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6 months 3 weeks ago

The first condition of unity is a subjective principle; and this principle in the Positive system is the subordination of the intellect to the heart: Without this the unity that we seek can never be placed on a permanent basis, whether individually or collectively. It is essential to have some influence sufficiently powerful to produce convergence amid the heterogeneous and often antagonistic tendencies of so complex an organism as ours.

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p. 24
6 months 4 days ago

I have had a larger responsibility of human lives than ever man or woman had before. And I attribute my success to this - I never gave or took an excuse. Yes, I do see the difference now between me and other men. When a disaster happens, I act and they make excuses.

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Letter to Miss H. Bonham Carter, 1861. As quoted in The Gigantic Book of Teachers' Wisdom (2007) by Frank McCourt and Erin Gruwell, p. 410
7 months 3 weeks ago

We may define "faith" as a firm belief in something for which there is no evidence. Where there is evidence, no one speaks of "faith". We do not speak of faith that two and two are four or that the earth is round. We only speak of faith when we wish to substitute emotion for evidence. The substitution of emotion for evidence is apt to lead to strife, since different groups substitute different emotions.

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p. 215
6 months 1 week ago

There are, in fact, people who appear to think only with the brain, or with whatever may be the specific thinking organ; while others think with all the body and all the soul, with the blood, with the marrow of the bones, with the heart, with the lungs, with the belly, with the life. And the people who think only with the brain develop into definition-mongers; they become the professionals of thought.

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6 months 2 weeks ago

Poetry is one of the destinies of speech.... One would say that the poetic image, in its newness, opens a future to language.

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Introduction, sect. 2
7 months 3 weeks ago

The real point at issue always is Turkey in Europe - the great peninsula to the south of the Save and Danube. This splendid territory [the Balkans] has the misfortune to be inhabited by a conglomerate of different races and nationalities, of which it is hard to say which is the least fit for progress and civilization. Slavonians, Greeks, Wallachians, Arnauts, twelve millions of men, are all held in submission by one million of Turks, and up to a recent period, it appeared doubtful whether, of all these different races, the Turks were not the most competent to hold the supremacy which, in such a mixed population, could not but accrue to one of these nationalities.

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The Russian Menace to Europe, From Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, edited by Paul Blackstock and Bert Hoselitz, and published by George Allen and Unwin, London, 1953
6 months 3 weeks ago

People talk sometimes of bestial cruelty, but that's a great injustice and insult to the beasts; a beast can never be so cruel as a man, so artistically cruel.

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3 months 3 weeks ago

It is literally true that the toleration of banks of paper discount costs the United States one-half their war taxes; or, in other words, doubles the expenses of every war. Now think but for a moment, what a change of condition that would be, which should save half our war expenses, require but half the taxes, and enthral us in debt but half the time.

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ME 13:364
7 months 3 weeks ago

From the fundamental nature of the Philistine, it follows that, in regard to others, as he has no intellectual but only physical needs, he will seek those who are capable of satisfying the latter not the former. And so of all the demands he makes of others the very smallest will be that of any outstanding intellectual abilities. On the contrary, when he comes across these they will excite his antipathy and even hatred. For here he has a hateful feeling of inferiority and also a dull secret envy which he most carefully attempts to conceal even from himself; but in this way it grows sometimes into a feeling of secret rage and rancour. Therefore it will never occur to him to assess his own esteem and respect in accordance with such qualities, but they will remain exclusively reserved for rank and wealth, power and influence, as being in his eyes the only real advantages to excel in which is also his desire.

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E. Payne, trans. (1974) Vol. 1, pp. 344-345
7 months 3 weeks ago

It is freedom, it is particularity, it is solitude that we are aiming at, and not Evil for its own sake.

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p. 179
7 months 1 week ago

In peace, as a wise man, he should make suitable preparation for war.

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Book II, satire ii, line 111
6 months 4 weeks ago

For nature is not merely present, but is implanted within things, distant from none; naught is distant from her except the false, and that which existed never and nowhere-nullity. And while the outer face of things changeth so greatly, there flourisheth the origin of being more intimately within all things than they themselves. The fount of all kinds, Mind, God, Being, One, Truth, Destiny, Reason, Order.

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VIII 10 as translated by Dorothea Waley Singer
6 months 2 weeks ago

Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven. Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child shall in no wise enter therein.

