was chosen, and in this decision I was largely influenced by the discovery that many of the difficulties arising from a literal reading disappeared if much of the Bible was regarded as allegorical. (Author's Preface)"

"Thus studying the Bible, I have found that many of the difficulties and discrepancies which had hitherto proved so perplexing no longer exist. May those who are similarly perplexed and similarly seeking find in these Volumes solutions of their problems and the restoration of their faith. (Author's Preface)"

"The decision taken by orthodox Christianity to concentrate upon the Bible as history rather than as a blend of history and allegory has, it is submitted, been responsible for disastrous results. When, furthermore, despite affronts to the intellect and a sense of propriety, it is insisted that the Bible is divinely inspired from beginning to end, then the adverse results become far-reaching indeed. Many moral evils may not unjustly be regarded as consequences of this choice. Indeed, such continued affronts cause some people to turn away from the Bible, from the religion founded upon it and, unfortunately, from the morality which Christianity inculcates."

"When faced with the piling of the incredible upon the impossible in the Old Testament, and its portrayal of the Supreme Deity as an arrogant, ruthless and cruel despot, many people fall into atheism, agnosticism, cynicism and indulgence in vice. When, in addition, the Bible is found to contain accounts of frequent indulgence in illicit, and even incestuous, sexual relationships, the Christian Faith can come to be regarded as encouraging such practices, gross immorality being the unfortunate result."

"The existence of the above evils, amongst many others, points to the urgent necessity for a greatly revised reading of the Bible. If, however, many of the anomalies in the Old Testament can be shown to be revelations, under the veil of symbology, of profound spiritual, metaphysical and psychological truths, then the importance of the study of the Scriptures from this point of view at once emerges."

"Ignoring impossibilities and accounts of moral delinquencies, blind faith in the Bible, together with the fear of damnation and the hope of salvation after death, bring large numbers of people to religion. Nevertheless, truly thoughtful minds cannot fail to be repelled by scriptural affronts to reason and propriety. These considerations accentuate the great need for an interpretation of the Bible as a repository of profound wisdom symbolically portrayed. Such an interpretation would meet the objections inevitably aroused by a literal reading with all its consequences, so obviously harmful to mankind."

"Certain portions of the text of the Bible, if taken literally, cannot possibly be regarded as in any way conducive to a high moral standard. In Genesis XII: 10- 20, for example, Abraham passes his wife off as his sister that Pharaoh may possess her. His motive in doing so was that his life might be spared and he be greatly rewarded. Isaac transgresses similarly and for the same reason, as stated in Genesis XXVI: 6-11. In this latter case the Lord God blessed Isaac and he becomes rich and prospers. Genesis XXVII: 1-45, recounts a most deplorable example of deliberate deceit by Jacob, who later becomes a favoured patriarch under the inspiration of the Lord."

"The Old Testament is a collection of thirty-nine books containing poetry and philosophy, ritual law and social legislation, history, symbolism and metaphysics. Its oldest passages are thought to have been written in the days of Moses (about 1200 B.C.), and its latest parts belong to 200 B.C. Though now translated into over 1,000 different dialects and languages its original was written in Hebrew, once again the language of a living people dwelling in the State of Israel. More than a hundred authors wrote it, including priests, prophets and social revolutionaries. Whilst the Bible tells the early history of the Jewish people, then still known as Israelites, it differs from all other historical records. First in importance are the Five Books of Moses, known as the Pentateuch (Gr. “five books”) or by the Hebrew term Torah (Heb. “law”)."

"The Torah describes the beginning of the world and the formative history of the Jewish people from Abraham—the first Jew and the creator of the monotheistic Hebrew religion—up to the death of Moses, and contains the Ten Commandments."

"The Bible as a whole is not written systematically, however, but is a collection of books of history, historical metaphor, biography, law and poetry, all leading into one another without an apparent plan. The Books of the Prophets include both historical narrative and an anthology of Divine revelations. Those of Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings tell the history of the Jewish people from Joshua’s conquest of the Holy Land to the destruction of the first temple by Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon in 586 B.C. These Hebrew prophets were the conscience of the people; for in the face of powerful priests and raving multitudes they spoke up with one chief purpose in mind—to teach man “to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God.” (Micah 6: 8). Isaiah writes with dignity and power, condemning social systems which forget the needs of the poor. Amos, a “herdman and a gatherer of sycamore fruit” (Amos, 7: 14), declared God’s judgment upon the nations and upon Israel, also foretelling Israel’s restoration. Jeremiah dedicated himself to God, but was despised and persecuted by the people. He called for peace when nations prepared for war, and demanded an inward religion of sincerity at a time when priests were enforcing their orthodox codes."

"The Hidden Wisdom and Why It is Concealed"

"The greatest degree of power which occult science can bestow is to be derived from knowledge of the unity and interaction between the Macrocosm and the microcosm, the Universe and man. “The mystery of the earthly and mortal man is after the mystery of the supernal and immortal One”, wrote Eliphas Levi. Lao Tzu also expresses this truth in his words: “The Universe is a man on a large scale.”"

"The whole Universe with all its parts, from the highest plane down to physical Nature, is regarded as being interlocked, interwoven to make a single whole—one body, one organism, one power, one life, one consciousness, all cyclically evolving under one law. The “organs” or parts of the Macrocosm, though apparently separated in space and plane of manifestation, are in fact harmoniously interrelated, intercommunicative and continually interactive."

"According to this revelation of occult philosophy the Zodiac, the Galaxies and their component Systems, and the planets with their kingdoms and planes of Nature, elements, Orders of Beings, radiating forces, colours and notes, are not only parts of a coordinated whole and in “correspondence” or mutual resonance with each other, but also—which is of profound significance—have their representations within man himself. This system of correspondences is in operation throughout the whole of the microcosm, from the Monad to the mortal flesh, including the parts of the mechanism of consciousness, or vehicles and their chakras, by means of which the Spirit of man is manifested throughout his whole nature, varying in degree according to the stage of evolutionary development."

"The seeker for wisdom must... be prepared to delve deeply, to discover, and to interpret according to the classical keys, the numberless treasures of spiritual and occult wisdom and law which lie beneath the surface of all allegorical writings, littered with debris though that surface may appear to be."

