Quotes by Philosophers - Page 110

We must remember that regardless of our differences in rank we are all equal as human beings. You can always tell how caring and compassionate others are in their actions towards those "below" them. Of course you are going to treat your black belt professor kindly, but how do you treat the white belt taking their first class? In spite of the division in belt rank there must be no division as people.
Chris Matakas
The introduction of free competition is thus public declaration that from now on the members of society are unequal only to the extent that their capitals are unequal, that capital is the decisive power, and that therefore the capitalists, the bourgeoisie, have become the first class in society.
Karl Marx
Death is the great equalizer
Bangambiki Habyarimana
Equality today means "sameness" rather than "oneness".
Erich Fromm
…egalitarianism and despotism do not exclude each other, but usually go hand in hand. To a certain degree, equality invites despotism, because in order to make all members of a society equal, and then to maintain this equality for a long period of time, it is necessary to equip the controlling institutions with exceptional power so they can stamp out any potential threat to equality in every sector of the society and any aspect of human life: to paraphrase a well-known sentence by one of Dostoyevsky’s characters, ‘We start with absolute equality and we end up with absolute despotism.’ Some call it a paradox of equality: the more equality one wants to introduce, the more power one must have; the more power one has, the more one violates the principle of equality; the more one violates the principle of equality, the more one is in a position to make the world egalitarian.
Ryszard Legutko
Men are naturally unequal. They are unequal members of one family, in which one can be brilliant, another mediocre, and another an imbecile. Hereditary substance is a mystery.
Tutea Petre
Personalism therefore includes among its leading ideas, the affirmation of the unity of mankind, both in space and time, which was foreshadowed by certain schools of thought in the latter days of antiquity and confirmed in the Judeo-Christian tradition. For the Christian there are neither citizens nor barbarians, neither bond nor free, neither Jew nor gentile, neither white, black or yellow, but only men created in the image of God and called to salvation in Christ. The conception of a human race with a collective history and destiny, from which no individual destiny can be separated, is one of the sovereign ideas of the Fathers of the Church. In a secularised form, this is the animating principle of eighteenth century cosmopolitanism, and later of Marxism. It is flatly opposed to the ideas of absolute discontinuity between free spirits (as in Sartre) or between civilizations (in Malraux or Frobenius). It is against every form of racialism or of caste, against the ‘elimination of the abnormal’ , the contempt of the foreigner, against the totalitarians’ denigration of political adversaries—in short, it is altogether against the fabrication of scapegoats. Any man, however different, or even degraded, remains a man, for whom we ought to make a human way of life possible.
Emmanuel Mounier
To a mankind that recognizes the equality of man everywhere, every war becomes a civil war.
Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy
The craving for equality can express itself either as a desire to pull everyone down to our own level (by belittling them, excluding them, tripping them up) or as a desire to raise ourselves up along with everyone else (by acknowledging them, helping them, and rejoicing in their success).
Friedrich Nietzsche
The prescription of the equality of human beings is not a description of an alleged actual equality among humans: it is a prescription of how we should treat human beings.
Peter Singer
For love is exultant when it unites equals, but it is triumphant when it makes that which was unequal equal in love.
Søren Kierkegaard
That all men are equal is a proposition which at ordinary times no sane individual has ever given his assent.
Aldous Huxley
It’s too risky,” said doubters.“It’s too difficult,” said scoffers.“It’s pointless,” said mockers.“It’s impossible,” said haters.“It’s already done,” said believers.
Matshona Dhliwayo
If you build castles in the air, make sure you have a ladder to reach them.
Matshona Dhliwayo
If you invest in your critics more than you invest in your dreams, you have successfully invested in your failure.
Matshona Dhliwayo
The distance between your dreams and reality is faith.
Matshona Dhliwayo
Where others only see bricks,train your eyes to see a palace.
Matshona Dhliwayo
Go after your dreams confidently.Go after your aspirations positively.Go after your goals expectantly.
Matshona Dhliwayo
The darker it gets, the brighter your dreams shine.
