Situation Quotes - page 100
I agree with you that a grave calamity overhangs the Liberal party in connection with the plan which I described to you in two peculiar monosyllabic epithets [mad and drunk]... Liberalism cannot put on the garb of Jingoism without suffering for it... [For sixty years my life has been] a constant effort to do all I could for economy & for peace; not the peace of this country only but of the world... it is not now economy but peace which supplies the key note of the situation... If the thing is to be done at all let it be done by those who think it right.
William Ewart Gladstone
...He had always known the situation was fucked up, but it took me calling him out. I told him: ‘I've been pissed at you. This was terrible and it hurt me and what you did was wrong'...[he did it] because he was afraid, because he was working on a script with these guys. It was bros before hoes.
Rachel Bloom
...to me, at least, this unemployment problem is the most crucial problem of our country. I regard it as such. I can fight it. I am willing to fight it. I cannot fight it without weapons. I have for myself come to the conclusion that-owing to the conditions that exist to-day in the world, having regard to the economic environment, having regard to the situation of our country-if we go on pottering along as we are we shall have grave unemployment with us to the end of time. And I have come to the conclusion myself that the only way of fighting this subject is by protecting the home market. (Loud and continued cheering.)
Stanley Baldwin
In societies under the rule of exploiting classes, there are various kinds of mental workers. Some are wholly in the service of the reactionary ruling classes and thus stand in an antagonistic relationship to manual workers. But even in such a situation, as Lenin said, many of the intellectuals engaged in scientific and technical work are themselves not capitalists but scholars, even though they are filled with bourgeois prejudices. The fruits of their work are used by the exploiters, but in general this is determined by the social system and not by their own free choice. They are totally different from those politicians who rack their brains for expedients of direct service to the reactionary ruling classes.
Deng Xiaoping
In India, by contrast, the negationists who deny the existence of the centuries-long jihad, in which a systematic oppression and slaughter of Kafirs was pursued, are calling the shots...But in India, we find the unbelievable situation, that not only Muslim historians and public figures refuse to face the truth about Muslim history : neutral secular historians are also covering up and denying the crimes which Islam has systematically committed, and even many Hindus are denying the crimes committed against their own society.
Koenraad Elst
The following is quoted as an example of distorted reporting in Pak papers : A wave of anti-Muslim riots has engulfed all corners of India these days and more than 50 cities are under curfew. Despite this, however, Muslims are being killed mercilessly...50 In India, this is something of a standard secularist column phrase on riots (see ch.11). And Aabha Dixit adds a comment on Pak reporting : The headlines only refer to the desecration of the Babri mosque. There is never a mention of the Hindus who fall to police bullets. Replace headlines with editorials, and this describes the situation in Indian secularist papers.
Koenraad Elst
Considering that blood is a priceless influencer of people's sympathies, riot reporting is a favourite hunting ground for aspiring moulders of public opinion. ... the English-language papers which determine the international impression of India's communal situation have specialized in the anti-Hindu variety, at least in the 1980s and early 90s.
Koenraad Elst
It is one thing to hold a view that, upon analysis, turns out to be mistaken. To err is but human. However, one should become extra careful when the view one expresses, is an allegation. It becomes even more serious when it is the worst allegation one can possibly make, viz. the accusation of responsibility for the Holocaust. The situation with allegations is simple: either you prove them, or you yourself are guilty of slander. This then can be held against Pollock: he has made a grave allegation, yet has failed to buttress it with proof, though not for lack of trying.
Koenraad Elst
Southern intellectuals also invoked economic and political arguments in support of slavery. They pointed to the dreadful situation of the ‘free laborers' in the North and throughout Europe, and the exploitative nature of industrial capitalism. The slave owner felt a moral obligation toward the slave and had an economic stake in his continues welfare, since the slave was valuable property... As far as the right of every slave to be a free laborer, they mocked this argument as the right to be ‘free to beg, steal and starve.'