"...the great Book of Genesis—a marvellous cup filled with the “wine” of the esoteric knowledge of the Sanctuaries of ancient days. Temples of the Ageless Wisdom exist to-day, even if less easily discoverable, and in them are to be found the selfsame teachings, laws, successions, Initiations and radiations of the light of Truth. World changes are not reflected in the Mysteries, which are repositories and conveyors of eternal and unchanging Ideas. A sack of corn containing a silver cup awaits every Benjamin who finds himself called by a Hierophant (Joseph) from the “famine-stricken” outer world to the “storehouse” from which an elder brother (a Master) Who has already attained will, in prodigal abundance, supply a gift of the golden grain of eternal verities."

"The reliability of the seership of C. W. Leadbeater has been challenged by E. L. Gardner, who has described the former’s occult experiences as being mere unconscious “thought-creations.” Since some members of the Theosophical Society have become very disturbed by this charge, I have decided, in response to many requests, to relate certain personal experiences which demonstrate to me that E. L.Gardner is in error. One of the accusations made by Mr. Gardner is that C. W. Leadbeater’s supposed contacts with the Masters of the Wisdom were largely imaginery, being the result of the unconscious projections of his own thoughts."

"C. W. Leadbeater received two letters from one of the Masters, both being in solid, objective form and transmitted occultly from beyond the Himalayas. This being the case, neither Mr. Gardner nor anyone else can truthfully say that C. W. Leadbeater’s first contacts with the Masters were imaginary. The two letters were, and still are, physical objects now preserved in the archives of the Theosophical Society. Although a very great deal of what C. W. Leadbeater said and described is beyond my own limited experience, I am able to offer the testimony that I have independently become assured of the truth of certain of his teachings. The existence of the human aura, for example, and of the changes and conditions produced in it by both temporary and habitual feelings and thoughts, are undeniable facts for me."

"Finally, I think it would be a great tragedy if, because of E. L. Gardner’s attack upon C. W. Leadbeater, less notice were taken of the latter’s valuable writings, especially those which expound basic Theosophy, for he always wrote with rare lucidity. His unique contributions to the literature upon the spiritual life, the Path of Discipleship, the Masters of the Wisdom and the Great White Brotherhood of Adepts upon Earth, are not likely to be equaled in their power to transform people’s lives in this period of world history. With so many other revealers of spiritual and occult wisdom to mankind, he has been—and by E. L. Gardner is now—decried and assailed. For me, however, C. W. Leadbeater was a giant amongst men, a great teacher and light-bringer to mankind, and I am indeed grateful for this opportunity of adding my testimony to that of others who knew him far more intimately than ever was my own privilege."

"Members of the Christian faith sometimes object to the doctrine of reincarnation on the grounds that to accept it would be a violation of Christian doctrine. While it is true that a Council of Constantinople in the sixth century A. D. pronounced belief in the pre-existence of the soul to be heretical, an examination of the Scriptures strongly suggests that the doctrine of rebirth was generally accepted in those days and that Our Lord himself believed it. Whether this be the case or not, the student of the Christian doctrine may well ask whether a decision made by a group of men in the sixth century should be regarded as binding today."

"This objection to reincarnation by Christians, on grounds of doctrinal fidelity, is sufficiently important to merit a somewhat detailed examination. From this it is found that reincarnation has neither been proclaimed nor condemned by any general council of the Church or by any creed accepted by a general council. The Council of Constantinople held in 543 A.D., which proclaimed heretical Origen’s teaching of the preexistence of the soul and affirmed the doctrine of special creation, was not a general council, and so not universally authoritative."

"Origen taught that all souls were created at the beginning of creation as angelic spirits. In this condition they sinned and for their apostasy were transferred into material bodies. It was this view of preexistence which was proclaimed heretical. In any case, heresy thus condemned so long ago need not be regarded today as of major importance. Truth matters a great deal more and a condemned heresy may turn out to be a truth, as happened, for example, when a local church of Rome condemned Galileo’s heliocentric doctrine and forced him to recant. Galileo was right and the church in question was wrong. It is therefore quite legitimate for both clergy and laity of the Christian faith to preach and believe in both preexistence and reincarnation."

"It should also be remembered that the Bible is written in the language of symbols, a special category of literature designed both to conceal and to reveal spiritual truths. Blindness is a symbol for temporary unawareness of spiritual light. The Christ partly represents spiritual intuitiveness. When one who is spiritually blind becomes intuitively awakened and active or, symbolically, enters the presence of the Christ and is healed by him, the scales are said to have fallen from his eyes. This I believe to be the true symbolical interpretation; for I look upon the story as one of the many beautiful miniature mystery dramas to be found in the Bible, portraying in allegory and symbol the soul’s awakening from darkness to light. Nevertheless, symbolism apart, the answer given by the Lord was, as stated above, doctrinally and technically correct."

"The disciples... asked the Master why it had been written that Elijah should appear first, and received a remarkable reply. St. Matthew records the incident thus: And his disciples asked him, saying, Why then say the scribes that Elias must first come? And Jesus answered and said unto them, Elias truly shall first come, and restore all things. But I say unto you, that Elias is come already, and they knew him not, but have done unto him whatsoever they listed. Likewise shall also the Son of man suffer of them. Then the disciples understood that he spake unto them of John the Baptist. (Matt. 17:10–13)"

"Reference has already been made to the command given by Christ to his followers: “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect” (Matt. 5:48). If man is granted but one life in which to accomplish this perfection, such attainment would be an impossibility for almost every human being; and Our Lord would have presented to mankind an ideal which is impossible of fulfillment. Since his wisdom was perfect, it is extremely unlikely that he would have taken this course. If, however, each man is granted almost unlimited time and every needed opportunity throughout successive lives in which to reach the goal which is set for him, then Our Lord’s words are less an injunction than a description of the destiny of every man. Indeed, in the original Greek and in the Revised Version, the behest becomes a simple statement of fact: “Ye therefore shall be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”"

"Geoffrey Hodson, a theosophical writer, in his book The Hidden Wisdom in the Holy Bible, Vol. I, gives us excellent clues to the symbolic meanings of the Bible. One of his suggestions is that we look at many biblical passages not for historical information, but that we consider them as happenings within our lives..."

