All Quotes

"Practise ever truth and uprightness till the cold grave, and deviate not a finger’s breadth from God’s ways! Then wilt thou, as on a green meadow, go through thy pilgrimage of life; then canst thou without fear and dread look death in the face.Then will the sickle and the plough be light in thy hand; then canst thou sing over the water-jug, as if it were filled with wine. But to the scoundrel is everything full of trouble, do what he may: the devil drives him to and fro, leaving him no rest.The beautiful spring smiles not for him, the fields of corn wave not with joy for him; he is a lover of lies and deceit, he cares for nothing but gold; the wind in the wood, the leaf on the tree, whisper horror to his heart; he finds no rest in the grave after life is over."

"Happy the man who has escaped from the town! Every whispering of the tree, every murmuring of the stream, every sparkling pebble, preaches to him virtue and wisdom.Every shady grove is to him a holy temple, where his God waves nearer to him; every green sod an altar, where he kneels before the Lofty One."

"Who stops the flight of the hours? They rush on like the arrows of God! Every second stroke hurries us nearer to our deathbed, nearer to the iron sleep of death!No spring blooms for thee, when thou art dead; no shadow is cast, no clanging of bowls, no pleasant smiles of maidens, no jests from the lips of friends!As yet the black wings of death rustle not! Therefore seize pleasures, ere the storm carries them off, which God scatters like sunshine and rain from his urn!"

"Love makes the hovel to he a golden palace, scatters dancing and play over the wilderness, uncovers to us the light traces of the Divinity, gives us a foretaste of heaven!"

"Strew the way with roses, forgetting every ill! a short span of time is measured out to us. To-day the frolicsome boy joins the dance in the spring-time of life; to-morrow the chaplet of the dead waves over his grave.To-day sees the young bride conducted with joy to the altar; before the evening’s dews are spread, she rests on her bier: give then grief and moping care to the wind that passes; beneath this beechen grove drain the jingling glasses."

"Oh, wonderfully beautiful is God’s earth, and worthy of being delighted in! therefore shall I, till I am changed into ashes, rejoice in this beautiful earth!"

"Every day, sometimes once, or twice, or even three times, she found herself drinking , or whisky, in the , the famous where flashy young s with padded shoulders, seedy old men of past fame, forgotten geniuses, tough young women whose finger-nails were no cleaner than Shute's, and the usual sprinkling of stars and pretenders, met daily, or nightly, for a quick drink, a dirty story, and perhaps a chance contact with someone useful."

"Why did I write this book? I have already written a book of s published as long as 1973. It was called ‘’The Escapist Generations’’. If some of my readers remember this other book they will find repetitions. The basic story is the same — childhood scenes in California, memories of — but this time I have written a book of confessions, something I have never done before. I am a private person. For many years I have managed to keep my secrets to myself, protecting the men and women I have loved. Now all my loved ones are dead and no longer vulnerable. No one is left who might be hurt or damaged by these confessions unless it is myself. The time has come to tell a story which requires to be told."

"|year=1992|page=9|isbn=9780709049623}} (252 pages; 1st part of quote; 2nd part of quote; last part of quote)"

"Nerina Shute, who began writing about films in the along with fellow reviewers Graham Greene and John Betjeman, and who, some 60 years later, rounded off her literary career with a frank about her , has died aged 96. Shute, who was the last survivor of a celebrated coterie of film critics of the 1930s, was celebrated also for her openness about her sexuality: she was predominantly lesbian, but married twice. In 1930, when she was 22, she shocked many by a novel which contained what she archly called an "ambisex-trous" woman character, while at 84 she wrote a memoir, Passionate Friendships, in which she was candid about her many love affairs."

"Was ist dieses Rund der Erden, Als ein Tummelplatz voll Schein? Helden, heute siegreich, werden Morgen kaum noch Schatten seyn; Seht, bey Kränzen, Thron und Siegen, Fesseln, Band' und Ketten liegen!"

