Jews From The United Kingdom

"It’s a point so blindingly obvious that only an extraordinarily clever and sophisticated person could fail to grasp it."

"You need to write out a thousand times, "I will behave myself at Prime Minister’s Questions"."

"Difference of opinion is of the essence of politics. There is an elaborate combination of finger wagging and head shaking going on which may be personally therapeutic but is institutionally disadvantageous."

"At the 2017 election, I promised my wife and children that it would be my last. This is a pledge I intend to keep. If the House votes tonight for an early general election, my tenure as Speaker and MP will end when this Parliament ends. If the House does not so vote, I have concluded that the least disruptive and most democratic course of action would be for me to stand down at the close of business of Thursday, October the 31st. Least disruptive because that date will fall shortly after the votes on the Queen's Speech expected on 21st and 22nd October. The week also after that may be quite lively and it would be best to have an experienced figure in the chair for that short period."

"Each flag will have its own particular symbols like the chakra-dhavaja, or wheel, in the Indian flag, or the Protestant orange and Catholic green in the flag of Eire. Even as a flag indicates particularity, with its own particularity, with its own individual patterns (whether the Stars and Stripes, the Union Jack, the Tricolor or whatever), it also flags its own universality. Each flag, by its conventional rectangular pattern, announces itself to be an element of an established, recognizable series, in which all the flags are essentially similar in their conventions of difference. The odd exception, like the pennant-shaped flag of Nepal, only serves to confirm the general rule. New nations, in designing their flags, tend to follow heraldic convention of colour as well as shape: they avoid certain shades like shocking pink and kingfisher blue (Firth, 1973). The hoisting of the newly designed flag indicates that another nation has joined the club of nations: 'we' have become like 'you' (no longer 'them'); 'we' are all nations, with 'our' flags and 'our' anthems, 'our' seats in the United Nations, and 'our' participation, with appropriately designed vests at Olympic Games and World Cups."

"Nationalism does not provide a single way of talking about the world."

"A national anthem is a universal sign of particularity. The conventions of the oeuvre demand that the uniqueness of the nation be celebrated in a universally stylized manner. National anthems not only fit a common pattern, but it is part of their symbolism that they are seen to do so. They flag the nation as a nation among nations, as flags themselves do."

"For example, each nation is expected to have its own flag and national anthem."

"When he wrote that 1,500-word piece for The Times using just one full-stop, it wasn't to show off his command of syntax and semi-colons (well, maybe it was a little), but because that's how his brain worked: marshalling metaphors, highly selective facts, quixotic asides and fearless insults into a single, uninterruptible narrative that rolled on and on rather like his beloved Wagner's operas, but with considerably more jokes."

"As a child he had been brought up in the grim backstreets of 1930s Somers Town (between St Pancras and Euston stations) by his mother and her parents — Jewish refugees from Lithuania. His father had walked out on them when Bernard was three. That early betrayal, I always felt, explained a lot about why he stayed a bachelor. It was as if he used his intellect to dazzle because he found it difficult to communicate, or commit, on an emotional level."

"Solzhenitsyn is certainly the hero of our time that Levin says he is, but it does no good for Levin to gush over him as if he were Kiri Te Kanawa. Just as Levin's admiration for Kiri Te Kanawa would count for more if he interrupted his praise of her undoubtedly gorgeous voice to point out that in Lieder concerts she has occasionally been known to sing a stanza with its lines in reverse order, so his admiration for Solzhenitsyn would count for more if he could entertain the possibility that Solzhenitsyn's challenging call for a unifying sense of purpose on the part of the free world is a contradiction in terms. If the free world had a unifying sense of purpose it would not be free."

"He can no more say it short than A.J.P. Taylor can say it long. In the long sentences of Proust you can still hear the aphoristic tradition that started with Pascal. In the long sentences of Levin you can hear a tradition being forgotten."

"It is the fact that the longing for freedom is not just embedded in every true soul's heart."

