Enlightened Quotes - page 14
[Luigi Ferrarese] is an enlightened and philanthropic physician of Naples, who has for several years been zealously pursuing the study of Phrenology, and endeavouring to promote its application to those branches of science, morals and legislation, which he perceives it so well calculated to benefit. He has met with much persecution, but he has persevered, and it is with pleasure we perceive that there is one mind at least, in Naples, imbued with the importance of his views.
Luigi Ferrarese
They say great minds think alike. That's also true of tiny minds, and it's especially true of closed ones. I'm always impressed by students who know so much about the world they feel no need to listen to anyone else's opinions, aren't you? Especially when they feel compelled to actively shout them down. That's confidence for you. ... Anyone who's unwilling to hear an opposing opinion has no business attending a university, unless they're planning to graduate with honors in bigotry. And they have no business teaching at one either. There's nothing liberal, intelligent, enlightened, civilized or progressive about shutting somebody up because you don't want other people to hear their opinions. Who are you to decide who should and shouldn't be heard? Who made you emperor? It's not only an incitement to public disorder, it's a form of assault and a violation of the civil rights of everyone around you.
Pat Condell
The goal of a free nation is to reveal by example the enlightened possibilities of the human race, not to wield its power of destruction and death over the helpless, the poor, the starving and the war torn masses. The goal of a free nation must be no different outside its borders than within them. In America we do not massacre whole towns because they may be the chosen domicile of a criminal or a conspiracy of criminals. Instead we carefully root out the felons and bring them to justice.
Gerry Spence
I said, now that I'm collaborating with the rightists, my reputation isn't good. I said, in your [the Americans'] country there are two parties and it's been said that the Democrats are more enlightened. As for the Republicans, they lean more to the right. I said there is nothing great about the Democrats. I neither admire nor am interested in them. I said, when you [Nixon] were running for President, I gave you my vote. You are still not aware of that. [...] This time round, we also gave you our vote [Tanaka]. It's exactly like you said. If the main player, which is the Liberal Democratic Party [of Japan], doesn't come here, how can we resolve the issue? [...] I said, that communist party of yours in Japan, I'm not interested in them.
Mao Zedong
Enlightenment is enlightenment. And that's that. It's an unalterable, unwavering state of knowledge and being beyond doubt, a completion every moment by grace of the Most High, the unspeakable one, God. That's the ultimate; the absolute being beyond any description. But the ultimate, the enlightenment of man, must translate into his living life. And to me and my teaching that means an enlightened man is liberated from unhappiness. Being and living free of unhappiness is the natural and simple state of all life on earth - except man. He has been misled away from it by spiritual lures and glamour and the result is the conflict and pain, the fluctuating unhappiness, of his short life.
Barry Long
We will serve all the Nation, not one section or one sector, or one group, but all Americans. These are the United States-a united people with a united purpose. Our American unity does not depend upon unanimity. We have differences; but now, as in the past, we can derive from those differences strength, not weakness, wisdom, not despair. Both as a people and a government, we can unite upon a program, a program which is wise and just, enlightened and constructive.
Lyndon B. Johnson
Some say that it is useless to speak of world peace or world law or world disarmament - and that it will be useless until the leaders of the Soviet Union adopt a more enlightened attitude. I hope they do. I believe we can help them do it. But I also believe that we must reexamine our own attitude - as individuals and as a Nation - for our attitude is as essential as theirs. And every graduate of this school, every thoughtful citizen who despairs of war and wishes to bring peace, should begin by looking inward - by examining his own attitude toward the possibilities of peace, toward the Soviet Union, toward the course of the cold war and toward freedom and peace here at home.
John F. Kennedy