Alan Dershowitz
I think it was really a difficult situation for him. His career was ending in 10 minutes and I think trying to come to terms with that and at the same time win a World Cup was . . . it would be just so difficult emotionally and he was probably on the edge without being provoked and then to be provoked probably was just too much for him. I can completely understand how difficult that would be. I think he probably faced some shame, embarrassment, disappointment; but I also think he feels like the guy made some awful remarks and his action was warranted. I don't think he wants the kids to see that, but I also don't think he regrets it. It's tough -- he's one of the top three players to play the game. He's already won the European Cup, the World Cup and I think everyone, his teammates included, idolize him in his country, so I think he'll be quickly forgiven.
Zinedine Zidane
The dead Lenin who does not know that he is dead thus stands for our own obstinate refusal to renounce the grandiose utopian projects and accept the limitations of our situation: there is no big Other, Lenin was mortal and made errors like all others, so it is time for us to let him die, to put to rest this obscene ghost which haunts our political imaginary, and to approach our problems in a non-ideological and pragmatic way. But there is another sense in which Lenin is still alive: he is alive in so far as he embodies what Badiou calls the 'eternal Idea' of universal emancipation, the immortal striving for justice that no insults and catastrophes manage to kill.
Slavoj Žižek
The Rhine is to-day a barrier indispensable to the safety of Western Europe-indispensable, therefore, to civilization. ... By renouncing the Rhine as a natural barrier, we should be conniving at an inconceivable, a monstrous situation. Germany would be able to continue her enterprises as though she had been victorious-the very Germany that has sent millions of human beings to death, the very Germany that planned to annihilate our country and leave her a heap of ashes, the very Germany that plotted to dominate the world by brute force-blood-stained, crime-stained Germany.
Ferdinand Foch
[T]he treaty [of Versailles]...provided for a fifteen-year occupation of the Rhineland, with retreats every five years. Such a guarantee, I said without mincing my words, was ‘from the military point of view, null; it will merely be an increase of work for the Allied occupation.' I went on to say that whereas the treaty was non-existent as promoter of our security, it was distinctly bad for reparations. ... I asked who would be judge of the situation if we sought to reoccupy the Rhineland because of an infringement of terms by Germany. The Commission for Reparations would not suffice, I said. It cannot be denied that I was right on this point.
Ferdinand Foch
Fifthly, the book of the Void. By Void I mean that which has no beginning and no end. Attaining this principle means not attaining the principle. The Way of strategy is the Way of nature. When you appreciate the power of nature, knowing the rhythm of any situation, you will be able to hit the enemy naturally and strike naturally. All this is the Way of the Void. I intend to show how to follow the true Way according to nature in the book of the Void.
Miyamoto Musashi
[I]f we arrived at that situation [when]...the one country was fully prepared for aggression, and the other wholly unprepared for events, the result must be either some very dreadful disaster or some deep humiliation to be sustained by the country so undefended.
Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston
Liberty is an empty sound as long as you are kept in bondage economically. [...] Freedom means that you have the right to do a certain thing; but if you have no opportunity to do it, that right is sheer mockery. The opportunity lies in your economic condition, whatever the political situation may be. No political rights can be of the least use to the man who is compelled to slave all his life to keep himself and family from starvation.
Alexander Berkman
That's the music that I play at home all the time, Joni Mitchell. Court and Spark I love because I'd always hoped that she'd work with a band. But the main thing with Joni is that she's able to look at something that's happened to her, draw back and crystallize the whole situation, then write about it. She brings tears to my eyes, what more can I say? It's bloody eerie. I can relate so much to what she says. "Now old friends are acting strange/They shake their heads/They say I've changed".
Joni Mitchell
Soldiers of Verdun! It is your valour which has made this possible, for your heroic resistance was the indispensable condition to our success. Upon it still depends our future victory. Upon all the vast theatres of Europe, thanks to you, there now exists a situation out of which will spring the definite triumph of our cause. I make one more appeal to your courage, your ardour, your spirit of sacrifice, your love of country. Hold fast and strive with all your might to shatter the last desperate efforts of an enemy now at bay.
Joseph Joffre