"The explosion of peaceful, mass revolt which has ended Soviet rule from Berlin to Bucharest - and will shortly end it also from Lvov to Vladivostok - was set off not by the eloquence of charismatic leaders, not by hatred of the oppressors, not by hope of gain, but by that tiny yet searing flame which is in us all, and which no Niagara of oppression, hunger or torture can ever extinguish."

"But once upon a time, we could play shove ha'penny, and read a penny dreadful, and sing a song of sixpence, and take the King's shilling; and once upon a time even further in the past, five sparrows could be bought for two farthings, and yet not be forgotten. Somehow, the transaction would not have had the same effect if the sparrows had been sold for two pee."

"As for trying to be funny — well, long ago the late proposed that typographers should design a new face, which would slop the opposite way from italics, and would be called "ironics". In this type-face jokes would be set, and no-one would have any excuse for failing to see them. Until this happy development takes place, I am left with the only really useful thing journalism has taught me: that there is no joke so obvious that some bloody fool won't miss the point."

"As I say, I know nothing of wheeler-dealers and their wheels. I do, however, know a little about human beings, and a lot about the English language, and I needed no more than that to button my back-pocket in case Mr Cornfeld went by."

"But it is silly to brand liquor as the cause of alcoholic self-destruction, when far more deep-rooted psychological problems are responsible, with drink (and now, of course, drugs) being only the means."

"I said that although the customers of these shops are directly involved, ultimately it concerns everybody, and so it does. For it epitomises two tendencies in our world, and both of them are nasty."

"Political cynicism strode on, quickening its pace; and no wonder. Attempts were made from time to time to authorise the presence of television cameras in the House of Commons, to bring the sight of the legislature at work into the homes of the people, and thus forge stronger links between voters and voted-for, to the lasting benefit of both."

"We live in a querulous age; more, we live in an age in which it is argued that to be happy is frivolous, and expecting to be happy positively childish."

"Stealthily the computer advanced, vanguard of the technological revolution, hailed as the cure for all mankind's ills and denounced as the baleful force which would first enslave and then destroy us all."

"My work, in which I have had much success, as the world counts success; the causes, great and small, in which I have laboured; the varied passions I have chronicled in this book; as soon as the comparison is made, the answer is plain."

"I became a journalist by accident, and stayed one. Just as well; I have no other talent whatever, even in the most modest and rudimentary form. I can't paint or compose or write novels; I couldn't be a businessman or financier; I would be impossible as a teacher and a disaster as an actor."

"Come; if you were worried about your children eating too many things with sugar in them, because you feared it would harm their teeth, which would you do - stop the Mars bars or ensure that they brushed their teeth thoroughly? You would vote for the toothbrush? Well, the food-wowsers would vote the other way, and that is how you know them."

"Courageous, self-willed and frantically energetic, Levin holds strong views which he enunciates with unambiguous force."

"The Left is rather prone to a perspective according to which the class struggle is something waged by the workers and the subordinate classes against the dominant ones.It is of course that. But class struggle also means, and often means first of all, the struggle waged by the dominant class, and the state acting on its behalf, against the workers and the subordinate classes. By definition, struggle is not a one way process; but it is just as well to emphasize that it is actively waged by the dominant class or classes, and in many ways much more effectively waged by them than the struggle waged by the subordinate classes."

"In the brave old days, I used to know Ralph Miliband, father of David and Edward and one of Britain’s leading Marxist intellectuals. There was a European for you: part Polish, part Belgian, and part Jewish, arriving in England on forged papers as an illegal immigrant refugee from Hitler. His best-known book was Parliamentary Socialism, in which he analyzed Labor’s attempt to transform society through the ballot box. His conclusion was that a party too wedded to pragmatism and compromise would in the end sacrifice its principles, but in doing so it would also cease to work as an electoral machine. Perhaps I’ll take this book down from the dusty old shelf on which I have preserved it."

