Status Quotes - page 32
He [Hitler] then asked me what other problems there were between us... I replied that British opinion would be glad to know what might be his present attitude to the League of Nations and to Disarmament. There were no doubt other questions arising out of the Versailles settlement which were capable of causing trouble if they were unwisely handled:-Danzig, Austria, Czechoslovakia. On all these matters we were not necessarily concerned to stand for the status quo as of to-day, but we were very much concerned to secure the avoidance of such treatment of them as would be likely to cause trouble. If reasonable settlement could be reached with the free assent of those primarily concerned, we certainly had no desire to block them.
Edward Wood
Forced to depend upon popularity instead of hereditary power, the dictatorships for the most part kept out of war, supported religion, maintained order, promoted morality, favored the higher status of women, encouraged the arts, and lavished revenues upon the beautification of their cities. And they did all these things, in many cases, while preserving the forms and procedures of popular government, so that even under despotism the people learned the ways of liberty. When the dictatorship had served to destroy the aristocracy the people destroyed the dictatorship; and only a few changes were needed to make the democracy of freemen a reality as well as a form.
Will Durant
To make peace, one must be an uncompromising leader. To make peace, one must also embody compromise.
Throughout the ages, leadership and courage have often been synonymous. Ultimately, leadership requires action: daring to take steps that are necessary but unpopular, challenging the status quo in order to reach a brighter future.
And to push for peace is ultimately personal sacrifice, for leadership is not easy. It is born of a passion, and it is a commitment. Leadership is a commitment to an idea, to a dream, and to a vision of what can be. And my dream is for my land and my people to cease fighting and allow our children to reach their full potential regardless of sex, status, or belief.
Benazir Bhutto
Marx's ideas became the doctrines inspiring the labour and socialist movements of most of Europe. Mainly via Lenin and the Russian Revolution they became the quintessential international doctrine of twentieth-century social revolution, equally welcomes as such from China to Peru. Through the triumph of parties identified with these doctrines, versions of these ideas became the official ideology of the states in which, at their peak, something like a third of the human race lived, not to mention political movements of varying size an importance in the rest of the world. The only individually identifiable thinkers who have achieved comparable status are the founders of the great religions in the past, and with the possible exception of Muhammad none have triumphed on a comparable scale with such rapidity. No secular thinker can be named beside him in this respect.
Eric Hobsbawm
While Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell refused to reconsider immigration reform in the 2015 session, he did find time to debate a proposal by Pennsylvania's Republican senator Pat Toomey to deny federal economic development assistance to "sanctuary cities," where police and other public agencies do not inquire into a person's immigration status during routine business.
Mitch McConnell
The Republican Party can never again be respected or strong with political "leaders” like Sen. Mitch McConnell at its helm. McConnell's dedication to business as usual, status quo policies, together with his lack of political insight, wisdom, skill, and personality, has rapidly driven him from Majority Leader to Minority Leader, and it will only get worse. The Democrats and Chuck Schumer play McConnell like a fiddle-they've never had it so good-and they want to keep it that way! We know our America First agenda is a winner, not McConnell's Beltway First agenda or Biden's America Last.
Mitch McConnell
Spinozism is a last-ditch salvationist movement, aimed at redeeming the status of isms. It stands for ‘ismhood', a necessarily total secular faith fusing conceptual satisfaction and moral-political guidance. The aim is redemption, guaranteeing the future of the intelligentsia in this postmodern, and post-everything sense. Entrancing the globe by multitude-speak, the role of intellectuals is to fuse the coat of many colours into a consummate internationalism. And what can the warp and woof of this fabric be, but politically correct love?
Baruch Spinoza
Oh, there's a threat to America! Yeah, yeah, yeah ... back to that fucking COPS show. 'Cause I'll tell you who the threat to freedom ... no, no, not to freedom. I'll tell you who the threat to the status quo is in this country: it's us. That's why they show you shows like fucking COPS. So you know that state power will win and we'll bust your house down and we'll fuckin' bust you anytime we want. That's the message.
