Stand Quotes - page 93
[T]he PDP, on whose platform he stands, represents the most harrowing of this nation's nightmares over and beyond even the horrors of the Abacha regime. If he wishes to be considered on his own merit, now is time for him, as well as others similarly enmeshed, to exercise the moral courage that goes with his repudiation of that party, a dissociation from its past, and a pledge to reverse its menacing future. We shall find him an alternative platform on which to stand, and then have him present his credentials along those of other candidates engaged in forging a credible opposition alliance.
Wole Soyinka
In this present that God has made us, there is nothing unworthy our care; we stand accountable for it even to a hair; and is it not a commission to man, to conduct man according to his condition; 'tis express, plain, and the very principal one, and the Creator has seriously and strictly prescribed it to us. Authority has power only to work in regard to matters of common judgment, and is of more weight in a foreign language; therefore let us again charge at it in this place.
Michel de Montaigne
After the elections, Dr Singh did try to be more assertive, taking a view on who would be in his Cabinet and who would not, and resisting the induction of the DMK's A. Raja and T.R. Baalu, for their unsavoury reputations. Watching from the sidelines, I had hoped he would not buckle under pressure. Dr Singh stood his ground for a day, managed to keep Baalu out, but had to yield ground on Raja under pressure from his own party. To me, it was a reiteration of the message that the victory was not his but the Family's.
Manmohan Singh
[Human]] history is the story of that 'Good Fight', of the effort of man to attain that universal liberty to which, he feels himself born. All wars are but battles in this war. It is fought by the tongue and pen as earnestly as with the sword and shell. It is called by various names. The combatants rally under various banners. Whatever in human nature is hopeful, generous, aspiring, the love of God and trust in man, is arrayed on one side. The meaner passions, the baser purpose, stand upon the other.
George William Curtis
It is not yet the Millennium. We have not yet reached these pure heights of civilization, the ascent to which is the Good Fight. But are we no nearer the summit because we do not stand upon it? Has the Good Fight gained nothing by the war? If you sail from Boston to Calcutta, when you are off Madagascar you are not yet in India, but you have rounded the Cape of Good Hope, you are not yet in India, but at least you are outside Boston Light. I do not say the country is yet beyond Boston Light, but if not, it is only because Boston Light is the sun of liberty that shines all over the world.
George William Curtis
If the slave-power could now in good faith stand where the fathers stood, with the added lights of experience shining upon the question, asking sympathy and co-operation in a system of emancipation, pleading that it was unfair to ask them to make greater sacrifices than other men are willing to make, allowing that it was a common evil, the cost and trouble of whose removal should be cheerfully borne by all, or if the laws of any slave state looked towards the gradual relief of the difficulty, there is not an honest man in the North or the South whose heart would not tremble with joy as he contemplated the destiny of his country.
George William Curtis
If a man cannot stand up in Charleston or Savannah or Richmond and say that he believes the right of every man to the enjoyment of life, liberty, and happiness to be self-evident; if he be tarred and feathered for saying it, or ridden upon a rail, or ducked in a horse-pond, or driven out of his pulpit or professorial chair, or shot down in his office, or waited upon by a committee who cannot be answerable for the chivalric impatience of their fellow-citizens - Mr. Douglas says it is a proof that his political principles are ruinous and fatal; which is simply the argument of a highway robber to his victim whom he knocks on the head, that if he didn't carry so much money in his pocket he wouldn't be robbed.
George William Curtis
We are indeed living at the end of the Golden Age of Mankind, or at least the end of this particular human civilization. That almost everything we take for granted today may, only a couple of decades farther along, seem entirely remarkable, that our most mundane artefacts and toys will stand as incredible examples of luxury and excess. That all of this will pass away, and the "simplest" bits of our day-to-day lives will become miracles of a half-remembered past. A past which will be responsible for that future-present misery. It is difficult to force myself through the trivial routine of my days when these thoughts are front and center. It is difficult to see beyond the veil they draw up about me and difficult to push it all aside long enough to write my silly little stories.
Caitlín R. Kiernan