"Regarding the natives, I have little to say. They are a stout-built, squat, big-legged hill tribe: the women in regard to shape being exactly like their mates; and as these are decided ugly – somewhat tartarish-looking people, very dirty, and chew pawn to profusion – they can scarcely be said to form a worthy portion of the gentler sex. They appear to be honest; but that is a quality which, from the example of their European lords, they are said to be losing fast. They have no written character; every thing being transmitted by tradition, and performed by the interchange of tokens. They drink like fish, and manufacture a bad kind of arrack, the pernicious effects of which were experienced by the European invalids when the Sanatarium was in existence. They pay respect to their dead by the erection of a sort of kairns and large erect slabs of sandstone rounded off at the upper end: of these, I believe, they put up three or five to each friend, according to their means and, probably, rank. The Churra people cultivate nothing but a little cotton, and perhaps a species of Eleasine. They depend upon the plains for their support and supplies, and this is good management, since rice at Terrya Ghat is sold at 70 or 80 seers a rupee. Their hire is, considering the cheapness of their food, very expensive; a man being rated at four annas a day, a woman at three, and a boy at two. I should add, that they have no caste."

"…[The] Kholees, or, as they are pretty generally called, Coolies,…form perhaps two-thirds of the population, and are considered by public men in Guzerat as the original inhabitants of the country, a character which, I know not why, they refuse to the Bheels, who here, as in Malwah, seem to have the best title to it. I suspect, indeed, myself, that the Coolies are only civilised Bheels, who have laid aside some of the wild habits of their ancestors, and who have learned, more particularly, to conform in certain respects, such as abstinence from beef, &c. to their Hindoo neighbours. They themselves pretend to be descended from the Rajpoots, but this is a claim continually made by wild and warlike tribes all over India, and it is made, more particularly by the Puharree villagers at the foot of Rajmahal, who have embraced the Hindoo religion; and that the Coolies themselves do not believe their claim, is apparent from the fact that they neither wear the silver badge, nor the red turban. Be this as it may, they are acknowledged by the Hindoos as their kindred, which the Bheels never are; and though their claim of being children of the sun is not allowed by the Rajpoots who live among them, there have been instances in which intermarriages have taken place between Maharattas of high rank and the families of some of their most powerful chieftains. Their ostensible, and, indeed, their chief employment, is agriculture, and they are said to be often industrious farmers and labourers, and, while kindly treated, to pay their rent to Government as well, at least, as their Rajpoot neighbours. They live, however, under their own Thakoors, whose authority alone they willingly acknowledge, and pay little respect to the laws, unless when it suits their interest, or they are constrained by the presence of an armed force. In other respects they are one of the most turbulent and predatory tribes in India, and with the Bheels, make our tenure of Guzerat more disturbed, and the maintenance of our authority more expensive there, than in any other district of the Eastern empire…."

"It is really difficult to conceive how any Hindoos should have continued to reside in this country; and the fact can only be accounted for by that attachment, which man shares with the vegetable, to the soil in which he is reared. The indignities they suffer are of the most exasperating description. They are even forced to adopt the Mahommedan dress, and to wear beards. Till lately, none of this class were permitted to ride on horse-back; and amongst the few who now enjoy the privilege, a small number only in the immediate service of government are allowed the comfort and honour, as it is esteemed, of a saddle. Merchants of wealth and respectability may be seen mounted on asses and mules; animals considered so unclean, that none but the vilest outcasts in other countries can touch them with impunity: and, even from this humble conveyance, they are obliged to descend and stand aside when any bloated Mussulman passes by. The Mahommedans are encouraged and exhorted to destroy all the emblems of idolatry they may see in Sinde. The degraded and unfortunate follower of Brahma, is denied the free exercise of his religion; the tom-tom is seldom heard, being only beat when permission is granted; and although there are a few temples without images in Hyderabad, the sound of music never echoes from their walls. It is in the power of any two “true believers,” by declaring that a Hindoo has repeated a verse from the Koran, or the words “Mahommed the Prophet,” to procure his immediate circumcision. This is the most common, and, by the persecuted class themselves, considered the most cruel of all their calamities; while, as it is resorted to on the slightest pretence, and always performed with a mockery of its being for the eternal happiness of the sufferer, mental agony is made to add its bitterness to bodily infliction… Of their summary mode of administering justice towards Hindoos, I had myself an opportunity of judging…On my remonstrating against this extremity, his Highness replied with a savage grin, “You do not know the Hindoos of Sinde; they are all blackguards and rascals”….” [Burnes found “the evils of intolerance” glaring and concluded it was scarcely possible for a stranger to be a week in Sindh without that “being obtruded on his notice;” he noted that] amongst the many who secretly pray for such a consummation, none seemed to have a more devout wish to see the British colours flying on the bastions of Hyderabad, than the Hindoos of respectability; who, uninvited, entered on the subject of their grievances, and discoursed largely of the cruelties and indignities to which they were subjected."