Bill Hicks
Our code must be framed to speed the absorption of immigrants into our economy, culture and society; to fuse the returning tribes into a homogeneous national and cultural unit; to forward our physical and moral healing and the cleansing of our lives from the trivia and dross which gathered upon us in dependence and exile. To maintain the status quo will not do. We have set up a dynamic State, bent upon creation and reform, building and expansion. Laws which lag behind development, merely a digest of experience and the lessons of the past, are useless to us. We need to anticipate the character of the times, discern embryonic forms emergent or renewed, and clear the path for circumstantial change.
David Ben-Gurion
Nevertheless, as readers familiar with Mr. Lerner's previous works know, the range of his interests is amazing. In this book he comments on such diverse matters as President Truman's handling of the 1946 railroad strike..., Charlie Chaplin's superb ability as a mime, H. G. Wells's imaginative writing, Palestine, the cold war, Trotsky and Stalin, the evil of the Ku Klux Klan, Jim Crowism, the 1948 political conventions, and the management of the Brooklyn Dodgers. In all of these and the many other pieces which make up the book the Enemy is always Status Quo.
Max Lerner
...In the United States and similar multicultural societies, media representations of women differ depending on varying combinations of race, gender identity, ethnicity, class and citizenship status. The white middle-class heterosexual woman holding US citizenship is held up as an ideal type for women from other groups. This is an ideal, a representation, a social construction and not an actual category of people...
Patricia Hill Collins
There is enormous inertia-a tyranny of the status quo-in private and especially governmental arrangements. Only a crisis-actual or perceived-produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. That, I believe, is our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes politically inevitable.
Milton Friedman
Oh, but you better look again, Willie. There's a new Black man in America today. A new Black woman in America today. Now brothers, there's a social benefit of our gathering here today. And that is, that from this day forward, we can never again see ourselves through the narrow eyes of the limitation of the boundaries of our own fraternal, civic, political, religious, street organization or professional organization. We are forced by the magnitude of what we see here today, that whenever you return to your cities and you see a Black man, a Black woman, don't ask him what is your social, political or religious affiliation, or what is your status? Know that he is your brother. And if he needs help, you are obligated to help your brother because he is your brother.
Louis Farrakhan
Alongside Leonardo and Michelangelo, Rembrandt is one of the three most famous artists ever, with whom the public is on a first-name basis; and the name Rembrandt has lent the cachet of greatness and the grace of familiarity to sell everything from kitchen countertops to whitening toothpaste to fancy hotels in Bangkok and Knightsbridge. No work of Rembrandt's has attained the iconic status of the David or the Mona Lisa; yet Rembrandt seems to rank with the greatest of the great.
Rembrandt
Far too often the Ukrainian issue is posed as a showdown: whether Ukraine joins the East or the West. But if Ukraine is to survive and thrive, it must not be either side's outpost against the other - it should function as a bridge between them. Russia must accept that to try to force Ukraine into a satellite status, and thereby move Russia's borders again, would doom Moscow to repeat its history of self-fulfilling cycles of reciprocal pressures with Europe and the United States. The West must understand that, to Russia, Ukraine can never be just a foreign country. Russian history began in what was called Kievan-Rus. The Russian religion spread from there. Ukraine has been part of Russia for centuries, and their histories were intertwined before then.
Henry Kissinger
It is through Western categories, and hence the Western 'gaze', that the people who constitute the Judeo-Christian traditions see the world. This gives the Western perspective a de facto status as arbiter of what is considered universally true. When another civilization is the object of such a gaze, it becomes relative and no longer universal. Indeed, its depiction as the alien makes it interesting precisely because it is particular and not universal.
Rajiv Malhotra
I have long contended that Islam is unique among the major world religions in having a developed doctrine, theology, and legal system mandating warfare against and the subjugation of unbelievers. There is no orthodox sect or school of Islam that teaches that Muslims must coexist peacefully as equals with non-Muslims on an indefinite basis. I use the term "radical Islam” merely to distinguish those Muslims who are actively working to advance this subjugation from the many millions who are not, as well as to emphasize that the stealth jihad program is truly radical: it aims at nothing less than the transformation of American society and the imposition of Islamic law here, subjugating women and non-Muslims to the status of legal inferiors.
Robert Spencer