"The Sanskrit word ‘maya’ refers to all things that can be measured. Human understanding of the world is limited, hence measurable, hence maya. To believe this maya is truth is delusion. Beyond maya, beyond human values and human judgements, beyond the current understanding of the world, is a limitless reality which makes room for everyone and everything. That reality is God."

"The Goddess is Maya, embodiment of all delusions. She is Shakti, personification of energy. She is Adi, primal, as ancient and boundless as the soul...The embodiment of Adi- Maya-Shakti – Durga is the invincible one. She is at once bride and warrior. The one establishes home, provides pleasure, produces children and offers food."

"The Tantrik approach to self-realization is different from the Vedic approach. The former looks upon the Goddess as Shakti, energy, to be experienced while the latter looks upon the Goddess as Maya, delusion, to be transcended. The former is more sensory, the latter less so."

"Though in Bengal and Orissa, some say, Alakshmi is visualized as an owl seated beside Lakshmi, Alakshmi is a secret goddess, invisible to all. The only way to see her is to have Saraswati, goddess of knowledge and good sense by your side. But Lakshmi will never let Saraswati stay in the same house as her. She will go wherever there is Saraswati and kick her out, making room for Alakshmi. Why does she do that, one wonders. But then one is told that Lakshmi is a whimsical goddess, she does not like to stay in one place too long. By kicking Saraswati out and by getting Alakshmi in, she ensures there is a fight in the house and when there is a fight, wealth invariably moves out of a house."

"The standard trope in modern historical studies seems to be that Hindu temples were destroyed not only by Muslim rulers but also by Hindu rulers as part of establishing their authority. It disregards all Hindu memory and Islamic writing that shows motivation of Muslim rulers at its core was religious, designed to replace the Hindu faith with Islam. This is aligned with Western academic anxiety at being seen as Islamophobic – no points lost if one is Hinduphobic."

"Despite their deep knowledge of Hinduism, neither Elst nor Frawley, neither Doniger nor Pollock, believe in letting go and moving on, which is the hallmark of Hindu thought, often deemed as a feminine trait. Instead, Elst and Frawley keep drawing attention to injustice done by colonisers, goading Indians to rise up and fight, a violent tendency that is the hallmark of Western thought, often deemed as a masculine trait... Elst and Frawley follow the Abrahamic mythic pattern that establishes them as ‘prophets’ leading the enslaved – colonised – Indians back to the ‘Vedic Promised Land’."

"Ram's calm repose in the face of all adversity, so evident in the Ramayan, has made him worthy of veneration, adoration and worship. Ram's story has reached the masses not through erudite Sanskrit texts but through theatre song and dance performed in local languages. All of these retellings of Ramayan have their own turns and twists, their own symbolic outpouring, each one valid in their respective contexts."

"The Ramayan, one of the most revered texts in Hinduism, tells the story of a prince called Ram. Dashrath, king of Ayodhya, had three wives but no children. So he conducted a yagna and invoked the gods who gave him a magic potion that was divided among his three queens. In time the queens gave birth to four sons. Ram was the eldest, born of the chief queen, Kaushalya, Bharat was the second born to Dasharath’s favourite queen Kaikeyi. Lakshman and Shatrughna were the twin sons of the third queen Sumitra."

"The twentieth century saw Ram on celluloid with films like Bharat Milap (1942), Ram Rajya (1943 film) andSati Sulochana (1961). Ramanand Sagar's television serial Ramayan, with Arun Govil starring as Ram, made history in the late 1980s."

"The Ramayan also happens to be part of the Mahabharata, dated between 300 BCE and 300 CE, where it is called the Ramopakhyan. When the Pandavas bemoaned their thirteen years of forest exile, Rishi Markandeya retorted by telling them how Ram suffered for fourteen years and while the Pandavas deserved their punishment for gambling away their kingdom, Ram did not deserve his fate – he was simply obesing his father."

"We don't have all the time in the world with oil. We have to use oil while it makes sense to do so."

"Hate speech is a specie of terrorism."

"No economy can tolerate the level of corruption seen in Nigeria without consequences."

"We all know that Nigerian jollof rice is the best anywhere. We beat the Ghanaians and Senegalese hands down."

"Here in Nigeria, what makes the news is conflict between the executive and the legislature."

"There must be more rigorous enforcement of rules promoting transparency in the international banking and financial systems, especially more stringent KYC rules on customer identity, source of wealth, and even country of origin."

"Corruption and illicit financial flows are different. But they really must be twinned. This is because, for practical purposes, it is an eminently more sensible approach to treat most of the sources of illicit financial flows as corrupt activity, within a broader use of the term."

"Tracing, freezing, and return of stolen assets has proved in many cases to be exceptionally difficult for most African countries."

"There is no wisdom of man that can change men or change nations; it is the power and wisdom of God that can."

"We in Nigeria have seen just how difficult it is to get back stolen assets from the international financial system, such as banks that ought not have received those funds in the first place if even the most routine questions were asked."

"It doesn't matter where one starts from; it doesn't matter at all where you start from. It is how committed you are, how determined you are, and how hardworking you are that will ultimately make the difference."

"The carnal nature of man is that he places his tribe above others, but the only basis for the power and unity of the church is that there is no Jew or Gentile."

"I am so pleased and happy, and I believe that the Almighty God has a plan for our nation by putting us in strategic positions in politics, business, and everywhere."

"The fundamental for the sustainable growth of Nigeria is not in the hydro-carbon industry but in agriculture."

"With 10 per cent of Nigeria's total land mass, 80 per cent of which is arable, Niger state symbolises the hope and greatness of Nigeria and has potential to feed the continent."

"Nigeria is still grappling with the negative consequences of the use of opacity by senior members of government and their cronies between 1993 and 1998, awarding themselves juicy contracts in the extractive industry."

"An active and vibrant railway system confers many benefits on the society."

"Railway network will support efforts to diversify the economy and enhance our export potentials."

"Any nation that does not emphasize integrity will always fail."

"The values of integrity and hard work are necessary for the development of our nation."

"You don't have to cheat or steal to be successful in life, but you must be ready to convert your challenges to opportunity."

"If people are stealing the resources of this nation, if people are taking bribes - if judges or persons in authority, whether they are judges or whoever they may be in government, ministers, whoever, if they are taking bribes - it attacks the fundament of our existence as a society."

"The most important thing is that we are on the right path, and we will not deviate from it, even in the face of strong temptation to choose temporary gains over long-term benefits."

