Quotes · Skopia

Political speech19 quotes

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low; the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together. — Martin Luther King, Jr. · 1963 Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. — Frederick Douglass · 1857 If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation are men who want crops without plowing up the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. — Frederick Douglass · 1857 The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice. — Barack Obama · 1965 A revolution is a struggle to the death between the future and the past. — Fidel Castro · 1961 It was a creed written into the founding documents that declared the destiny of a nation: Yes, we can. It was whispered by slaves and abolitionists as they blazed a trail towards freedom through the darkest of nights. Yes, we can. It was sung by immigrants as they struck out from distant shores and pioneers who pushed westward against an unforgiving wilderness. Yes, we can. It was the call of workers who organized, women who reached for the ballot, a president who chose the moon as our new frontier, and a king who took us to the mountaintop and pointed the way to the promised land. — Barack Obama · 2008 All 19 quotes →

Philosophical literature8 quotes

The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it. — Karl Marx · 1845 Improvement makes straight roads, but the crooked roads without improvement are roads of Genius. — William Blake · 1793 Few new truths have ever won their way against the resistance of established ideas save by being overstated. — Isaiah Berlin · 1976 Heretics are the only bitter remedy against the entropy of human thought. — Yevgeny Zamyatin · 1923 The gods did not intimate all things to men straight away, but in time, through seeking, their discoveries improve. — Xenophanes Life can be wonderful as well as terrible, and we shall increasingly have the power to make life good. Since human history may be only just beginning, we can expect that future humans, or supra-humans, may achieve some great goods that we cannot now even imagine. In Nietzsche’s words, there has never been such a new dawn and clear horizon, and such an open sea. — Derek Parfit · 2017 All 8 quotes →

Political literature4 quotes

Justice is the end of government. It is the end of civil society. It ever has been and ever will be pursued until it be obtained, or until liberty be lost in the pursuit. — James Madison · 1788 To think clearly is a necessary first step toward political regeneration. — George Orwell · 1946 Heretics are the only bitter remedy against the entropy of human thought. — Yevgeny Zamyatin · 1923 The march of social progress is like a long and straggling parade, with the seers and prophets at its head and a smug minority bringing up the rear. — Pierre Berton · 1968

Scientific literature4 quotes

It is a profoundly erroneous truism, repeated by all copy-books and by eminent people when they are making speeches, that we should cultivate the habit of thinking of what we are doing. The precise opposite is the case. Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them. Operations of thought are like cavalry charges in a battle-they are strictly limited in number, they require fresh horses, and must only be made at decisive moments. — Alfred North Whitehead · 1911 Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them. — Alfred North Whitehead · 1911 A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it... An important scientific innovation rarely makes its way by gradually winning over and converting its opponents: it rarely happens that Saul becomes Paul. — Max Planck · 1936 Science and technology, and the various forms of art, all unite humanity in a single and interconnected system. As science progresses, the worldwide cooperation of scientists and technologists becomes more and more of a special and distinct intellectual community of friendship, in which, in place of antagonism, there is growing up a mutually advantageous sharing of work, a coordination of efforts, a common language for exchange of information, and solidarity, which are in many cases independent of the social and political differences of individual states. — Zhores Medvedev · 1970

Folk music3 quotes

Come mothers and fathers, Throughout the land And don't criticize What you can't understand. — Bob Dylan · 1964 Come Senators, congressmen Please heed the call Don't stand in the doorway Don't block up the hall. — Bob Dylan · 1963 Oh, deep in my heart, I do believe We shall overcome, some day. — Pete Seeger · 1962

Autobiography and memoir2 quotes

You can't spend your whole life criticizing something and then when you have the chance to do it better refuse to go near it. — Vaclav Havel · 2007 We are here not because we are law-breakers. We are here in our efforts to become law-makers. — Emmeline Pankhurst · 1914

Feminist literature2 quotes

If civilization had been left in female hands, we would still be living in grass huts. — Camille Paglia · 1990 I am angry. We should all be angry. Anger has a long history of bringing about positive change. — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie · 2014