"We know that you, the organised workers of the country, are our friends ... As for the rest, they do not matter a tinker's cuss."

"I know I only love those to my taste, but Buddha loves even people he does not like, guiding them to be full of wisdom and compassion. That’s why I choose to follow Buddha’s teachings！"

"It is not with the goal of getting what’s in my interest. But for letting go of my personal clinging to all worldly desires."

"It is not because I am better or worse than others, but because I understand all beings are equal."

"It doesn’t mean I’m purer and nicer than others. But it means I have too much ignorance and mental defilement to remove. I need Buddha's wisdom."

"It is not because I pursue a smooth life. But for the calm acceptance of impermanence, and be calm and confident like a king in any adverse circumstances."

"It doesn’t mean I have more wisdom than others. But it means I have been occupied by too much arrogance. I need to learn to be humble and to develop a broader perspective."

"I do not mean to manipulate others with the motivation of self-interest. But with good use of wisdom, to benefit self and others while being empathetic to all sentient beings."

"It is not because I want to escape from the world and pursue nothingness. But to know everyday life is within Dharma, and to live in the present is to practice."

"It does not mean that my life will no longer experience setbacks. But with the Dharma, setbacks are transformed into a cause for my growth."

"It is not because there is a God outside me. But that I find the true Buddha-nature of my own heart."

"My heart is filled with endless gratitude. Just thinking I was born as a human and have the ability to practice in this life, with the opportunity to meet wise teachers and hear the Buddha's teachings, I am deeply moved by this unbelievable karmic affinity."

"The moral choices that Trump poses to anyone with a conscience or love of country are only made more clear by the ludicrous irony of his own story."

"So now we know. The reason Trump ordered the separation of thousands of immigrant children from their parents – some never to be reunited again – was because they better watch themselves. They are changing the culture and it better stop or else they’ll get hurt. Trump has mused before about how good it would be to deport people without judges messing things up. He doesn’t consider his own country’s ample s to be actual laws that he respects. It’s one short step for a president – but one long step for democracy – to go from disrespecting the laws to ignoring them. This is the language and mentality of so many and neo-Nazi parties in Europe. So in the Trump spirit of saying it loud, it’s time to drop the euphemisms: Trump is today’s first major government to be led by the racist far right. It’s not some kind of new populist politics; it’s the old National Front."

"Watching this pinball president ricochet around Europe, you could be forgiven for thinking there’s no method to Donald Trump’s madness. Nato is both a rip-off and very strong. Theresa May’s is both pathetic and terrific. Trump’s interview with the Sun was both and generally fine. Trump has all the consistency of Katy Perry’s Hot N Cold, except when it comes to two things: immigrants and Vladimir Putin."

"Immigration is where Trump’s journey begins and ends: the message running all the way through this stick of rock."

"There was a time when politicians like you preferred to use a dog whistle, but those days seem quaint now. There’s something to be said for using a foghorn to blast your racism across the continents. At least we all know what kind of politics you represent."

"Trump is a walking contradiction – but his nativism is consistent."

"The president of the United States just threatened the safety and security of immigrants the world over."

"The Khalili collection of Meiji art of Japan is only comparable as acknowledged by many scholars and museum directors, in terms of quality and size to the collection of the Japanese Imperial family"

"Art is a universal language that can unite the hearts of mankind, crossing all frontiers, penetrating everywhere. The moment has come for the 'people of the book' - Jews, Christians, Muslims - to speak openly to one another and to see clearly the close cultural, social, spiritual and intellectual ties that have existed between them for centuries. In fact, Jews and Muslims are cousins, and I believe it is far better for us to live together in peace and harmony, than die together in disgrace"

"Finally, money is just paper. My loyalty is to the objects; to be hnoest, I really don't care about the financial side of it too much. People forget that whenever you are faced with a masterpiece, the day you pay for it it may be a bit expensive, but if you wait one month, two months, six months, then it becomes terribly cheap."