"Our vision is for a country that grows what it eats and produces what it consumes. It is for a country that no longer has to import petroleum products and develop a lucrative petrochemical industry."

"Our diversity as a people united is also our potential to transform our large deposits of mineral resources and use same for national development."

"If the church says we will not accept you here or that we will expose you if you are stealing the resources of the country or stealing the resources of a private company or other establishment, where you work, then we would not have the type of problem that we have in this country. If only the church does so - just the church."

"Many would say the reason why they steal is because they want to have an arsenal for future political exploits. It is a lie. It is greed. In any case, even if you want to do that, you have no right to do it."

"If the church says you are not allowed to steal, and we will ostracize you in our midst if you did, if what a man has does not measure up to what he has, if we found that a man has more money than he should have, if a man is earning a salary of a civil servant or a public servant and he has houses everywhere, we have to hold him to account."

"If this government is doing the right thing by fighting corruption, the Church should support it."

"In stabilizing the macroeconomic environment, we have focused on aligning fiscal with monetary policy and nudging the central bank toward the objective of more market-determined exchange rates."

"It is not possible for one tribe to dominate another based on the way God has structured the country."

"The reason we have Christian president and Muslim vice president or Muslim president and Christian vice president is to have balance."

"If there is one person in Nigeria that believes that petroleum prices should not go up by one naira, it is President Buhari."

"Great economies and great nations, prosperity, and abundance of nations and communities are created by men and not spirits."

"The truth is that many, if not most, nations of the world are made up of different peoples - and cultures and beliefs and religions - who find themselves thrown together by circumstance."

"The most successful of the nations of the world are those who do not fall into the lure of secession but who, through thick and thin, forge unity in diversity."

"I understand the law of sowing and reaping. It is a spiritual law that has tremendous physical implications. Every time that we delay or frustrate what we can do today, leaving it till tomorrow, we hold back the future. We, too, must reap what we have sown by experiencing delays."

"No matter how much you pray or fast, our country cannot grow without some of us deciding to do the hard work that makes nations work."

"The quality and quantum of potential investors in Africa is huge."

"The most important thing for Africa is that whoever wants to invest in our countries should start in manufacturing."

"We in Africa must prepare our economies in that direction that attracts such huge and qualitative investments. It is for us to push, and we must push."

"It is the resolve of the government that none will be allowed to get away with making speeches that can cause sedition or that can cause violence, especially because when we make these kinds of pronouncement and do things that can cause violence or destruction of lives and property, we are no longer in control."

"Nigeria's unity is one for which enough blood has been spilled and many hundreds of thousands of lives have been lost. Many have paid for the unity of this country with their lives, and it will be wrong of us, as men and women of goodwill in this generation, to toy with those sacrifices that have been made."

"We are committed to a continuous engagement with our people to explain government policies, receive advice and criticism."

"As we move to diversify our economy, we are particularly aware that we need oil to get out of oil."

"It will be wrong of us to approach our grievances by threatening to disobey the laws or by threatening the integrity of our nation."

"Africa Rising is as much about improving standards of governance as it is about an increasingly confident youths and civil society. It is also about businessmen and women who are stepping beyond national borders and going global."

"Africa cannot afford to underestimate the power of technology to fast-track the continent's rise. Emerging technologies have played extraordinary roles in every aspect of the continent's most touted successes."

"Many of the ethnic and other parochial tensions that have tended to create insecurity and outright conflict, time and time again, are largely as a result of failure to deliberately undertake nation-building efforts."

"Economic growth is not sustainable without nation-building and, even of greater importance, state building."

"We are in a democracy and there is a process by which things can be done and that process is the one where you bring forward amendments to the National Assembly and they will do whatever is considered useful in the circumstance."

"The Diaspora in the UK is particularly important because this is the largest diaspora community in the world. So really if you are talking to hundreds of thousands of Nigerians for anyone with any sense at all it’s a very important community to address. So it’s representative, it’s the way to go. The Diaspora here is also very active at home,"

"We can escape and destroy evil through these shifts in our mindsets. As a therapist today, I can say that actually people do find freedom when they shift their mindsets away from hopelessness and powerlessness."

"When you’re an actress you reach the subtext. You play all these different roles and as a therapist, which I am now, I specialise in family treatment of addiction and trauma and I’m also with clients where I have to take different kinds of presentations for each client. Everyone responds differently. A soft glove or a hard hand in a soft glove, so in a way with the adaptability there’s really not that much difference from acting."

"You know when you’re starting out as an actor it’s like “just give me a job, as long as I can keep my clothes on I’m happy!”."

"Rarely is anyone thanked for the work they did to prevent the disaster that didn't happen."

"We are no longer securing computers - we are securing the society."

"Cyber weapons are effective, affordable and deniable. That’s a great combination in any weapon."

"If it's smart, it's vulnerable."

"It is not a question of privacy against security. It's a question of freedom against control."

"Adobe Reader is the worst piece of software I’ve seen, right after QuickTime."

"The proliferation of internet-connected smart devices will be the IT asbestos of the future."

"Privacy is dead, and it was killed by the internet. This is what our generation will be remembered for."

"Security is like Tetris: Your successes disappear but your failures pile up."

"The day of happiness will be the memorable day of the emancipation of the people, and the day of emancipation will be the one when the great are put down and the small raised up; when there are neither masters nor slaves; bosses nor subordinates; powerful nor weak; oppressors nor oppressed; but when the vast Brazil is called the common homeland of Brazilian citizens or United States of Brazil."

"If someday (...) the respectable judges of Brazil, forgetful of the respect they owe the law, and of the indispensable duties they have contracted before morality and the nation, corrupted by venality or the deleterious action of power, abandoning the sacrosanct cause of law (...) failing in due justice to the unfortunate ones who suffer unjust slavery, I, on my own account, (...) and under my sole responsibility, will advise and promote, not insurrection, which is a crime, but "resistance", which is a civic virtue."

"I am not a legal scholar, I am not a doctor, I am not a law graduate, I have no pretensions to celebrity, nor am I in the position to occupy a position in the judiciary; I am, however, disgusted by the notorious incongruity of which, with undauntled arrogance, eminent magistrates who have as their office the study of laws, and as their obligation the just application of them."

"Slavery is a kind of social leprosy: it has often been abolished by legislators and restored by education under various aspects."