"The Hindus, who, as in the neighbouring countries, carry on, nearly exclusively, the trade, led a far from enviable life, unless, indeed, their gains compensated from the contumely with which they were treated, for throughout Sind a Hindu cannot pass from one village to another without paying a fee to some Mahomedan for his protection."

"The Hindoo portion of the community occupies, in Sindh, the same social position that the Mussulmans do in India. As in Arabia, Affghanistan and other parts of Central Asia, the Hindoo here is either employed in trade, or in ministering to the religious wants of his caste-brethren. We, therefore, find among them none of the properly speaking outcast tribes (as Parwari, Mang, Chandala and others) so numerous in their own country. It is probable that few or none of the Hindoo families that flourished in Sindh at the time of the first Moslem inroad have survived the persecution to which they were then subjected: most likely they either emigrated or were converted to Islam. The present race is of Punjabi origin, as their features and manners, ceremonies and religious opinions, as well as their names, sufficiently prove. It may be observed that they show a general tendency towards the faith of Nanak Shah, and that many castes have so intermingled the religion of the Sikh with their original Hinduism, that we can scarcely discern the line of demarcation. As usual among the Hindoo race, wherever it is settled, they have divided themselves into different tribes. The Satawarna, or seven castes of Indians, in Sindh, are as follows:- 1. Brahman; 2. Lohano; 3. Bhatio; 4. Sahto; 5. Waishya (including a number of trades as Wahun, grain-toaster; Khatti, dyer, &c.); 6. Punjabi; and 7. Sonaro. Five of these belong, properly speaking, to the Waishya (the third, or merchant) division of pure Indians. The seventh is a mixed caste, descended from a Brahman father and a Shudra mother. In Sindh he is usually considered as belonging to the servile tribe. Of the first, or Brahminical class, we find two great bodies, which are divided and subdivided as usual. These are – 1. Pokarno; 2. Sarsat or Sarsudh."

"The inhabitants of Sinde are Mahometans and Hindoos; of the former, the Belooches belong to the caste of warriors, and the Juts to that of the peasants: and it may be assumed that the fifty part of the inhabitants of the cites are Hindoos. Though so greatly oppressed in their religious and civil relations, the wealth and commerce of the country are nevertheless chiefly in their hands; and they probably form a sixth part of the million of inhabitants said to reside in this country. They suffer their beard to grow, and wear the turban of the Mussulmans, whose manners and customs they have adopted; they have the submissiveness and servility of the Jews of Europe, and are as handsome, but even more dirty than the Juts. As bankers, they enjoy such confidence that their bills pass current throughout India. The Hindoos and the Juts are the only people on whom the British government can depend. The Juts, who are a tall, vigorous, and handsome race of people, were originally Hindoos, and, properly speaking, are the Aborigines of the country; the women are distinguished by their beauty and modesty, which cannot be said of the Mahometan females. As they form the agricultural class, they had a quiet and peaceful life. Besides the cultivation of the soil the Juts are occupied in the breed of buffaloes, goats, and camels. The camel is as valuable and useful to the Jut, as the horse is to the Arab. The Miani are employed in navigation and fishery; they live as much upon the rivers and lakes as on shore – nay, some of them have no other dwelling than their boat. The women are as vigorous, and muscular as the men, and share in their hard labours; and while the husband is mending his nets, or smoking his pipe, and the child is suspended in its network cradle to the mast, the wife guides the boat with a large oar. The Belooches, who form scarcely a tenth part of the population, are the freebooters of the desert, and originally came from the mountains and steppes in the north-west. Their manners, and many of their customs are conformable with the mosaic laws, and their oral and written traditions, as well as their general appearance, have so much resemblance with those of the Jews, that the Belooches have been looked upon as the descendants of the lost tribes of Israel. Thus for instance, on the death of the husband, his brother is bound to marry his widow and the children are the heirs of the deceased; and again, a man may divorce his wife, according to the forms usual among the Jews. They consider themselves as the masters of the country, and devote themselves to arms, robbery, and the chase. Some few of them engage in agriculture, and all attend to the breeding of horses and camels. Their ignorance, and the uncivilised state in which they live, renders it difficult to reduce them to obedience and discipline: each tribe obeys only its chief; but if danger threatens any one tribe, messengers on camels and horses, are dispatched in every direction to summon all that can bear arms… The Belooches, in their capacity of executors of the commands of the Ameers, are the blood-suckers of the poor, oppressed peasant, who is obliged to deliver to the princes more than the half of his produce. The revenues of the country, which formerly amounted to 90 lacs, have now declined to between 40 and 50, but with good management his might be increased to three times that sum. The Ameers are as ignorant as the people: their time is spent in the harem, or in hunting, and the latter is pursued with such eagerness that the country is thereby daily more and more depopulated. In order to enlarge their preserves, which consist of Babul trees, a species of Mimosa Arabica, tamarinds and tamarisks, they have recourse to the most arbitrary measures. Thus Meer Futteh Ali expelled the inhabitants from one of the most fertile districts of the Indus, near Hyderabad, which produced a revenue of nearly two lacs, because it was the favourite haunt of the Babiroussa; and Meer Murad Ali caused a large village to be totally destroyed, in order that the lowing of the cattle and crowing of the cocks, might not disturb the game in an adjoining preserve belonging to his brother. In the middle of this preserve is a small isolated building with a pond in front of it; thither the game is driven and killed by the Ameers who are stationed behind the wall…"

