Fellow Quotes - page 53
It's fun-a macabre sort of fun-this parlor game of ‘Who Goes Nazi?' And it simplifies things-asking the question in regard to specific personalities. Kind, good, happy, gentlemanly, secure people never go Nazi. They may be the gentle philosopher whose name is in the Blue Book, or Bill from City College to whom democracy gave a chance to design airplanes-you'll never make Nazis out of them. But the frustrated and humiliated intellectual, the rich and scared speculator, the spoiled son, the labor tyrant, the fellow who has achieved success by smelling out the wind of success-they would all go Nazi in a crisis.
Dorothy Thompson
"Telling the truth”-which for so long was itself a problematic exercise thanks to competing "truths” and the cost of airing them publicly-now became a virtue in itself. And the bigger the truth you have to tell, the greater your claim upon the attention of fellow citizens and sympathetic observers. Thus, despite the obvious risk of appearing to compete with the ultimate truth of Jewish genocide, speaking openly about hitherto uncomfortable episodes in the recent German past opens the possibility of encouraging the telling of many stories.
Tony Judt
When a person tells others "Be good”, he conveys to his hearers the feeling that he is good and they are not. When he says "Be brave, honest and pure”, he conveys to his hearers the feeling that the speaker himself is all that, while they are cowards, dishonest and unclean.
To love God in the most practical way is to love our fellow beings. If we feel for others in the same way as we feel for our own dear ones, we love God.
If, instead of seeing faults in others we look within ourselves we are loving God.
Meher Baba
[After the Batley and Spen by-election in July 2021 at which he was a candidate.] Galloway says he abhors antisemitism, which makes it rotten luck that one of his aides was exposed as a Holocaust denier. Hard to imagine what might have drawn such a person to an avowed anti-racist, but there we are. When the Galloway travelling circus comes to town, it always brings the same trouble, pitting communities against each other, stirring up fear and loathing. But this time he did it in a seat that knew the lethal cost of political hatred. It's a mystery why some still treat him as part of the left, granting him leeway as a fellow progressive. He voted Tory in May's Scottish elections and backed Nigel Farage's Brexit party in 2019.
George Galloway
I would say that it is a fearful doctrine, which must recoil upon the heads of those who pronounce it, to stand in judgment on a fellow human-being and to say, "Because he was such-and-such, therefore the consequences which would otherwise flow from his death shall not flow." ... Nor can we ourselves pick and choose where and in what parts of the world we shall use this or that kind of standard. We cannot say, "We will have African standards in Africa, Asian standards in Asia and perhaps British standards here at home." We have not that choice to make. We must be consistent with ourselves everywhere. All Government, all influence of man upon man, rests upon opinion. What we can do in Africa, where we still govern and where we no longer govern, depends upon the opinion which is entertained of the way in which this country acts and the way in which Englishmen act. We cannot, we dare not, in Africa of all places, fall below our own highest standards in the acceptance of responsibility.
Enoch Powell
"For information concerning the afterlife,” Miss Ophelia said, "kindly contact your nearest priest, minister, rabbi, mullah or anyone else on the accredited list of God's representatives. Thank you for calling.”
There was a sweet tinkle of chimes. Then the line went dead.
"What did the Big Fellow say?” asked General Muller.
"All I got was double-talk from his secretary.”
"Personally, I don't believe in superstitions like God,” General Muller said. "Even if it happens to be true, I find it healthier not to believe. Shall we get on with it?”
They got on with it.
Robert Sheckley
I conclude that we should make two things clear to the country. First, that we have no intention of abandoning public ownership and accepting for all time the present frontiers of the public sector. Secondly, that we regard public ownership not as an end in itself but as a means-and not necessarily the only or the most important one to certain ends-such as full employment, greater equality and higher productivity. We do not aim to nationalise every private firm or to create an endless series of State monopolies. While we shall certainly wish to extend social ownership, in particular directions, as circumstances warrant, our goal is not 100% State ownership. Our goal is a society in which Socialist ideals are realised. Our job is to move towards this as fast as we can. The pace at which we can go depends on how quickly we can persuade our fellow citizens to back us. They will only do this if we pay proper attention to the kind of people they are and the kind of things they want.
Hugh Gaitskell
Burchill divides up the chosen people into Good Jews (hardliners, Israelites) and Bad Jews (liberal Jews) with the enthusiasm of an antisemite. Hilariously, she sets herself up as the Jewishness Police, railing against Jews who are not Jewish enough; and one of those, it turns out, is her local rabbi, Elli Tikvah Sarah. Burchill rails against the rabbi for, in this order: ignoring a bottle of champagne Burchill gave her in favour of elderflower wine made by the rabbi's girlfriend; "canoodling" with said girlfriend ("a Sapphic free-for-all", sneers the heretofore not exactly prudish Burchill), and advocating a dialogue with Islam.
Burchill doesn't include this in the book but, according to Rabbi Sarah, Burchill emailed the synagogue's congregants railing that "your rabbi respects PIG ISLAM". Aww, being used as a launchpad for a British columnist's racism – we're living in the Promised Land now, fellow Jews!
Julie Burchill
[16 October 18951: it is my fortune to have been born and to a large extent brought up among those whom white men call `heathen'; and while I recognise the paramount duty of every white man to follow the teachings of his creed and conscience as `a debtor to do the whole law,' it seems to me cruel that white men, whose governments are armed with the most murderous weapons known to science, should amaze and confound their fellow creatures with a doctrine of salvation imperfectly understood by themselves and a code of ethics foreign to the climate and instincts of those races whose most cherished customs they outrage and whose gods they insult.