"I am an abolitionist, without reservation; I am a citizen; I believe I have done my duty."

"There are scenes of such greatness, or of such misery, that being complete in their kind, they cannot be described; the world and the atom define themselves; thus, crime and virtue keep the same proportion; thus, the slave who kills the master, who fulfills an inevitable prescription of natural right, and the unworthy people, who murder heroes, will never be mixed."

"Wretched people; they ignore that it is more glorious to die free on a rope, or torn to pieces by dogs in the public square, than to feast with the Neros in slavery."

"A law is a social monument, a page of history, a lesson in ethnography, a reason for state."

"In front of them Washington, pensive like Archimedes, with the tip of the sacred sword, soaked in the blood of battles, inscribes the United States on the map of the Nations; and Franklin, the modern Teramenes, snatching a ray from the sun, with lucid stars, engraves in infinity the eternal legend of Liberty."

"At half past one o'clock, as today, 90 years ago, expired the man who, in this country, first proposed the liberation of the slaves, and the proclamation of the Republic. He was tried as a defendant of lese-majestie, he was killed, but Tiradentes dead, like the sun at sunset, shows himself to the universe as great as at its dawn."

"Under the law, the crime of murder perpetrated by the slave on the person of the master is justifiable"

"The slave who kills his master, in any circumstance, always does so in self-defense."

"Luiz Gama is the only intellectual, the only black Brazilian personality of the 19th century to have lived the experience of slavery. This is already a fact that makes him unique in the panorama of Brazil in the 19th century"."

"...Luiz Gama was keen to demonstrate, through his example, the fallacy of the pseudoscientific beliefs in vogue in a slaveholding society convinced of the intellectual incapacity and moral inferiority of Africans and their descendants, the basis of the racist ideology that still persists among us.”"

"One hundred years before Martin Luther King, he said he had a sublime dream: the lands of the Cruzeiro, without kings and without slaves."

"Brethren, this is the time anybody will need grace more than ever before. ‎"

"Don’t marry a girl who is lazy! Don’t marry a girl who cannot cook, she needs to know how to do chores and cook because you cannot afford to be eating out all the time"

"Go to your pastor first to consult for marriage before your parents"

"There is real danger in losing call of God"

"I believe in ONE ETERNAL TRUE GOD Who has spoken to me in the past, Who speaks to me in the present, and Who will speak to me in the future. I believe in the Lord and His Spirit, Who created the conditions for my salvation. |"

"May Your Kingdom be established, and may we partake in Your Joy. May Your Will be done on Earth, as it is in Heaven, and may we work together with You."

"The Promise of God: Whenever you call Me, I will hear you, because I am the Holy God, the mighty Spirit, and I am fast in helping. Justice, Purity, Faith, Hope and Love do not endure any hesitation or hypocrisy."

"Get out any anger! God is not a God of anger, but of gentleness. He does not accept gossip and ingratitude."

"You should pray unceasingly, you should be grateful for everything, you should always rejoice, because that is the Will of God for you in Jesus Christ."

"Christ Himself prayed every night. He had a great deal of knowledge, but He spent hours in prayer after midnight. During these hours He was filled with energy like a dynamo. He then used that energy during the day. In other words, we draw energy from God while praying."

"God presents the diversity of Life and His Love is a ceaseless spring for those who seek Him. From now on, all waiting for the Lord will rejoice in Him. We will sing a new song to the Lord. The revival of the Spirit is a new transformation of the human heart. The Lord will place eternal Daylight and Righteousness in it. The prophet said, 'I will give them new hearts'. This is the New Kingdom of God, which Jesus introduced into our hearts; and we are members of this Kingdom of Daylight; we are all united in this Great and Sacred Heart of the Lord Jesus."

"You have to do your inner work, increasing the power of your faith and strengthening the spirit of your prayers. In fact, every good service comes due to the Servants of God and every good act comes from God."

"Exercise yourself in all virtues. Encircle yourself with the Power of Faith, put on the Dress of Love. Call Patience to help you and strengthen it with your Noble character and Tenderness."

"Give place to Gentleness in your soul and call its children - Selflessness and Meekness together with Politeness and Good nature. And when you do all this, give thanks to God for His help to guard you from evil and to place you in His abode in safety. Sing and praise the Lord in your souls, because your salvation is reality and Heaven is your home."

"No knowledge, no love, no wisdom in the world can be compared to prayer, to a person's communion with the Primary Principle."

"There is no greater moment than that when one raises one's eyes towards God."

"To pray means to direct one's mind, heart, soul and spirit towards the Great Source of Life from which we have emerged."

"Prayer is a conversation of the soul with God, in which people confess their mistakes, rectify themselves and give thanks for all good things which they receive every day."

"To pray means to send your report about the work you have done to That Center from which you have emerged. In reply you will receive peace and enlightenment."

"True prayer means the awakening of the Divine within the human being."

"Whoever prays from the bottom of their heart will invariably receive an answer!"

"Without prayer a person cannot make progress and learn."

"Prayer is a Divine impulse. When it comes to you, you should not delay, but enter the secret chamber of your heart and start praying."

"Prayer is an initiation to Divine life; prayer brings bliss."

"Each one of you is preparing to become a citizen of the Kingdom of God, for which you should have the correct attitude towards God, towards your own soul and towards your neighbors. But you cannot establish these correct attitudes until you have a main idea within yourself."

"You should concentrate all your forces on one aim - to develop the Divine in yourself and to give it precedence over the human."

"Appraise the Divine within yourselves - your mind, your heart, your soul and your spirit."

"The law is: maintain contact with the Heart of Nature, with the Mind of the Sun and with the Soul of the Universe: there is one Heart in Nature, one Mind in the Sun, one Soul in the Universe, one Spirit in Eternity. And above everything is One God."

"When you say the Lord's Prayer, give the following meaning to the words: Our Father, Who are in our minds, may Your Light come to my mind, so that it will be able to perceive. May Your Will be within all my undertakings, in all my thoughts and feelings, in all my actions. May Your Will be present even in my breathing and in my blood circulation, so that I can serve You in Joy and Love. 'Lead us not into temptation' means: Lord, give us knowledge and wisdom, so that we cannot fall into temptation through our ignorance."