"As regards the language, or dialect spoken by the Siaposh, there can be no doubt but that they have one, which, as Sherifadin has recorded, is neither exactly Persian, nor Turki, nor Hindi. It is remarkable that on the south western, and southern borders of the Siaposh country, or in those points where it connects with the actual limits of the Kabal and Jelalabad territories, there are four distinct dialects spoken, independently of the more prevailing ones of Persian, Afghani, Turki and Hindi. The dialects in question are called Perancheh, Pashai, Lughmani, and Kohistani…. Of these four dialects, the Kohistani most nearly approaches to Hindi; and, on listening to people conversing therein, I was able, without comprehending the whole of what was said, to understand the general purport of their discourse. On the primary subject of religion, reports and opinions are too vague and various to admit even a plausible conjecture to be made. The furious Mahomedan will not concede that they have any; while the less zealous pretend that they reverence trees, and other inanimate objects. The Hindu believes them to cherish, in their retreats, his own anomalous creed, and that they perform puja, on altars. From the testimony, however, of the Siaposh whose fate has made them captives, it is clear that they have some kind of worship and that their deity is named Dagon. The topic is one on which they dislike to be questioned, either that they are incompetent to reply, or that amongst Mahomedans they feel delicacy in expressing their sentiments. It may be supposed that a strange medley of rites and superstitions prevails among them. While as tenacious of their religion, whatever it may be, as of their liberty in their mountain fastnesses, the Siaposh captive, without hesitation, becomes a Mahomedan, and manifests no aversion to abandon his old faith. It need not be remarked how different would be the conduct of the most wretched Hindu on such an occasion… They are said to shave the hair of their heads, allowing only a tuft to remain on the crown. In this they assimilate, indeed, to Hindus; but there are also many Mahomedan tribes that do the same. Chiefs, and sons of chiefs, insert their tufts in leathern rings, a token by which, it is believed, they may be distinguished."

"In 2012, the Chinese sociologist Sūn Lìpíng (b. 1955) suggested the PRC [People's Republic of China] faced four possible paths. One was return to Mao-style egalitarian populism, reducing inequality and corruption but risking the violence and irrationality of the Mao era. Another was to deepen the reforms – further privatizing the economy regardless of increased inequality. The third was to maintain the status quo. The fourth was to pursue reform while applying notions of fairness, justice, and universal values."

"How is it possible we should taste true joy for one moment, in this life, in which we are beset with miseries, and sin, — are continually in danger of being lost forever, and are exiles from Paradise, our true country?"

"The world always values anything to which prestige attaches, and the possession of which is in any way a matter of privilege."

"The God, who made earth's iron, would create no slave; therefore he gave the sabre, the sword, and the spear, for man's right hand. Hence he imbued him with courage, lent accents of wrath to freedom's voice, that he might maintain the feud till death."

"Give me love and contentment that I may proclaim thy glory, Lord of earth; give me health with competence, a pious heart, and a steadfast mind; give me children, worthy of all care; scare from my cheerful hearth the foe away; then give me wings, and one small hill of sand in my loved Fatherland, give wings to the soul so unwilling to flee, that it may easily tear itself from this beautiful world."

"I never knew there was a purpose for girls with loud voices until I discovered musical theater."

"Infinite ways of being, which we call individuals, never cease to amaze us and reveal themselves—making existence much more like a symphony than the sad, unbearable soliloquy that has been recounted by anthropocentrism."