Matshona Dhliwayo
Aim for the stars, and afterward, pass them.
Matshona Dhliwayo
You don't have to reach for the stars if you are already shining like one.
Matshona Dhliwayo
A gullible dreamer is better than an expert doubter.
Matshona Dhliwayo
Faith fertilizes dreams.
Matshona Dhliwayo
In the pursuit of your dreams,you are your greatest assetand doubt is your greatest liability.
Matshona Dhliwayo
If you are willing to pay a small price for your dreams,you are definitely asleep.If you are willing to pay an average price for your dreams,you are barely awake.If you are willing to pay a big price for your dreams,you are evidently conscious.If you are willing to pay a great price for your dreams,you are undoubtedly alert.
Matshona Dhliwayo
Religious toleration, to a certain extent, has been won, because people have ceased to consider religion so important as it was once thought to be. But in politics and economics, which have taken the place formerly occupied by religion, there is a growing tendency to persecution, which is not by any means confined to one party.
Bertrand Russell
It is invisible hands that torment and bend us the worst
Friedrich Nietzsche
this very act of consenting to its loss of control is itself the critical event of all crisis. To give up ones stature as the director of ones own existance: this is, for us, the ultimate death, the crisis that undermines our being in the most radical way.
Jerome A. Miller
For, occupied incessantly with the consideration of the limits prescribed to their power by nature, they [philosophers of former times] became so entirely convinced that nothing was at their disposal except their own thoughts, that this conviction was of itself sufficient to prevent their entertaining any desire of other objects; and over their thoughts they acquired a sway so absolute, that they had some ground on this account for esteeming themselves more rich and more powerful, more free and more happy, than other men who, whatever be the favors heaped on them by nature and fortune, if destitute of this philosophy, can never command the realization of all their desires.
René Descartes
So it came to this, that— against the grain, no doubt—the condemned man had to hope the apparatus was in good working order! This, I thought, was a flaw in the system; and, on the face of it, my view was sound enough. On the other hand, I had to admit it proved the efficiency of the system. It came to this; the man under sentence was obliged to collaborate mentally, it was in his interest that all should go off without a hitch.
Albert Camus
Case by case, we find that conformity is the easy way, and the path to privilege and prestige; dissidence carries personal costs that may be severe, even in a society that lacks such means of control as deathsquads, psychiatric prisons, or extermination camps. The very structure of the media is designed to induce conformity to established doctrine. In a three-minute stretch between commercials, or in seven hundred words, it is impossible to present unfamiliar thoughts or surprising conclusions with the argument and evidence required to afford them some credibility. Regurgitation of welcome pieties faces no such problem.
Noam Chomsky
There is no need for arms, physical violence, material constraints. Just a gaze. An inspecting gaze, a gaze that each individual under its weight will end by [internalising] to the point that they are their own overseer, each individual thus exercising surveillance over, and against themself.
Michel Foucault
The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum....
Noam Chomsky
All over the place, from the popular culture to the propaganda system, there is constant pressure to make people feel that they are helpless, that the only role they can have is to ratify decisions and to consume.
Noam Chomsky
You get what you work for, not what you think you deserve.
Matshona Dhliwayo
A heart full of bitterness is a life full of sorrows.
Matshona Dhliwayo
It is easier to fall off of a ladder than to climb one.
Matshona Dhliwayo
Less gossiping, more encouraging.Less complaining, more thanksgiving.Less criticizing, more complimenting.Less hurting, more helping.Less hating, more caring.
Matshona Dhliwayo
Don’t let negativity ruin your day.Don’t let inefficiency ruin your week.Don’t let adversity ruin your month.Don’t let animosity ruin your year.
Matshona Dhliwayo
You become what you allow yourself to become.
Matshona Dhliwayo
By standing alone,you prove your courage.By standing with others,you prove your love.By standing with truth,you prove your virtue.By standing with God,you prove your faith.