"The Good Prayer"

"Lord God, our tender Heavenly Father, Who has given us Life and health to rejoice in You - we pray to You: send us Your Spirit to shelter and protect us from every evil and cunning thought."

"Teach us to do Your Will, to sanctify Your Name and to glorify You always."

"Enlighten our spirit, guide also our hearts and minds to keep Your commandments and instructions."

"By Your presence, inspire within us Your pure thoughts and guide us to serve You with joy."

"Bless our lives, which we dedicate to You for the sake of our brothers and our neighbors."

"Sustain us and help us to grow in knowledge and in Wisdom, to learn from Your Word and to abide in Your Truth."

"Guide us in everything we think and do in Your name, so that Your Kingdom may come on Earth."

"Nurture our souls with Your Heavenly bread and fill us with Your Power, so that we may succeed in life. And as You give us all Your blessings, supply Your Love as well, so that it may become for us an everlasting law."

"For Yours is the Kingdom, the Power and the Glory, forever."

"The Good Prayer is a password. You can pass everywhere by reading it. When you say "Lord God", you will go through the first door. You will pass through as many doors as there are sentences in it. The Good Prayer is sacred, as originating from God; and the Spirit of God vivifies it every day. Thus it is daily up-dated and never gets old. You shall read the Good Prayer in deep inspiration. You shall call the presence of the Spirit by your praying; you shall be very serene and master your mind. In this way you will form and send out that mighty force, those waves, which will attract the Power of God and will activate the Spirit. Then everyone will receive that gentleness and joy which you seek."

"The Good Prayer and Psalm 91 used together attain such a great spiritual force that they can even save one's life in death strains."

"I strongly believe we have hope of properly tackling corruption in Nigeria."

"We need to stop tolerating and celebrating unexplained wealth."

"Our votes are our power, they are not for sale."

"As a photographer, I try to reach beyond the differences in our genetic makeup to appreciate all we have in common with every other living thing. When I use my camera, I drop my skin like the animals at that cave so I can show who they really are. As animals blessed with the power of rational thought, we can marvel at the intricacies of life. As citizens of a planet in trouble, it is our moral responsibility to deal with the dramatic loss in diversity of life."

"God deliberately chooses imperfect vessels — those who have been wounded, those with physical or emotional limitations. Then he prepares them to serve and sends them out with their weakness still in evidence, so that his strength can be made perfect in that weakness."

"Even if people have disappointed you or circumstances have not turned out as you had hoped or prayed, know that God is with you, cares for you, and loves you. He is working all these things together for your good right at this very moment."

"When there is a fight between your heart and your head, experience has taught me that the best thing you can do is pick up your Bible and remind yourself of what God says."

"Sometimes when you're in a dark place, you think you've been buried. But you've actually been planted. Be patient... Your time to grow is coming!"

"I am living proof you can start bad and end good through a relationship with Jesus Christ."

"To step into tomorrow’s possibilities you must let go of yesterday’s realities. Be careful of your choices between what was, is and will be. It is very hard to fully step into your destiny while you are still holding on to your history."

"You know, I personally have to fight to protect my thoughts so my thinking does not spiral out of control. When my mind is full of joy and peace, I can run fast every, I can run harder, I can run further they are. So choose to think about what you're thinking about every single day. Another important aspect of running is that runners stretch and strengthen. So in order to run at optimal capacity, runners need to stretch before and after each run. I'm speaking to myself right now. So if they do not, their bodies will become rigid and inflexible. Exhibit a, that would be me. I have to admit I do need to take my own advice in this area because as we grow older we lose our flexibility and we're prone to more and more injuries. I often think I don't have time to stretch and then I wonder why I feel very very stiff the next day. Stretching actually reduces muscle tension, it promotes circulation, and it reduces the risk of injury. Stretching is a very very important practice."

"more you focus on what you are called to do, the less you become distracted by what someone else is or isn’t doing. It’s hard to run your race and your course while focusing on someone else’s race and course."

"“Faith is believing God is who He says He is, and that He will do what He said He would do.”"

"My feelings of pain and suffering now have also become a way of helping other people and a big part of helping society in general. So, it was not easy. But I’m glad that I never gave up. I persisted and pushed myself to become stronger than before."

"It takes a long time to express how we feel. I am trying to show the other survivors that we need to express that pain we have."

"Physical violence happened to me, and also living with HIV as a result of that, it’s something I will never forget—that will never go anywhere, that I have to live with."

"“I wanted to be in a place where I can start a new life, I needed to start a new life in a place where I’ve never experienced what I’ve experienced. At that time, it was for me to start a new life, through a journey of healing. Leaving Rwanda was easy for me because of the trauma experiences I have had. So I felt like I needed to be in a different place. It happened to be that I came to America because my cousin was here."

"And some of us live with the consequences because of what we’ve been through during the genocide."

"There are women survivors who are not able to share their stories. I have been able to help them, when it came to helping those who were raped, share their stories which is something they had not been able to talk about."

"What happened in one day can happen anywhere, and people should be aware of [this], because it’s not something that happens overnight."

"I am part of making people be aware of how genocide can happen, so. And if we are aware, we can make sure we prevent that from happening again."

"My lesson to all is that no matter what horrible circumstance we may face in our lives, we must never lose hope, for losing hope is the beginning of our own self defeat."

"I survived for a reason."

"There’s a mantra that I live with. No matter what horrible circumstances you may face in your life, never lose hope."

"Losing hope is the beginning of your own self-defeat."

"It is my duty to tell what happened so the world will not forget. . . That’s my way of making sure that the history is not forgotten."

"Genocide doesn’t happen overnight. It’s a process. There are so many stages."

"Rape is a weapon of the genocide."

"For me, to share is so I encourage my fellow survivors to share their story. I want to be a part of helping - making sure the history of my family is told."

"I want to make sure that the world knows what we’ve been through, the suffering we’ve been through, and how we overcame."

"I want to make sure that those that are no longer here - their voices, their lives, their names . . . are alive. They were alive. They existed. . . My duty is to make sure that what happened is heard."

"It was important for me to never give up on life. There is a reason why I am alive. I have a purpose. That is why I am here talking to you ."

"My life matters. . . No matter what you’ve been through, you should never give up. Never lose hope."

"Therefore, Rwanda used the gacaca system, “a traditional justice system that was used before to reconcile families. People come together in the community to reconcile."