Rudyard Kipling
Can sweetening our tea, &c. with sugar, be a circumstance of such absolute necessity? Can the petty pleasure thence arising to the taste, compensate for so much misery produced among our fellow creatures, and such a constant butchery of the human species by this pestilential detestable traffic in the bodies and souls of men?-Pharisaical Britain! to pride thyself in setting free a single Slave that happens to land on thy coasts, while thy Merchants in all thy ports are encouraged by thy laws to continue a commerce whereby so many hundreds of thousands are dragged into a slavery that can scarce be said to end with their lives, since it is entailed on their posterity!
Benjamin Franklin
As an atheist, Suzuki declares, he has no illusions about life and death, adding that the individual is insignificant in cosmic terms. Human beings must come to terms with the unbearable reality that they, like all life, will be extinguished.
What he finds most difficult, he confides, "is the idea that this guy looking back at me in the mirror, this person locked into my skull full of memories that make him who he is, this fellow who has known pain, joy, thoughts, having existed for such a brief flash in all eternity, is going to vanish forever at his death. Forever is such a long time, and 70, 80, 90, even 100 years is such a tiny interval in all of time."
David Suzuki
Our last accounts of Rob Roy correspond with what this fellow has confessed, that, finding himself surrounded on all sides, he had dismissed the greater part of his followers, with the purpose either of lying concealed, or of making his escape through his superior knowledge of the passes.
Robert Roy MacGregor
...Most people are content to live their lives within prescribed and personal boundaries. But one of the points of artists surely is that they live outside their skin. That they're connected. That they hurt with the hurt of their fellow humans. How, then, can they disengage? How can you – if your task, if your gift, is narrative – absent yourself from the great narrative of the world?...
Ahdaf Soueif
Government, at first, was either patriarchal or military; that of a parent over his family, or of a commander over his fellow warriors. ... Paternal authority, and the order of domestic life, supplied the foundation of civil government. ... A family contains the rudiments of an empire. The authority of one over many, and the disposition to govern and be governed, are in this way incidental to the very nature, and coeval, no doubt, with the existence of the human species.
William Paley
The unnatural union between church and state which has degraded religion into an engine of policy will be dissolved. Tythes, the pest of agriculture, will be abolished, the memory of religious dissensions will be lost when no sect shall have an exclusive right to govern their fellow citizens. Each sect will maintain its own clergy, and no citizen will be disfranchised for worshipping God according to his conscience. To say all in one word, Ireland shall be independent. We shall be a nation, not a province; citizens, not slaves. Every man shall rank in the state according to his merit and his talents.
Theobald Wolfe Tone
As for our celebrated lawgivers, who have cast us in our present awkward mold, you may be sure that they have acted to serve their interests and not ours. Witness all our political, civil, and religious institutions - examine them thoroughly: unless I am very much mistaken, you will see how, through the ages, the human race has been broken to the halter that a handful of rascals were itching to impose. Watch out for the fellow who talks about putting things in order! Putting things in order always means getting other people under your control.
Denis Diderot
I asked Buffett how many of his fellow billionaires shared his views. He laughed.
"I'll tell you, not very many,” he said. "They have this idea that it's ‘their money' and they deserve to keep every penny of it. What they don't factor in is all the public investment that lets us live the way we do." ... It may be surprising to some to hear the world's foremost capitalist talk in this way, but Buffett's views aren't necessarily a sign of a soft heart. Rather, they reflect an understanding that how well we respond to globalization won't be just a matter of identifying the right policies. It will also have to do with a change in spirit, a willingness to put our common interests and the interests of future generations ahead of short-term expediency.
Warren Buffett
Many times our fellow men are argued and even persuaded into a special turn of mind, and here we often learn by experience that the various representatives of the different ideas cherish revengeful feelings towards each other.... The genuine magician will feel nothing but pity for people and creeds like that, but he will never hate or despise anyone. Whosoever seeks God, and whatever may be the way he chooses to lead him toward this goal, shall be paid his due respect. It is a pity but also the truth that the clergy, theosophists, spiritualists or whatever they are called are antagonistically inclined just as if only their chosen path leads to God. All men seeking this path to, and union with, God should always remember the words of Jesus Christ, the great Master of the mystics who said, "Love thy neighbor as thyself”. This sentence ought to be a sacred command to any seeker of illumination on this spiritual path.
Franz Bardon
The Chicana may be working 16 hours a day to support for her children, but she will still be viewed as a sexual object rather than a human being. Unless she is over the age of 35 or 40, she will be seen more as a face and body than as a fellow worker and fellow victim of oppression.
Elizabeth Martinez
'Satchel' Paige, pitcher for the Bismark, N.D., team which is in the tournament, is one of the greatest flingers, Wagner thinks. Wagner has seen him play. "The only trouble they will have about Paige is getting a catcher to hold him. Boy-that fellow has a speed ball that goes in there like a bullet. I've seen it go right through a catcher and into the stands. It takes a great backstop to stand up to his fastball. Quite often, Paige has that trouble-a catcher who just can't hold him. Then he has to ease down and when he eases down you can beat him. That colored boy is tall, slender and has good shoulders and arms. He looks like 'Dizzy' Dean and pitches much like him."
Satchel Paige
