Usurping Quotes
In his attempt to unite the Good and the True by making the Good the highest Idea of all, Plato is nevertheless usurping aretês place with dialectically determined truth. Once the Good has been contained as a dialectical idea it is no trouble for another philosopher to come along and show by dialectical methods that aretê, the Good, can be more advantageously demoted to a lower position within a "true" order of things, more compatible with the inner workings of dialectic. Such a philosopher was not long in coming. His name was Aristotle.
Robert M. Pirsig
The modern financial system is not perfect, but upon a detailed examination of the crime is unfair. Money is not a measure of labor, but a means of exploitation amusing the elite's ambitions. It all depends on how profitable cash flows are, and not on the basis of the principle of measuring labor, on the basis of one's own interests, usurping the distribution of money. Gestures and laws of this kind, and they all use this system and dream, must go to this hierarchy, gain control over the money in order to engage in usurpation of resources. After killing the dragon, they themselves want to become a dragon.
Maxim Mernes
Looked at from the point of view of Islam, it was a dazzling period indeed. Islam acquired an empire over a large country full of unrivalled riches. Islam had the immense satisfaction of 1) sending millions of accursed kãfirs to hell in a continuous jihãd, 2) demolishing and desecrating thousands of idolatrous places of worship and pilgrimage, 3) killing thousands of Brahmins and Bhikshus and forcing the rest to eat beef, 4) collecting vast amounts of booty and distributing it among the mu'mins according to rules laid down by the Prophet, 5) capturing millions of men and women and children and selling them into slavery and concubinage in the far-flung Islamic world, 6) usurping power and privilege over a vast population which was reduced to serfdom, and 7) proving the superiority of Islamic scriptures by the power of the sword.
Sita Ram Goel
Free verse seemed democratic because it offered freedom of access to writers. And those who disdained free verse would always be open to accusations of elitism, mandarinism. Open form was like common ground on which all might graze their cattle - it was not to be closed in by usurping landlords.
James Fenton