"The international community was watching what was happening but they were not intervening which was very sad for me to see."

"The genocide in Rwanda was preventable if the international community had intervened."

"Words matter. Words have power. We saw in Rwanda, it [the genocide] started from words."

"Whenever you see injustice happening, you must speak out."

"Do something. . . Be aware. . . Learn from history. It can happen anywhere."

"In our culture, we don’t talk a lot about experiences."

"I have some days where I just sit down and cry. It’s not like everything is perfect all the time."

"We gaze up at the same stars; the sky covers us all; the same universe encompasses us. What does it matter what practical system we adopt in our search for the truth? The heart of so great a mystery cannot be reached by following one road only."

"Domitius Afer of Nimes [...] held high offices under Tiberius and Caligula and Nero and had previously practiced in the forum, a better orator than a man, although even the reputation of a good orator abandoned him before his lifetime. (Wilhelm Siegmund Teuffel)"

"This famous man, often praised by Quintilian as the greatest orator he had heard, was born in Nimes, a Roman colony, and having moved to Rome to improve his fortune, was currently walking the path of honors . He had been Praetor a short time before; but as he occupied only a mediocre rank in the City, he sought opportunities to make a name for himself at whatever price he paid. He therefore accused Claudia [Pulcra, great-granddaughter of Augustus] of adultery with Furnius, of spells, and of magical operations directed against the Emperor. (Jean-Baptiste-Louis Crevier)"

"“We see media not just as a platform, but a catalyst for social impact. We’re shifting mindsets, elevating community solutions, and putting women’s health squarely in the public consciousness.”"

"“We are laying the foundation for a future where no woman is left behind, no matter her income or location.”"

"“I hope women will say, this was the moment we became visible. This office wasn’t just symbolic; it was systemic.”"

"Live a life in alignment with their true passions and purpose, and create meaningful change in the world."

"I Am Not One Thing: Breaking The Mould to Achieve Your Full Potential."

"Your first step, in building your startup online, should be to identify your audience and where they are most active online."

"Getting to the next level of life involves reaching another level of self-discipline."

"Do you know that Durban has an economic output higher than some countries in Africa? There’s actually no reason why Durban should be in the state it’s in. It’s the most extraordinary thing for me…"

"A strong, vibrant city centre breathes life into the surrounding neighbourhoods, and in turn, the city itself fuels the strength of the wider state"

"To think of Durban as simply a city is to miss its larger role - it is a vital engine for the state, a bridge between local communities and global markets"

"Put it this way: you have goods coming in (through the port) from the east, going to the west.They go through Durban as a port; Durban is a mega port. I don’t understand why it looks the way it does; it makes no sense to me"

"I am often confused by people who fail to understand the importance of the city centre. The reason you build a city centre is for the rest of the city, and you want the rest of the city to reflect the state or the province"

"We don’t just don’t have the time to do the things that don’t matter. I think we are called on in this season as young Africans to seize power"

"Let me tell you, young people. There is no old person going anywhere. If you want that sit in that office, board room, chamber, or ministry, you are going to have to fight for it. Power is not given, it is taken"

"And so the question as the continent rises is: will we be men and women of courage? Will we be the generation that in 50 years time, our children reference and say ‘They did it right"

"But the daily tasks and prayers of men, the ancient city tired from having lived too long, the ravaged marble and worn out bells, all those things oppressed by the weight of memories, all those perishable things were rendered humble in comparison with the tremendous blazing Alps that tore at the sky with their thousand unyielding spikes, a vast, solitary city that was waiting, perhaps, for a new race of Titans."

"The woman bent down to pick up the fallen pomegranate from the grass. It was ripe, it had burst open in the fall, stained her white dress. The vision of the laden barge, the pale island, the flowery meadow returned to her loving spirit along with the Creator's words: 'This is my body...Take and eat..."

"And in the kisses, what deep sweetness! There are women's mouths that seem to ignite with love the breath that opens them. Whether they are reddened by blood richer than purple, or frozen by the pallor of agony, whether they are illuminated by the goodness of consent or darkened by the shadow of disdain, they always carry within them an enigma that disturbs men of intellect, and attracts them and captivates them. A constant discord between the expression of the lips and that of the eyes generates the mystery; it seems as if a duplicitous soul reveals itself there with a different beauty, happy and sad, cold and passionate, cruel and merciful, humble and proud, laughing and mocking; and the abiguity arouses discomfort in the spirit that takes pleasure in dark things."

"He wanted to possess not the body but the soul of that woman; and to possess her entire soul, with all her tenderness, all her joys, all her fears, all her anguish, all her dreams, in other words, the entire lief of her soul; and to be able to say: I am the life of her life."

"It was the beginning of June; summer was arising out of spring, like an aloe from a field of grass."

"Commander Gabriele D'Annunzio, I know of nothing that equals the harmony of your captivating words, the energy of your victorious work. With the devoted, grateful heart of an Italian and an artist, I hope your wishes be fulfilled. For beautiful Italy, for great Italy, for her noblest son, for his valiant comrades, eja, eja, eja, alalà!"

"Western European humanity moves by will and reason. A Russian person lives first of all with his heart and imagination, and only then with his will and mind. Therefore, the average European is ashamed of sincerity, conscience and kindness [regarding it] as "stupidity"; A Russian person, on the contrary, expects from a person, first of all, kindness, conscience and sincerity. Original: Западноевропейское человечество движется волею и рассудком. Русский человек живет прежде всего сердцем и воображением и лишь потом волею и умом. Поэтому средний европеец стыдится искренности, совести и доброты как «глупости»; русский человек, наоборот, ждет от человека прежде всего доброты, совести и искренности."

"Ukraine is recognized as the most threatened part of Russia in terms of secession and conquest. Ukrainian separatism is an artificial phenomenon, devoid of real grounds. It arose from the ambition of the leaders and the international intrigue of conquest. Little Russians are a branch of a single, Slavic-Russian people. This branch has no reason to be at enmity with other branches of the same people and to separate into a separate state. Having seceded, this state betrays itself to be conquered and plundered by foreigners. Little Russia and Great Russia are bound together by faith, tribe, historical fate, geographical location, economy, culture and politics. The foreigners who are preparing the dismemberment must remember that they are declaring by this to the whole of Russia a centuries-old struggle. There will be no peace and no economic prosperity under such a dismemberment. Russia will turn into a source of civil and international wars for centuries. The dismembering power will become the most hated of the enemies of national Russia. In the struggle against it, all alliances and all means will be used. Russia will shift its center to the Urals, gather all its huge forces, develop its technology, find powerful allies for itself and fight until it completely and forever undermines the power of the dismembering power. National Russia is not looking for anyone's death, but it will be able to respond in time to any attempt at dismemberment and will fight to the end. It is more profitable for any power to have Russia as a friend, not an enemy. History hasn't said its last word yet..."

