People From London

"The overall effect of Hitler Youth membership, some Social Democratic observers complained, was a ‘coarsening’ of the young. The suppression of any discussion or debate, the military discipline, the emphasis on physical prowess and competition, led boys to become violent and aggressive, especially towards young people who for whatever reason had not joined the Hitler Youth. Hitler Youth groups travelling by train amused themselves by insulting and threatening guards who failed to say ‘Hail, Hitler!’ every time they asked a passenger for his ticket."

"The widespread intimidation of the population provided the essential precondition for a process that was in train all over Germany in the period from February to July 1933… The Nazi takeover of the federated states provided a key component in this process… At the same time as the state governments were being overthrown, local Nazis, backed by squads of armed stormtroopers and SS men, were occupying town halls, terrorizing mayors and councils into resigning, and replacing them with their own nominees."

"Even though total membership of the Nazi Students’ League did not even reach 10 per cent of national fraternity membership, the Nazis had completely taken over student representation in Germany. Impress by such numbers, Hitler appointed Schirach to the leadership of the Hitler Youth on 3 October 1931."

"People sometimes ask me what I think of the world today – as if 10,000 published Thoughts do not provide sufficient enlightenment on that subject. But let me not shrink from an honest answer. In world affairs, I am an optimist. Despite attention-grabbing headlines about the latest shocking incidents, and worrisome developments resulting from the fact that nationalism is still trumping internationalism, I believe that overall the people being born today, in whatever countries and circumstances, have a better chance than ever before of living worthwhile lives. At nearly 84, I'm sorry science hasn't yet invalidated the concept of mortality – but that, I'm sure, is coming. And, in the meantime, as inhabitants of this small planet, perhaps with most of our worst times behind us, I'm confident that we can, in general, find much to be thankful for."

"There's much to be said for immortality – for example, the saving on funeral expenses. And no more nonsense about "legacies," and about how anything you've accomplished will "live on after you.""

"It's been a lifelong problem of mine that those I've been closest to are the ones I've had the least influence on. My parents, my sister, my wife, even my cat — or maybe I should say especially my cat — have never really taken me seriously. That may help to explain why I finished up making a career of peddling my thoughts to the world in general. At least the world in general doesn't automatically dismiss anything coming from me, that is, so long as I say it in a neat epigram of 17 words or less."

"Among those who were sent to receive political indoctrination in June 1919 was a 30-year-old corporal who had been in the Bavarian army since the beginning of the war and had stayed in it through all the vicissitudes of Social Democracy, anarchy and Communism, taking part in demonstrations, wearing a red armband along with the rest of his comrades, and disappearing from the scene with most of them when they had been ordered to defend Munich against the invading forces in the proceeding weeks. His name was Adolf Hitler."

"The National Socialist German Students’League… gained a reputation for provocative actions, and campaigned on issues such as the reduction of overcrowding in lectures (by imposing a limit on the number of Jewish students), the dismissal of pacifist professors, the creation of new chairs in the subjects like Racial Studies and Military Science, and the harnessing of the universities to the national interest, away from the pursuit of knowledge as an end in itself."

"I think that [as a vegan] I’m now fitter than I've ever been. I punch harder than ever. I’m more determined. I’m faster. … Diet’s the biggest thing, because your body is a machine."

"'Tis often constancy to change the mind."

"For while the treason I detest, The traitor still I love."

"A noble transmuter of gold into lead. [...] He did exactly so many couplets day by day, neither more nor less; and habit had made it light to him, however heavy it might seem to the reader."

"And Neptune's white herds low above the wave."

"When Fame, O monarch! good or evil tells, Evil or good beyond the truth she swells."

"These friendly words awhile consoled the fair; For grief imparted oft alleviates care."

"Not beauty, wealth, or lineage e'er could raise A woman's name (he said) to height of praise, If not in action chaste."

"But such their power who rule with tyrant sway, Whom most they loath the people most obey."

"To others never do That which yourselves would wish undone to you."

"When highest placed on giddy Fortune's wheel, Unhappy man must soon expect to feel A sad reverse, and in the changing round With rapid whirl as sudden touch the ground."

"The youth, who pants to gain the amorous prize, Forgets that Heaven with all-discerning eyes Surveys the secret heart; and when desire Has, in possession, quenched its short-lived fire, The devious winds aside each promise bear, And scatter all his solemn vows in air!"

"Reflect, ye gentle dames, that much they know, Who gain experience from another's woe."

"So from a water clear, the trembling light Of Phoebus, or the silver queen of night, Along the spacious rooms with splendour plays, Now high, now low, and shifts a thousand ways."

"What more our folly shows, Than while we others seek, ourselves to lose?"

"What has that wretched damsel left to boast, What good on earth, whose virtuous praise is lost?"

"My endeavour has been to render the sense of my author as nearly as possible, which could never be done merely by translating his words."

"In blaming others, fools their folly show, And most attempt to speak when least they know."

"The spotless maid is like the blooming rose Which on its native stem unsullied grows; Where fencing walls the garden-space surround, Nor swains, nor browsing cattle tread the ground. But if some hand the tender stalk invades, Lost is its beauty, and its colour fades: No more the care of heaven, or garden's boast, And all its praise with youths and maidens lost."

"Love what we see can from our sight remove, And things invisible are seen by Love."