Matshona Dhliwayo
Resist men who tell you your dreams are impossible; embrace those who, even though they do not believe in them, encourage you.
Matshona Dhliwayo
Be perceptive.Be progressive.Be proactive.Be productive.
Matshona Dhliwayo
Be as humble as Moses, as patient as Job, and as virtuous as Daniel.
Matshona Dhliwayo
Cherish all.Depend on few.Hurt none.Love everyone.
Matshona Dhliwayo
People can hurt you,but you can still love.People can betray you,but you can still trust.People can put you down,but you can still rise.People can oppose you,but you can still prevail.
Matshona Dhliwayo
Look behind you in gratitude.Look ahead of you in hope.Look beside you in caution.Look around you in faith.
Matshona Dhliwayo
Hear more than people say.Give more than people ask.Do more than people expect.Achieve more than people imagine.
Matshona Dhliwayo
You don’t need armor if your skin is thick.You don’t need a sword if your mind is sharp.You don’t need a shield if your heart is strong.You don’t need a fortress is your soul is secure.
Matshona Dhliwayo
Turbulence breaks a tree’s branches, but only tickles an eagle’s wings.
Matshona Dhliwayo
If seeds saw dirt as their enemy, they would lose out on the opportunity to grow.
Matshona Dhliwayo
Never divulge secrets to acquaintances.Never betray old friends for new ones.Never mistake flattery for praise.Never rely on dishonorable people.Never trust your enemy's friends.Never mistake someone’s kindness for weakness.
Matshona Dhliwayo
It is better to learn two important lessons in life than a thousand when you are about to die.
Matshona Dhliwayo
She has the care of a mother, the love of a sister, a prostitute in bed. Who is she?
Bangambiki Habyarimana
February 13, 1936I ask of people more than they can give me. It is useless to maintain the contrary. But what a mistake and what despair. And myself perhaps...Seek contacts. All contacts. If I want to write about men, should I stop talking about the countryside? If the sky or light attract me, shall I forget the eyes or voices of those I love? Each time I am given the elements of a friendship, the fragments of an emotion, never the emotion or the friendship itself.
Albert Camus
I am the beast with a contorted grin, contracting down to illusion and dilating toward infinity, both growing and dying, delightfully suspended between hope for nothing and despair of everything, brought up among perfumes and poisons, consumed with love and hatred, killed by lights and shadows. My symbol is death of light and the flame of death. Sparks die in me only to be reborn as thunder and lightning. Darkness itself glows in me.
Emil M. Cioran
Yet in another and still more definite sense despair is the sickness unto death. It is indeed very far from being true that, literally understood, one dies of this sickness, or that this sickness ends with bodily death. On the contrary, the torment of despair is precisely this, not to be able to die So it has much in common with the situation of the moribund when he lies and struggles with death, and cannot die. So to be sick unto death is, not to be able to die -- yet not as though there were hope of life; no the hopelessness in this case is that even the last hope, death, is not available. When death is the greatest danger, one hopes for life; but when one becomes acquainted with an even more dreadful danger, one hopes for death. So when the danger is so great that death has become one’s hope, despair is the disconsolateness of not being able to die.
Søren Kierkegaard
...The discrepancy is that the ethical self should be found immanently in the despair, that the individual won himself by persisting in the despair. True, he has used something within the category of freedom, choosing himself, which seem to remove the difficulty, one that presumably has not struck many, since philosophically doubting everything and then finding the true beginning goes one, two, three. But that does not help. In despairing, I use myself to despair, and therefore I can indeed despair of everything by myself. But if I do this, I cannot come back by myself. It is in this moment of decision that the individual needs divine assistance, whereas it is quite correct that in order to be at this point one must first have understood the existence-relation between the aesthetic and the ethical; that is to say, by being there in passion and inwardness, one surely becomes aware of the religious - and of the leap.
Søren Kierkegaard
Need will send you even into the arms of your enemy
Bangambiki Habyarimana
Better to rest in peace than rot in pieces
Bangambiki Habyarimana