Great Quotes III: Source and Context are Key

[Thorvald of Lym]

“Both sets of people attempted to use Ed [Husain] or myself to grind their own ideological axes. In their own way, neither group was happy with half of our message. When we were critical of Islamism, the ‘Orientalists’ got upset. When we raised the grievances in society that acted to fuel the Islamist narrative, the conservatives objected. Both sides wanted to keep us as their pet monkeys in the zoo: to come to us for entertainment and benefit when it suited them, and ignore us when our ideas went against their established ideological bent.

On many occasions after my talks, people—usually white liberals—would stand up and declare that I had no idea what it was like to suffer as a victim of society. They would assert that there was no way someone like me, an educated, articulate English-speaker in a suit and tie, could ever understand people who felt so desperate that suicide bombing was their ‘only’ option. I was told that terrorists’ reactions cannot be separated from their social causes and the blame lies squarely on society. I had invariably just spent half an hour telling my entire story, of violent racism and police harassment in Essex, and of torture and solitary confinement in Egypt, but because my conclusions didn’t align with the angry ‘monkey’ they were expecting to see, it was as if they hadn’t heard any of it.”

— Maajid Nawaz, Radical: My Journey out of Islamist Extremism

 

[Lexicus]

`But the Elves of this land were of a race strange to us of the silvan folk, and the trees and the grass do not now remember them: Only I hear the stones lament them: deep they delved us, fair they wrought us, high they builded us; but they are gone. They are gone. They sought the Havens long ago.'

 

[Cutlass]

"I am a citizen of the United States Of America. It is my right to speak out about anything I choose. Also, the same people that tell me to not have an opinion because I'm an uniformed celebrity are the same people that voted for an uninformed celebrity."

Alyssa Milano.

 

[Ferocitus]

I made potato pancakes for dinner, so here's an appropriate quote:

"God may play dice with the universe, but not with Mrs. Schmalowitz’s lukshen
kugl, nor especially with her latkes and homntashen".
Michael Silverstein, professor in anthropology, linguistics, and psychology
University of Chicago.

From:
Latke–Hamantash Debate
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latke–Hamantash_Debate

 

[Traitorfish]

"I went back to Petrograd riding on the front of an automated truck, driven by a workman and filled with Red Guards. (...) Across the horizon spread the glittering lights of the capital, immeasurably more splendid by night than by day, like a dike of jewels on a barren plain. The old workman who drove held the wheel in one hand, while with the other he swept the far-gleaming capital in an exultant gesture. 'Mine!' he cried, his face all alight. 'All mine now! My Petrograd!'"

- John Reed, Ten Days that Shook the World (1919)

 

[Ferocitus]

“A politician who climbs high over the bodies of the slain is described as vile
or great according to the degree of his success.”

Robert Musil, The Man Without Qualities.

 

[Zkribbler]

I went to Las Vegs in a $500 used car.
I came back in a $500,000 Greyhound bus.

 

[Kyriakos]

Δημοσθένης ο ρήτωρ, λέγειν δέ ποτε κωλυόμενος ὑπ´ Ἀθηναίων ἐν ἐκκλησίᾳ βραχὺ ἔφη βούλεσθαι πρὸς αὐτοὺς εἰπεῖν, τῶν δὲ σιωπησάντων« Νεανίας » εἶπε « θέρους ὥρᾳ ἐμισθώσατο ἐξ ἄστεος ὄνον Μέγαράδε· μεσούσης δὲ τῆς ἡμέρας καὶ σφοδρῶς φλέγοντος τοῦ ἡλίου ἑκάτερος αὐτῶν ἐβούλετο ὑποδύεσθαι ὑπὸ τὴν σκιάν· εἶργον δ´ ἀλλήλους, ὁ μὲν μεμισθωκέναι τὸν ὄνον οὐ τὴν σκιὰν λέγων, ὁ δὲ μεμισθωμένος τὴν πᾶσαν ἔχειν ἐξουσίαν »·καὶ ταῦτ´ εἰπὼν ἀπῄει. Τῶν δ´ Ἀθηναίων ἐπισχόντων καὶ δεομένων πέρας ἐπιθεῖναι τῷ λόγῳ, « εἶθ’ ὑπὲρ μὲν ὄνου σκιᾶς » ἔφη « βούλεσθε ἀκούειν, λέγοντος δὲ ὑπὲρ σπουδαίων πραγμάτων οὐ βούλεσθε; »