"The toils of honour dignify repose."

"Behold the state of man's unstable mind, Still prone to change with every changing wind! All our resolves are weak, but weakest prove Where sprung from sense of disappointed love."

"For oft the grace Of costly vest improves a beauteous face."

"Ah! why so rare does cruel Love inspire Two tender bosoms with a mutual fire? Say, whence, perfidious, dost thou pleasure find To sow dissension in the human mind?"

"Never let us utter what we never can know, And chiefly when it works another's woe."

"Of all the sex this certain truth is known, No woman yet was ever content with one."

"That the environment does wrongs to man’s mind today none will deny. These wrongs are not done because consciousness imprisons the instincts with the fetters of necessity; but because bourgeois man is unconscious of the determinism of his culture. Because of this the instincts are losing such freedom as they attained, are becoming crippled, and less free. Unconsciousness and inexperience, not consciousness and experience, are the gaolers of modern bourgeois man."

"The domination inherent in the slave-owning system is not repressed, as with the bourgeois, but is conscious, and the illusion consists, not in supposing that no domination exists, but that society is in fact really determined solely by the will of the master, and does not in turn determine his will."

"Slave-owning culture ... gives rise to the teleological explanation of the Universe, which reaches its subtlest form in Plato’s or Aristotle’s philosophies, in which all phenomena are determined by Ideas or Forms. These correspond to the plans formed in the mind of the slave-owner which his slave passively fulfils."

"The slave-owner is at times visited with a nightmare. He finds that his free will, in spite of its freedom, is thwarted, not by a superior will but by things-in-themselves – by inferior wills, accidents, mistakes, and his own ignorance. Yet he is still unable to conceive his will except as being thwarted like that of his slave’s by another will, and since he the master is so thwarted, might not even the world’s master and his – God Himself – be thwarted in his volition by some grand over-riding will, by Will-in-Itself? This is the slaveowning conception of Moira, or Fate, a comparatively late development reaching its noblest expression in Greek tragedy. This Fate, in spite of its closeness to bourgeois determinism, betrays its slave-owning parentage by the fact that it is always visualised as a consciously forseeing Will, and always as thwarting, not determining human wills as well as events, but interfering with human wills by means of events."

"The bourgeois ... necessarily regards all behaviour that bursts ‘spontaneously’ forth from the individual ignorant of its causality, as above all free. Therefore the instincts are conceived as freely striving for unconscious goals, and psychology becomes the adventures of the free instincts in their struggles against the restraints of the environment (in Freud, of society) which impede and cripple their freedom. Out of this struggle cognitive and emotional consciousness is born.Now the only objection to this bourgeois psychology is that it inverts the picture. The instincts are not free springs of connation towards a goal. They are, so far as they can be abstractly separated, unconscious necessities, as Kant realised. They are unfree."

"All relations are determining. ... As soon as we realise there is a determining relation, and become conscious of its nature and how it grips us, we are that much freer."

"I mean by pacifism, not the love of peace as a good to be secured by a definite form of action, but the belief that any form of social constraint of others or any violent action is in itself wrong, and that violence such as war must be passively resisted because to use violence to end violence would be logically self-contradictory. I oppose pacifism in this sense to the Communist belief that the only way to secure peace is by a revolutionary change in the social system, and that ruling classes resist revolution violently and must therefore be overthrown by force."

"The bourgeois never included the ownership of capital as one of the social restraints that should be abolished, for the simple reason that it was not to him a restraint at all. It never therefore entered his head to regard it as such, and he saw nothing inconsistent in calling for the abolition of privilege, monopoly, and so forth, while hanging on to his capital."

"The bourgeois ... is free not because he is conscious of his causality, but because he is ignorant of the social causes that determine his being."

"The bourgeois ... conception of freedom really arose as a special case of a group of illusions about domination which has been associated with all forms of society based on dominating classes. This group of illusions has for a common factor the belief that domination secures self-determination."

"When I look back, I've had an incredibly lucky life. Being tall with unusual looks helped, although I did build a barrier around myself early on because of shyness. I know I could have enjoyed my life a lot more then if I'd been the person I am today."

"I would be harder, tougher. I would put myself about more. I should have mixed with more people which would have led to more opportunities. As I said, I had this sort of "keep away from me" look, barrier, whatever, and I guess people might have thought I was snooty, which I wasn't, but that was my way of just coping with things. Many stars come to sticky ends, so I think maybe it's just as well. At least I am still here, for which I'm grateful."

"I was totally star-struck as a youngster and incredibly shy, but I loved the theatre – especially pantomimes. After a failed audition for RADA, I worked as a trainee fashion buyer at Harrods, where they had an entertainments society and I performed in several of its productions. I took singing lessons and my teacher encouraged me to read The Stage, where I saw that chorus singers were needed for the musical The Belle Of New York. I got the job – much to my parents' horror, who wanted me to keep my respectable job, but I was determined to become an actress."

"He had a heart of gold, a great sense of humor and will be missed by the many people who loved him."

"I was very sad to hear of Roger’s passing. We had an unusually long relationship, by Hollywood standards, that was filled with jokes and laughter. I will miss him."

"I’ve been very fortunate and very lucky in life and I’d urge anyone to follow their hearts and find their true vocation. Life is so much more pleasant when you love going to work."