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Topic: Quotations to Inspire and, or, Infuriate (Read 6088 times) |
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Hermit
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Re:Quotations to Inspire and, or, Infuriate
« Reply #15 on: 2006-10-09 04:47:30 » |
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Belief and Injustice
Class: Quotation
Authors: François-Marie Arouet [alias Voltaire] (1694-1778)
Source: Collection of Letters on the Miracles
Dated: 1767
Cited By: George Seldes, The Great Thoughts [1985]
Keywords: Belief Harm Hurt Injure Unjust 'Religious Belief' 'Irrational Belief'
Anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices.
In the midst of all the doubts which we have discussed for 4,000 years in 4,000 ways, the safest course is to do nothing against one's conscience. With this secret, we can enjoy life and have no fear of death.
Variant translation: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Hermit
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Re:Quotations to Inspire and, or, Infuriate
« Reply #16 on: 2006-10-09 05:18:49 » |
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Fascism comes to America
Class: Quotation
Authors: Sinclair Lewis
Source: It Can't Happen Here
Dated: 1935
Keywords: Mussolini Religiosity Religious Right Right-wing Patriotism Knave Scoundrel Kinder Kirke Küche
When fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.
This quotation comes from Sinclair Lewis's 1935 novel "It Can't Happen Here," wherein a "conservative southern politician" not dissimilar to George W Bush is helped to the presidency by a nationally syndicated radio talk show host not dissimilar to any of today's heroes of "talkradio". The politician, "Buzz Windrip" bases his campaign on family values, the flag, and patriotism. Windrip and the talk show host portray advocates of traditional American democracy; those concerned with individual rights and freedoms; as anti-American. That was 69 years ago. Today, we need not wait for this dystropia to arrive.
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Hermit
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Re:Quotations to Inspire and, or, Infuriate
« Reply #17 on: 2006-10-29 08:03:12 » |
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The happiness of credulity
Class: Quotation
Authors: George Bernard Shaw
Source: Preface to Androcles and the Lion*
Dated: 1912
Keywords: Unbelief Bible Religion Belief Atheism Humor 'Peace of Mind' 'Religious Belief' 'Irrational Belief' drunk drunkard
Now though the state of the believers in the atonement may thus be the happier, it is most certainly not more desirable from the point of view of the community. The fact that a believer is happier than a sceptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one. The happiness of credulity is a cheap and dangerous quality of happiness, and by no means a necessity of life. Whether Socrates got as much happiness out of life as Wesley is an unanswerable question; but a nation of Socrateses would be much safer and happier than a nation of Wesleys; and its individuals would be higher in the evolutionary scale. At all events it is in the Socratic man and not in the Wesleyan that our hope lies now.
*The quotation is to be found in part 2 here, but the whole preface makes an interesting (though far from accurate) read. Part 1 starts here.
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Hermit
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Re:Quotations to Inspire and, or, Infuriate
« Reply #18 on: 2006-11-03 23:32:23 » |
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The Triumph of The Mediocre
Class: Quotation
Authors: Henry Louis Mencken
Source: "Bayard vs. Lionheart", Baltimore Evening Sun (reprinted in "On Politics: A Carnival of Buncombe", Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996. ISBN 0-801-85342-7, p. 21)
Dated: 1920-07-26
Keywords: Mediocrity US USA President Leader Idiot Bush
Mencken held an extremely cynically perspective which he articulated with uncomfortable clarity:
The larger the mob, the harder the test. In small areas, before small electorates, a first-rate man occasionally fights his way through, carrying even the mob with him by force of his personality. But when the field is nationwide, and the fight must be waged chiefly at second and third hand, and the force of personality cannot so readily make itself felt, then all the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre — the man who can most easily adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum.
The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Hermit
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Re:Quotations to Inspire and, or, Infuriate
« Reply #19 on: 2006-11-05 17:36:34 » |
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The definition of Tyranny
Class: Quotation
Authors: James Madison
Source: The Federalist Papers, No. 47
Dated: 1788-01-30
Keywords: Tyrannical Presidential Signing Statements Unitary Executive Bush
The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Hermit
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Re:Quotations to Inspire and, or, Infuriate
« Reply #20 on: 2006-11-06 20:04:18 » |
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Essential Liberty
Class: Quotation
Authors: (attrib.) Benjamin Franklin (disp. poss. Richard Jackson*)
Source: Letter from the Assembly to the Governor of Pennsylvania
Dated: 1755
Keywords: Freedom
Cited from ["An Historical Review of the Constitution and Government of Pennsylvania", London, 1759. The quote appears on the title page]. After quoting the letter, the text of the book reads: There is not in any Volume, the sacred Writings excepted, a Passage to be found worth the Veneration of Freemen, than this, 'Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety;" nor could a Lesson of more Utility have been laid at that Crisis before the Pensylvanians.
*Quoting from The FoTB Website, "A little more more research as to who was present at the Assembly November 11, 1755, the minutes of the meeting, and a copy of the original letter, should resolve" the actual originator.