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18:16-17 (KJV) Variant translation: Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.
4 months 1 week ago

If any one is angry with you, meet his anger by returning benefits for it: a quarrel which is only taken up on one side falls to the ground: it takes two men to fight.

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De Ira (On Anger): Book 2, cap. 34, line 5.
3 months 3 weeks ago

Individualism is going around these days in uniform, handing out the party line on individualism.

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Think Little

The first method for estimating the intelligence of a ruler is to look at the men he has around him.

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The Prince (1513), Ch. 22
5 months 3 weeks ago

Despite the fact that the doctors treated him, bled him, and gave him medicines to drink, he recovered.

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[sometimes quoted as "Though the doctors treated him, let his blood, and gave him medications to drink, he nevertheless recovered."] Bk. XV, ch. 12
8 months ago

My whole heart and soul are stirred and incensed against the Turks and Mohammed, when I see this intolerable raging of the Devil. Therefore I shall pray and cry to God, nor rest until I know that my cry is heard in heaven.

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Statement while being confined to residence at Coburg, as quoted in History of the Christian Church, (1910) by Philip Schaff, Vol. VII
8 months 2 weeks ago

Like great works, deep feelings always mean more than they are conscious of saying.

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8 months ago

To say that the cross emblazoned with the papal coat of arms, and set up by the indulgence preachers, is equal in worth to the cross of Christ is blasphemy.

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Thesis 79
6 months 3 weeks ago

And what is it in us that is mellowed by civilization? All it does, I'd say, is to develop in man a capacity to feel a greater variety of sensations. And nothing, absolutely nothing else. And through this development, man will yet learn how to enjoy bloodshed. Why, it has already happened....Civilization has made man, if not always more bloodthirsty, at least more viciously, more horribly bloodthirsty.

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Part 1, Chapter 7
4 months 2 weeks ago

Experience suggests that if men cannot struggle on behalf of a just cause because that just cause was victorious in an earlier generation, then they will struggle against the just cause. They will struggle for the sake of struggle. They will struggle, in other words, out of a certain boredom: for they cannot imagine living in a world without struggle. And if the greater part of the world in which they live is characterized by peaceful and prosperous liberal democracy, then they will struggle against that peace and prosperity, and against democracy. 

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p. 330
6 months 6 days ago

The real importance of Swedenborg lies in the doctrines he taught, which are the reverse of the gloom and hell-fire of other breakaway sects. He rejects the notion that Jesus died on the cross to atone for the sin of Adam, declaring that God is neither vindictive nor petty-minded, and that since he is God, he doesn't need atonement. It is remarkable that this common-sense view had never struck earlier theologians. God is Divine Goodness, and Jesus is Divine Wisdom, and Goodness has to be approached through Wisdom. Whatever one thinks about the extraordinary claims of its founder, it must be acknowledged that there is something very beautiful and healthy about the Swedenborgian religion. Its founder may have not been a great occultist, but he was a great man.

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p. 280
6 months 2 weeks ago

Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition? For God commanded, saying, Honour thy father and mother: and, He that curseth father or mother, let him die the death. But ye say, Whosoever shall say to his father or his mother, It is a gift, by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me; And honour not his father or his mother, he shall be free. Thus have ye made the commandment of God of none effect by your tradition. Ye hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy of you, saying, This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me. But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.

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15:3-9 (KJV)
6 months 1 week ago

We cannot think first and act afterwards. From the moment of birth we are immersed in action, and can only fitfully guide it by taking thought.

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Ch. 12: "Religion and Science", p. 261
8 months ago

There is no need for you to develop an armed insurrection. Christ himself has already begun an insurrection with his mouth.

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pp. 67-68
7 months 3 weeks ago

In its widest possible sense, however, a man's Self is the sum total of all that he can call his, not only his body and his psychic powers, but his clothes and his house, his wife and children, his ancestors and friends, his reputation and works, his lands and horses, and yacht and bank-account. All these things give him the same emotions. If they wax and prosper, he feels triumphant; if they dwindle and die away, he feels cast down.

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Ch. 10
5 months 2 weeks ago

Conquered people tend to be witty.

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Mr. Sammler's Planet, (1976), p. 98

The value of life lies not in the length of days, but in the use we make of them... Whether you find satisfaction in life depends not on your tale of years, but on your will.

