Casual Quotations
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2003 «Throwing the dice with
Mars»
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- "If you are lured by
the idea of gain, make some calculations. War
may seem attractive as long as you have not
realized that you are incurring immeasurable
expenditure for a return which is not only much
smaller but uncertain too. But you were thinking
of the interests of the state? There is no other
way by which states go more quickly and
completely to ruin than by war. Before you
start, the harm you have already done to your
country is greater than the good you would do if
you were victorious. You exhaust the wealth of
your citizens, you defile their homes with
mourning, and fill the whole country with
robbers, thieves, and rapists. For these are the
waste that war produces." [Erasmus of
Rotterdam 1469-1536,
Adages
IV.i.1]
- "There are some whose
only reason for inciting war is to use it as a
means to exercise their tyranny over their
subjects more easily. For in times of peace the
authority of the assembly, the dignity of the
magistrates, the force of the laws stand in the
way to some extent of the ruler doing what he
likes. But once war is declared then the whole
business of state is subject to the will of a
few ... They demand as much money as they like.
Why say more?" [Erasmus of Rotterdam
1469-1536,
Adages
IV.i.1]
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2004
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- "... The good earth is
rich, and can provide for everyone ... But we
have lost the way... Greed has poisoned men's
souls! ... Machines that give abundance have
left us in want. Our knowledge has made us
cynical, our cleverness hard and unkind. We
think too much and feel too little ... More than
machinery, we need humanity, more than
cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness.
Without these qualities, life will be violent,
and all will be lost [...]" [The barber
in Charles Chaplin's
'The
Great Dictator', 1940]
- "What decrees the
Athenians passed, even though they were a
democracy! They ordered that each Aeginetan
should have his right thumb amputated so that he
could not hold a spear but would be able to
manage an oar. They ordered the execution of all
adult Mytileneans [...] Captured prisoners from
Samos were to be branded on the forehead, the
mark being an owl; this too was an Athenian
decree. By Athena Polias, by Zeus god of freedom
and all the gods of the Greeks, I wish these
measures had not been passed by the Athenians
and that such things were not reported of
them." [Aelian (c. AD 170-235),
Historical
Miscellany 2.9]
- "Philiscus once said
to Alexander: 'Take care of your reputation;
don't become a plague, bring peace and health.'
By plague he meant violence and savage rule, the
capture of cities, the destruction of
populations; by health, care for safety of
subjects; that is the benefit of peace."
[Aelian (c. AD 170-235),
Historical
Miscellany 14.11]
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2005
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- "... a thing most
exists not when it takes multiplicity or
extension but when it holds to its own being,
that is when its movement is inward. Desire
towards extension is ignorance of the
authentically great ... The greater the
expansion, the greater the disorder and
ugliness." [Plotinus,
Enneads
6.6.1]
- "... For in
confronting the cruel clouds of war, we gave
away our years of lovely youth."
[Simonides, c. 556-468 BC]
- "If a thousand men
were not to pay their tax bills this year, that
would not be a violent and bloody measure, as it
would be to pay them, and enable the State to
commit violence and shed innocent blood."
[Henry David Thoreau,
Civil
Disobedience (1849)]
- "Whenever we have
wronged our fellow man, we have tempted him to
be such a man as wrote Psalm 109 [...]
Who knows what imprecations of the same sort
have been uttered against ourselves? What
prayers have Red men, and Black, and Brown and
Yellow, sent up against us to their gods or
sometimes to God Himself? All over the earth the
White Man's offence 'smells to heaven':
massacres, broken treaties, theft, kidnappings,
enslavement, deportation, floggings, lynchings,
beatings-up, rape, insult, mockery, and odious
hypocrisy make up that smell. [...]
Bitter, chronic resentment [...] may be burning
against us: the spirit, essentially, of Psalm
109 [...]
Anyway, it is very wicked of them to hate us.
Yes; but the folly consists in supposing that
God sees the wickedness in them apart from the
wickedness in us which provoked it. They sin by
hatred because we tempted them. We have, in that
sense, seduced, debauched them. They are, as it
were, the mothers of this hatred: we are the
fathers." [C. S. Lewis, 'The Psalms' (ca.
1957) in
Christian
Reflections]
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2006
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- "It's not sound to be
at odds
With the birds or with the gods!"
(The Dire
Straits of Aulis)
- "Fool, who in sack of
towns lays temples waste, and tombs, the
sanctuaries of the dead! He, sowing desolation,
reaps destruction."
[Poseidon, in
Euripides,
Daughters
of Troy 90]
- Our Father who perchance art in
heaven,
Forgotten be thy name.
Mankind comes.
Our will be done in both earth
and outer space.
Give us nothing, for we shall take all
anyway.
Keep thy forgiveness, for we shall trespass
and forgive none.
We shall yield to temptation whenever we
wish,
since it delivers us from thine evil:
For ours is the science,
and the high-tech, and the weapons,
for as long as we know.
Hurrah!
- '... If by popular
vote, plebiscite, referendum, we could abolish
death itself—making it either for all or
for none—, where will the advocates of the
death penalty stand? Will they stick to their
desire? Will they renounce eternal life for the
sake of putting a criminal to death? Or will
they rather say, "let the bastard live so that
also we may live"?'
(A
Dream of Permanence)
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