Quotes
Quotes about War
Westward the course of empire takes its way; The four first Acts already past, A fifth shall close the Drama with the day; Time's noblest offspring is the last.
What is art But life upon the larger scale, the higher, When, graduating up in a spiral line Of still expanding and ascending gyres, It pushed toward the intense significance Of all things, hungry for the Infinite? Art's life--and where we live, we suffer and toil.
He who moves not forward goes backward! A capital saying!
To look up and not down, To look forward and not back, To look out and not in--and To lend a hand.
New occasions teach new duties, time makes ancient good uncouth; They must upward still and onward, who would keep abreast of truth.
I walk slowly, but I never walk backward.
Ancestral voices prophesying war.
As Love and I late harbour'd in one inn, With proverbs thus each other entertain; "In love there is no lack," thus I begin; "Fair words make fools," replieth he again; "Who spares to speak doth spare to speed," quoth I; "As well," saith he, "too forward as too slow"; "Fortune assists the boldest," I reply; "A hasty man," quote he, "ne'er wanted woe"; "Labour is light where love," quote I, "doth pay"; "Light burden's heavy, if far borne"; Quoth I, "The main lost, cast the by away"; "Y'have spun a fair thread," he replies in scorn. And having thus awhile each other thwarted Fools as we met, so fools again we parted.
Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze, Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees.
If thou art terrible to many, then beware of many. [Lat., Multis terribilis, caveto multos.]
And it is a common saying that it is best first to catch the stag, and afterwards, when he has been caught, to skin him. [Lat., Et vulgariter dicitur, quod primun oportet cervum capere, et postea, cum captus fuerit, illum excoriare.]
Conscious and unconscious experiences do not belong to different compartments of the mind; they form a continuous scale of gradations, of degrees of awareness.
...the more original a discovery the more obvious it seems afterwards.
To illustrate the difference between the innovator and the dull crowd of routinists who cannot even imagine that any improvement is possible, we need only refer to a passage in Engel's most famous book. Here, in 1878, Engels apodictically announced that military weapons are "now so perfected that no further progress of any revolutionizing influence is any longer possible." Henceforth "all further [technological] progress is by and large indifferent for land warfare. The age of evolution is in this regard essentially closed." This complacent conclusion shows in what the achievement of the innovator consists: he accomplishes what other people believe to be unthinkable and unfeasible.
Every fairly intelligent person is aware that the price of respectability is a muffled soul bent on the trivial and the mediocre.
No man is an island- he is a holon. A Janus-faced entity who, looking inward, sees himself as a self-contained unique whole, looking outward as a dependent part. His self-assertive tendency is the dynamic manifestation of his unique wholeness, his autonomy and independence as a holon. Its equally universal antagonist, the integrative tendency, expresses his dependence on the larger whole to which he belongs: his 'part-ness.'.
There is nothing so awkward as courting a woman whilst she is making sausages.
Conscience is the inner voice which warns us that someone may be looking.
No child is born with a really cold heart, and it is only in proportion as we lose that youthful heart that we lose the inner warmth in ourselves.
Simplicity is the outward sign and symbol of depth of thought.
Any young person who has studied Heidegger; or seen Ionesco's 'plays'; or listened to the 'music' of John Cage; or looked at Andy Warhol's 'paintings'- has experienced that feeling of incredulous puzzlement: But this is nonsense! Can I really be expected to take this seriously?In fact, of course, it is necessary for it to be nonsense; if it made sense, it could be evaluated. The essence of modern intellectual snobbery is the 'emperor's new cloths' approach. Teachers, critics, our self-appointed intellectual elite, make it quite clear to us that if we cannot see the superlative nature of this 'art'- why, it merely shows our ignorance, our lack of sophistication and insight. Of course, they go beyond the storybook emperor's tailors, who dressed their victim in nothing and called it fine garments. The modern tailors dress the emperor in garbage.
When under the pretext of fraternity, the legal code imposes mutual sacrifices on the citizens, human nature is not thereby abrogated. Everyone will then direct his efforts toward contributing little to, and taking much from, the common fund of sacrifices. Now, is it the most unfortunate who gains from this struggle? Certainly not, but rather the most influential and calculating.
Sometimes the subconscious mind manifests a wisdom several steps or even years ahead of the conscious mind, and has its own way of leading us toward our destiny.
To be aware how fruitful the playful mood can be is to be immune to the propaganda of the alienated, which extols resentment as a fuel of achievement.
The burning conviction that we have a holy duty towards others is often a way of attaching our drowning selves to a passing raft. What looks like a giving hand is often a holding on for dear life. Take away our holy duties and you leave our lives puny and meaningless. There is no doubt that in exchanging a self-centered for a selfless life we gain enormously in self-esteem. The vanity of the selfless, even those who practice utmost humility, is boundless.