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Book I, Ch. 20
4 months 2 weeks ago

Nowhere is there more constancy and more unanimity than among the French to subordinate that sex which they pretend to honor so highly.

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The Theory of Social Organization
8 months 3 weeks ago
The reasons and purposes for habits are always lies that are added only after some people begin to attack these habits and to ask for reasons and purposes. At this point the conservatives of all ages are thoroughly dishonest: they add lies.
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7 months 3 weeks ago

The commodity is first of all, an external object, a thing which through its qualities satisfies human needs of whatever kind. The nature of these needs, whether they arise, for example, from the stomach, or the imagination, makes no difference. Nor does it matter here how the thing satisfies man's need, whether directly as a means of subsistence, i.e. an object of consumption, or indirectly as a means of production.

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Vol. I, Ch. 1, Section 1, pg. 41.
8 months 1 week ago

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

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from Horace, Epistles I.xviii.76
6 months 2 weeks ago

To venture upon an undertaking of any kind, even the most insignificant, is to sacrifice to envy.

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6 months 6 days ago

What is necessary at this stage in our evolution is not a 'return' to the psychic powers of our ancestors, but an expansion of our own potential powers, based upon the certain knowledge that such powers exist.

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p. 290
5 months 6 days ago

We are either going to have a future where women lead the way to make peace with the Earth or we are not going to have a future at all.

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Quoted in "Woman power to the fore," by R.S. Binuraj, The Hindu
5 months 1 week ago

We should be clear that neither genuine religious nor genuine moral impulses will ever be expressed in terms that tie the two essentially together. If you view religion as necessary for ethics, you've reduced us to the ethical level of 4 year olds. "If you follow these commandments you'll go to heaven, if you don't' you'll burn in hell" is just a spectacular version of the carrots and sticks with which you raise your children.

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6 months 3 weeks ago

It was evident that he revived by fits and starts. He would suddenly come to himself from actual delirium for a few minutes; he would remember and talk with complete consciousness, chiefly in disconnected phrases which he had perhaps thought out and learnt by heart in the long weary hours of his illness, in his bed, in sleepless solitude.

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Part 2, Chapter 10
5 months 2 weeks ago

Psychoanalysis pretends to investigate the Unconscious. The Unconscious by definition is what you are not conscious of. But the Analysts already know what's in it. They should, because they put it all in beforehand. It's like an Easter Egg hunt.

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The Dean's December (1982), ch. 18, p. 298
6 months 4 weeks ago

How can even the lowest mind, if he reflects at all the marvels of this earth and sky, the brilliant fashioning of plants and animals, remain blind to the fact that this wonderful world with its settled order must have a maker to design, determine and direct it?

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Tibawi, A.L. (ed. and tr.). (1965) Al-Risala al-Qudsiyya (The Jerusalem Epistle) "Al-Ghazali's Tract on Dogmatic Theology". In: The Islamic Quarterly, 9:3-4 (1965), 3-4.
7 months 3 weeks ago

The propagandist's purpose is to make one set of people forget that certain other sets of people are human.

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"Words and Behaviour", The Olive Tree, 1936
6 months 2 weeks ago

The spirit of Poesy is the morning light, which makes the Statue of Memnon sound.

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8 months 2 weeks ago

At any street corner the feeling of absurdity can strike any man in the face.

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6 months 3 weeks ago

That is a long word: forever!

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Act I.
8 months 2 days ago

Riches are a good handmaid, but the worst mistress.

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De Augmentis Scientiarum, Book II, "Antitheta"
4 months 1 week ago

Nothing lasts forever, few things even last for long: all are susceptible of decay in one way or another; moreover all that begins also ends.

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From Ad Polybium De Consolatione (Of Consolation, To Polybius), chap. I; translation based on work of Aubrey Stewart
6 months 2 weeks ago

It is the most advanced industrial society which feels most directly threatened by the rebellion, because it is here that the social necessity of repression and alienation, of servitude and heteronomy is most transparently unnecessary, and unproductive in terms of human progress. Therefore the cruelty and violence mobilized in the struggle against the threat, therefore the monotonous regularity with which the people are made familiar with, and accustomed to inhuman attitudes and behavior-to wholesale killing as patriotic act.

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