"A virgo infelix, herbis pasceris amaris."

"Cum iam fulva cinis fuero ..."

"Lilium, vaga candido nympha quod secet ungui."

"It is believed the motives prompting his action were pure, and in keeping with the good qualities of his heart and mind. He did, or allowed to be done, what he considered proper in defence of the interests of religion and the church, though always endeavoring to avoid conflicts with the civil authority."

"Greece belongs to the West."

"Who governs this country?"

"Hellas has been transformed to an endless bedlam."

"In democracies, prime ministers do not go to prison. They return home."

"In the history of all nations, there are instances in which the crisis of institutions and morals becomes so deep that, in order to save democracy, one should remake it."

"You made me come back on 24 July in order to save the country that was in danger. But if you do not mean to give me the ample majority I need to carry out my mission, then what is the point of having me back?"

"Greece is plagued by just one single problem: its politics. The misfortune of our people is caused by the unhealthy nature of the political environment and the defective organization of public life."

"It is our opinion that the misfortunes of our people are mainly due to the imperfect organization and shortcomings of public life [...] The problem is of a political nature [... and it can only be solved with the creation of] a new political force that will become the point of convergence of all progressive and healthy elements of our times [...] a force that will generate a new political and moral ethos."

"As you know, the functioning of democracy– and especially of parliamentary democracy presupposes the existence of parties with [long] traditions, steadfast principles, a program, as well as a leadership inspired by a sense of responsibility. Because political parties [...] have the most decisive role in democracies. In point of fact, one can claim that it is political parties rather than governments that peoples attach to; and that a regime’s fortune is more affected by the number and behavior of [its] political parties than by its formal institutional framework."

"What Right are you talking about? Am I the Right-winger? And who are the Leftists? Wasn’t it I who, as soon as I took over after the Civil War, stopped the executions and opened the prisons and exile camps? Wasn’t it the centrists who made Law 509, all the anti-communist legislation, the political loyalty declarations, the prisons, the exiles, and the executions? I took office just six years after the Civil War ended. And immediately, I found myself in the middle. On one side were my own people, the right-wingers, who wanted us to crush the communists, and on the other side were the communists, who refused to accept their defeat. So, gradually, I released them from prison; I didn’t carry out any executions, and I safeguarded the democracy of that time. So, I am the right-winger, and they are the democrats, who did all these things, which I found ready-made? And didn’t I also legalize the Communist Party after the dictatorship? Didn’t I withdraw from NATO when it was necessary? Didn’t I nationalize the companies of Andreadis, Onassis, and Niarchos? Didn’t I achieve the smooth and bloodless transition from dictatorship to democracy? Didn’t I contribute decisively to the abolition of the monarchy? Didn’t I guarantee the alternation of parties in power? Didn’t I draft the best Constitution Greece ever had? So what are you telling me now about being the leader of the Right? You all need to understand that the time has come to move away from slogans and labels, and for the parties to stop trapping people in rhetoric, in which they then become entangled themselves."

"I had often thought of the emotion I should feel when I set foot again on the soil of my country. And I may tell you that the thought brought tears to my eyes in anticipation. And yet never was I calmer, never did I have myself more completely under control, than the moment when I arrived at the airport. And the reason was that my sense of the responsibilities which I was about to undertake was so intense as to stifle, to banish every other thought."

"If a politician is capable and an honest servant, then it is you who need him and not the opposite. There is therefore no need for him to flatter you so that you vote for him. This is how I understand my relationship with the people."

"My loneliness, which is, as you know, inherent in my character, became almost absolute in politics. In politics it may have proved to be useful, since it freed me from weakness; however, it made my life depressing, because apart from anything else, it deprived me of the opportunity to have friends. Now that I need them it is too late to change, both because of ingrained habit and age."

"[He is] a special phenomenon: a man of humble origins, unremarkable intellectual endowment, infuriating obstinacy, but with an impeccable honesty, a statesmanlike flair in big issues and an accurate assessment of the needs and the motivations of his fellow countrymen which few politicians in our age have equalled. In the Greek context he was a Churchill."

"Karamanlis or the tanks"

"Ἐδόκει τε τούτου σημεῖον εἶναι μέγα τὸ μὴ ῥᾳδίως ἀκοῦσαί τινα Δημοσθένους ἐπὶ καιροῦ λέγοντος, ἀλλὰ καὶ καθήμενον ἐν ἐκκλησίᾳ πολλάκις τοῦ δήμου καλοῦντος ὀνομαστὶ μὴ παρελθεῖν, εἰ μὴ τύχοι πεφροντικὼς καὶ παρεσκευασμένος. εἰς τοῦτο δὲ ἄλλοι τε πολλοὶ τῶν δημαγωγῶν ἐχλεύαζον αὐτόν, καὶ Πυθέας ἐπισκώπτων ἐλλυχνίων ἔφησεν ὄζειν αὐτοῦ τὰ ἐνθυμήματα."

"Neither walls, theatres, porches, nor senseless equipage, make States; but men who are able to rely upon themselves."

"By Themistocles alone, or with very few others, does this saying appear to be approved, which, though Alcaeus formerly had produced, many afterwards claimed: "Not stones, nor wood, nor the art of artisans, make a State; but where men are who know how to take care of themselves, there are cities and walls.""

"A corrupted and weakened community breaks down in immense catastrophes; the iron harrow of revolutions crushes men like the clods of the field; but, in the blood-stained furrows germinates a new generation, and the soul aggrieved, believes again."

"Ὅτι δι' αἵματος, οὐ διὰ μέλανος, τοὺς νόμους ὁ Δράκων ἔγραψεν."

"Δημοσθένης ἐμὲ βούλεται διορθοῦν, ἡ ὗς τὴν Ἀθηνᾶν."