"Beyond the smooth boundaries of humanity, some individuals of the monstrous species have observed the other, or at least what remained after the classification we often hear referred to as the “evolutionary ladder.” That terrible moment—that disarming awareness—was like a violent shock that held a caress within it. The name of that caress is antispecism."

"One idea, and only one, I would like to convey through all this writing with the paws of a pig: another world is possible, in which your children and those of a cow can play together, discovering that they are united in that wonderful mystery we call existence, regardless of the supposed differences in language or intelligence. This world depends on each of us, and on changing the political and intellectual system in which we live—start demanding, starting tomorrow, your share of this life to come. I am confident, and I owe it to the pig that I am."

"The most promising, versatile, and original among young Italian philosophers."

"Leonardo Caffo is a true visionary who has provided, in this little book [Only for Them], a theoretical construction which lays the foundation for a new way of thinking and being. The clear logic and palpable passion with which Caffo writes has the potential to open minds and hearts – and to change the world."

"Leonardo Caffo (with Felice Cimatti), A come Animale: voci per un bestiario dei sentimenti, Bompiani, Milano, 2015. ISBN 978-88-452-7857-0"

"Leonardo Caffo, Flatus Vocis: breve invito all'agire animale, Novalogos, Aprilia, 2011. ISBN 978889733941X"

"Leonardo Caffo, Il maiale non fa la rivoluzione: manifesto per un antispecismo debole, Sonda, Casale Monferrato, 2013. ISBN 978-88-7106-701-8"

"that he cares for nothing except what might commend itself to a virtuoso Pagan, and thinks only as men thought before Christianity awoke them to the consciousness of sin, of suffering, and of immortality."

"... she saw herself to be: a demystifier, a critical observer of social processes and systems, an outsider who could see through to the inside, a radical realist. Lessing's initial creative roots lie in this ..."

"cultivated the role of and/or witch, and — in the (1979) — rewrote the with pistol-toting Mother riding to the rescue at the last minute."

"My grandfather was the subject of my best stories. ... He behaved fantastically badly. ... My grandfather was a priest of the Church of England in Wales ... He was, as it turned out, certainly a boozer, a womanizer — this I had always known about him ... He was also, interestingly enough, very much a sort of a disappointed writer ..."

"Grandfather's skirts would flop in the wind along the path and I would hang on. He often found things to do in the , excuses for getting out of the (kicking the swollen door, cursing) and so long as he took me he couldn't get up to much. I was a sort of hobble; he was my minder and I was his. ... He was good at funerals, being gaunt and lined, marked with mortality. He had a scar down his hollow cheek too, which Grandma had done with the carving knife one of the many times he had come home pissed and incapable."

"... never frequent enough to explain the amount of wine he got through ... Eventually the Church stopped his supply and after that the communicants got watered-down from Boots the chemist in , over the border."

"life seemed a perpetual-motion machine, or an effect of gravity, something cyclic and unstoppable."

"The only person who knew what was in the books was my mother's brother, Uncle Bill, and affected to despise them. He said that fiction was a waste of time, the opium of the bourgeoisie, that you had to get a real grip on the facts of life."

"I think that there is a huge disparity in Los Angeles, as there is in the US in general, between the wealthy and the not-so-wealthy, the haves and the have-nots. And so many of the areas in which I photograph are areas where there are the have-nots."

"I was told that if there weren't any power wires, I wouldn't have a body of work. I tend to use them on a regular basis in designing my pictures. They're wonderful for filling the sky."

"The city is a place where people feel free to do and be whatever they want."

"I want the uncompromising, I want the unbending, I want the pure, who've conquered their prejudice. Only the undoctrinated can carry the godly thunder, only the living can bear remedy to customs of malice."

"Safest place for a book is on the shelf, but that's neither its place nor purpose. A book is supposed to have wrinkled pages, cover ripped, and spine broken, still unbent - that's how you know it's a book well read, and the same holds true for a life well lived."

"When you stand in front of a person, empty your cup and stand as a mirror. Let them pour all their hopes and dreams, their passions, their purpose, their tragedies, their triumphs, their culture, their language, everything - let them pour everything that they are, into you. Become so profoundly empty of yourself, that everyone can see themselves in you - become a mirror to the world."

"I'm not interested in proving or disproving God, I long resigned from all such arguments. I am a pilgrim of love and life, all are welcome, all are celebrated."

"My life is neither faith based nor fact based, my life is love based."

"Oneness is my legacy, pages are just vessel."

"Fascism, fundamentalism and nationalism, these are the ultimate mental illness."