Historical literature2 quotes

Disinterested intellectual curiosity is the life-blood of real civilization. — G.M. Trevelyan · 1942 The movement of the progressive societies has hitherto been a movement from Status to Contract. — Henry Maine · 1861

Protest music2 quotes

Come mothers and fathers, Throughout the land And don't criticize What you can't understand. — Bob Dylan · 1964 Come Senators, congressmen Please heed the call Don't stand in the doorway Don't block up the hall. — Bob Dylan · 1963

Biography1 quote

I know you're taking it in the teeth out there, but the first guy through the wall, he always gets bloody. Always. This is threatening not just a way of doing business, but in their minds, it's threatening the game. Really what it's threatening is their livelihoods, it's threatening their jobs. It's threatening the way that they do things. And every time that happens, whether it's the government, or a way of doing business, or whatever it is, the people who are holding the reins—they have their hands on the switch—they go batshit crazy. — John Henry · 2011

Biography (film)1 quote

I know you're taking it in the teeth out there, but the first guy through the wall, he always gets bloody. Always. This is threatening not just a way of doing business, but in their minds, it's threatening the game. Really what it's threatening is their livelihoods, it's threatening their jobs. It's threatening the way that they do things. And every time that happens, whether it's the government, or a way of doing business, or whatever it is, the people who are holding the reins—they have their hands on the switch—they go batshit crazy. — John Henry · 2011

Comedy1 quote

It's ironic... That we've come all this way, we made all this progress, but you know, we lost the little things, the niceties. — Elaine Benes · 1992

Comedy (TV)1 quote

It's ironic... That we've come all this way, we made all this progress, but you know, we lost the little things, the niceties. — Elaine Benes · 1992

Commencement address1 quote

But it’s a resilient place, the world, and its beauty is still astonishing, and as for the mess we’ve made, you can change it, and I believe you’re going to. — Salman Rushdie · 2015

Didactic poem1 quote

Truths kindle light for truths. — Lucretius · 55 BC

Drama1 quote

Greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms, greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge, has marked the upward surge of mankind. — Gordon Gekko · 1987

Drama (film)1 quote

Greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms, greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge, has marked the upward surge of mankind. — Gordon Gekko · 1987

Dystopian fiction1 quote

I am convinced that everything that is worth while in the world has been accomplished by the free, inquiring, critical spirit, and that the preservation of this spirit is more important than any social system whatsoever. But the men of ritual and the men of barbarism are capable of shutting up the men of science and of silencing them forever. — Sinclair Lewis · 1935

Economic literature1 quote

Improvements succeeded each other so rapidly, that machines which had never been finished were abandoned in the hands of their makers, because new improvements had superseded their utility. — Charles Babbage · 1832

Pop music1 quote

Got to kick at the darkness 'til it bleeds daylight. — Bruce Cockburn · 1984

Psychological literature1 quote

Every civilized human being, whatever his conscious development, is still an archaic man at the deeper levels of his psyche. — Carl Jung · 1933

Satire1 quote

I think perhaps we want a more conscious life. We're tired of drudging and sleeping and dying. We're tired of seeing just a few people able to be individualists. We're tired of always deferring hope till the next generation. We're tired of hearing politicians and priests and cautious reformers...coax us, "Be calm! Be patient! Wait! We have the plans for a Utopia already made; just give us a bit more time and we’ll produce it; trust us; we're wiser than you." For ten thousand years they've said that. We want our Utopia now-and we're going to try our hands at it. — Sinclair Lewis · 1920

Sitcom1 quote

It's ironic... That we've come all this way, we made all this progress, but you know, we lost the little things, the niceties. — Elaine Benes · 1992

Sociology1 quote

Believe it or not-and I know that most people do not-violence has declined over long stretches of time, and today we may be living in the most peaceable era in our species' existence. — Steven Pinker · 2011

Soul music1 quote

Ooh, child, things are gonna get easier Ooh child, things'll get brighter. — The Five Stairsteps · 1970

Travel writing1 quote

The man with a new idea is a Crank until the idea succeeds. — Mark Twain · 1897

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