The above fable by Aesop is usually titled as "Concerning a donkey's shadow". It is about the rhetorician Demosthenes, who (in the story) was trying to make an important speech in the assembly, but people were yelling and weren't wanting to hear any of it. So Demosthenes instead promised to just tell a brief story. In the story, some youth had rented a donkey from another person, and all three were traveling outside. But the day was extremely hot and sunny, so they started arguing about which of the two had the right to lie in the shade of the donkey. The youth claimed it was his right, cause he rent the animal, and the owner argued that he only rented the donkey, not its shadow. Then Demosthenes stopped talking, and when the people asked him to go on he replied "So you don't want to listen to important matters, but wish to hear about a donkey's shadow?".

 

[Traitorfish]

"First, I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Council-er or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can't agree with your methods of direct action;" who paternalistically feels he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by the myth of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a "more convenient season."

Shallow understanding from people of goodwill is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection."

- Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., "Letter from Birmingham Jail", 16 April, 1963.

idk seemed timely.

 

[Paul in Saudi]

"Let us learn (he said) to show our friendship for a man when he is alive, not after he is dead. After that, my rule is to let everything alone."
--Meyer Wolfsheim,, The Great Gatspy
F Scott Fitzgerald

 

[Cutlass]

f at the end of the four years, you walk into Mar-a-Lago and the entire place erupts into boos, there is a chance you have been a good president, maybe even a great one. But if you walk in and the millionaires and the billionaires greet you with cheers, then you have failed your country, your name is mud, and history will grind you beneath her heel.

Former president of Mexico Vicente Fox.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat...president_vicente_fox_roast_donald_trump.html

 

[Thorvald of Lym]

"when you just wanted to make dank videos of old ***** memes but end up covering the corruption of the legal system."

— Mauricio Silva, YouTube
(Possible language advisory)

 

[Mechanicalsalvation]

It is not true that because I think, I am; but rather because I think, feel and act, and even while I am doing any or all of these things, can transcend the thought, feeling and action, therefore I am. Because I manifest, I am, and because I transcend manifestation, I am. The formula is not so clear and catching as the Cartesian, but there is a fuller truth in its greater comprehensiveness.

 

[Kyriakos]

^Descartes, tbf, was trying to argue that while all other aspects of one's existence may be deemed as illusion, thinking still would not. That said, thinking itself may be equally an illusion (it seems to not be specific-object tied, but floating progression, a bit algebraic maybe (? not a mathematician, i just mean that the 'truth' is in a tied relation and not in objects).
That said, if one senses anything, they exist, given they at least have a sense. Now people not familiar with the problems (and i also mean negative traits) of philosophy, may wonder if that means that in philosophy non-thinking things supposedly don't exist (eg a rock). In some philosophy (western hipsterism mostly? ) it can happen. In general they are termed as 'things-in-themselves' or phenomena or essences in classical philosophy, which mostly means that they may be something but they aren't what is picked up by an observer.

 

[Kyriakos]

"I put on clothes which didn't suit me, and others thought i was someone i was not, and i said nothing, and was lost". Fernando Pessoa.

One of the three great writers of the 20th century, imo. Pessoa-Borges-Kafka.

I am 21st century, don't worry

 

[Kyriakos]

Διὸς γὰρ δυσπαραίτητοι φρένες·
ἅπας δὲ τραχὺς ὅστις ἂν νέον κρατῇ.

which means "The mind of Zeus does not change easily. And if one has been ruling since only a little while, they will be tough".
Spoken by Hephaistos, to Prometheas.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

My mother wanted to plant a new tree. My father: "I won't even be alive to see it grow up."
My mother:
"Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would end, today I would still plant an apple tree." - Martin Luther

 

[Lohrenswald]

Terxpahseyton's mother is Martin Luther

 

[Broken_Erika]

Terxpahseyton's mother is Martin Luther

How did he gestate when he was a fetus, did Martin Luther keep him in a box?

 

[Lohrenswald]