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Hermit
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Re:Quotations to Inspire and, or, Infuriate
« Reply #21 on: 2007-06-17 04:15:03 » |
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Religion Inspiration to Evil
Class: Quotation
Authors: Steven Weinberg, US physicist (1933 - )
Source: quoted in The New York Times, April 20, 1999
Dated: 1999
Keywords: belief religion morality good evil morality ethics
With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Hermit
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Re:Quotations to Inspire and, or, Infuriate
« Reply #22 on: 2007-09-19 01:35:59 » |
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Irrational Beliefs
Class: Quotation
Authors: Thomas H. Huxley (English biologist 1825 - 1895)
Source: Collected Essays, VII "The Origin of Species" p. 229
Dated: 1878
Keywords: Unbelief Bible Religion Belief Atheism Humor 'Peace of Mind' 'Religious Belief' 'Irrational Belief'
The scientific spirit is of more value than it's products, and irrationally held truths may be more harmful than reasoned errors. Now the essence of the scientific spirit is criticism. It tells us that whenever a document claims our assent we should reply, Take it if you can compel it. The struggle for existence holds as much in the intellectual as in the physical world. A theory is a species of thinking, and its right to exist is coextensive with its power of resisting extinction bu its rivals.
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Hermit
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Re:Quotations to Inspire and, or, Infuriate
« Reply #23 on: 2007-10-15 19:25:03 » |
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Hopelessly Enslaved
Class: Quotation
Authors: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Source: Not yet identified
Dated: Not yet identified
Keywords: trapped freedom
None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Hermit
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Re:Quotations to Inspire and, or, Infuriate
« Reply #24 on: 2007-10-15 19:29:00 » |
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The Tyranny of the Majority
Class: Quotation
Authors: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Source: Not yet identified
Dated: Not yet identified
Keywords: Democracy demagogue prejudice bigotry mass power influence
There is nothing more odious than the majority. It consists of a few powerful men who lead the way; of accommodating rascals and submissive weaklings and a mass of men who trot after them without in the least knowing their own minds.
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Hermit
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Re:Quotations to Inspire and, or, Infuriate
« Reply #25 on: 2007-10-16 13:02:21 » |
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Fanning Fires to Further "Freedom" and Facilitate Frauds
Class: Quotation
Authors: Sebastian Haffner
Source: Defying Hitler, A Memoir, p. 121
Dated: 1939
Keywords: disaster rights infringement absolutism freedom liberty tyranny 911 wtc Nazi
"What one can blame them [German politicians and populace] for, and what shows their terrible collective weakness of character, is that this settled the matter. With sheepish submissiveness the German people accepted that, as a result of the fire, each one of them lost what little personal freedom and dignity was guaranteed by the Constitution; as though it followed as a necessary consequence. If the Communists burned down the Reichstag, it was perfectly in order that the government took 'decisive measures.'"
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Hermit
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Re:Quotations to Inspire and, or, Infuriate
« Reply #26 on: 2007-11-30 08:24:42 » |
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Laissez-Faire Capitalism
Class: Quotation
Authors: Denis Diderot
Source: Observations on the Drawing Up of Laws (1774) A letter to Catherine the Great (1774), published in 1921, as translated in Selected Writings (1966) edited by Lester G. Crocker
Dated: 1939
Keywords: Objectivism Ayn Rand laissez-faire capitalism socialism altruism
"In any country where talent and virtue produce no advancement, money will be the national god. Its inhabitants will either have to possess money or make others believe that they do. Wealth will be the highest virtue, poverty the greatest vice. Those who have money will display it in every imaginable way. If their ostentation does not exceed their fortune, all will be well. But if their ostentation does exceed their fortune they will ruin themselves. In such a country, the greatest fortunes will vanish in the twinkling of an eye. Those who don't have money will ruin themselves with vain efforts to conceal their poverty. That is one kind of affluence: the outward sign of wealth for a small number, the mask of poverty for the majority, and a source of corruption for all."
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Blunderov
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Re:Quotations to Inspire and, or, Infuriate
« Reply #27 on: 2008-01-18 11:25:12 » |
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Class: Quotation
Authors: Robert "Bobby" James Fischer
Source: The Grauniad
Dated:
Keywords: Fischer, Chess, USA, Israel, 9/11, Palestine,
Image Source: http://www.oliverschopf.com/ir/archive/s603x486/fish_rey.jpg
"This is all wonderful news, I applaud the act. The US and Israel have been slaughtering the Palestinians, just slaughtering them, for years. Robbing them and slaughtering them. Nobody gave a shit. Now it's coming back to the US. Fuck the US. I want to see the US wiped out. Death to the US."
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Hermit
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Re:Quotations to Inspire and, or, Infuriate
« Reply #28 on: 2008-03-12 00:10:13 » |
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Logic
Class: Quotation
Authors: Uri Avnery
Source: 'Kill a Hundred Turks and Rest…'
Dated: 2008-03-11
Keywords: Judaism Jewish Israel Zionism Christian Christianity JudeoChristianity Judeo-Christianity Logic Reason Rational Greeks Moses
"Logic was not given to the people of Israel on Mount Sinai, but handed down from Mount Olympus to the ancient Greeks. In spite of this drawback, let us try to apply it."
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Hermit
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Re:Quotations to Inspire and, or, Infuriate
« Reply #29 on: 2008-03-22 11:51:44 » |
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The Enlightenment
Class: Quotation
Authors: Thomas Jefferson
Source: Thomas Jefferson to Roger C. Weightman (Jefferson's last letter)
Dated: 1826-06-24
Dateline: Monticello
Keywords: Enlightenment Freedom Light Radiance Science Reason Independence
"May it be to the world what I believe it will be, (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all), the Signal of arousing men to burst the chains, under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings and security of self government. That form which we have substituted restores the free right to the unbounded exercise of reason and freedom of opinion. All eyes are opened, or opening to the rights of man. The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born ,with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of god. These are grounds of hope for others."
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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