Approaching Quotes - page 7
These Prophets of Righteousness ... believed in the victory of absolute Righteousness, yet the fact that they turn their gaze time after time to "the end of days "proves that they knew-as by a whisper from the "spirit of holiness" within them-how great and how arduous was the work that mankind must do before that consummation could be reached. They knew, also, that such work as this could not be done by scattered individuals, approaching it sporadically, each man for himself, at different times and in different places; but that it needed a whole community, which should be continuously, throughout all generations, the standard-bearer of the force of Righteousness against all the other forces that rule the world: which should assume of its own freewill the yoke of eternal obedience to the absolute dominion of a single Idea, and for the sake of that Idea should wage incessant war against the way of the world.
Ahad Ha'am
At the end of the second day as I was lying all alone, I saw clearly a being, with a part of the head cut off, in a military uniform (or the remains of a military uniform) approaching me and suddenly flinging himself upon my chest, with that half a head to suck my force. I took a good look, then realised that I was about to die. He was drawing all my life out ... I was completely nailed to the bed, without movement, in a deep trance. I could no longer stir and he was pulling. I thought: now it is the end. Then I called on my occult power, I gave a big fight and I succeeded in turning him back so that he could not stay there any longer. And I woke up ... I know how much knowledge and force were necessary for me to resist. It was irresistible.
The Mother
...the French are on the point of making a great effort in Portugal...which Lord Wellington...will find himself unable to resist. But even if such an effort could not take place or should not succeed, I am convinced the period when we shall be obliged to give up the contest from an absolute inability to support the expense, is fast approaching.
Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey
The first Bengali with a scientific insight to attack the problems of the language was the poet Rabindranath Tagore; and it is flattering for the votaries of philology, to find in one who is the greatest writer in the language, and a great poet and seer for all time, a keen philologist as well, distinguished alike by an assiduous enquiry into the facts of the language as by a scholarly appreciation of the methods and findings of the modern Western philologist. The work of Rabindranath is in the shape of a few essays (now collected in one volume) on Bengali Phonetics, Bengali Onomatopoetics, and on the Bengali noun, and on other topics, the earliest of which appeared in the early nineties, and some fresh papers appeared only several years ago. These papers may be said to have shown to the Bengali enquiring into the problems of his language the proper lines of approaching them.
Suniti Kumar Chatterji
Of two men sharing with a calf the milk of that calf's mother one eyes the calf with the thought that his tender flesh would provide good meat for him and his friends to feast upon at his approaching birthday. The other thinks of the calf as his brother of the teat and is filled with affection for the young beast and his mother. I say to you, the latter is truly nourished by that calf's meat; while the first is poisoned thereby. Aye, many things are put in the belly that should be put in the heart.
Mikha'il Na'ima
