Great Throughts Treasury

"We have to keep in mind at all times that we are not fighting for integration, nor are we fighting for separation. We are fighting for recognition...for the right to live as free humans in this society." - Malcolm X, born Malcolm Little, Muslim name El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz

"The problem is that you cannot prove yourself against someone who is much weaker than yourself. They are in a lose/lose situation. If you are strong and fighting the weak, then if you kill your opponent then you are a scoundrel... if you let him kill you, then you are an idiot. So here is a dilemma which others have suffered before us, and for which as far as I can see there is simply no escape." - Martin van Creveld

"Being a soldier, fighting for this country, is neither Republican nor Democrat." - Max Cleland, fully Joseph Maxwell Cleland

"The hour of decision has arrived. You know what I have done, and what all of us have done. to prevent war and bereavement. But our fate is that in the Land of Israel there is no escape from fighting in the spirit of self-sacrifice. Believe me, the alternative to fighting is Treblinka, and we have resolved that there would be no Treblinkas. This is the moment in which courageous choice has to be made. The criminal terrorists and the world must know that the Jewish people have a right to self-defense, just like any other people." - Menachem Begin

"And joy is everywhere; It is in the Earth's green covering of grass; In the blue serenity of the Sky; In the reckless exuberance of Spring; In the severe abstinence of grey Winter; In the Living flesh that animates our bodily frame; In the perfect poise of the Human figure, noble and upright; In Living; In the exercise of all our powers; In the acquisition of Knowledge; In fighting evils... Joy is there Everywhere." -

"The real danger we face is not from terrorism but what is being done under the pretext of fighting it." - Michael Parenti

"Do not think that one has to be sad in order to be militant, even though the thing one is fighting is abominable." - Michel Foucault

"You lose nothing when fighting for a cause ... In my mind the losers are those who don't have a cause they care about." - Muhammad Ali, born Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr.

"Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go 10,000 miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on Brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights? No I’m not going 10,000 miles from home to help murder and burn another poor nation simply to continue the domination of white slave masters of the darker people the world over. This is the day when such evils must come to an end. I have been warned that to take such a stand would cost me millions of dollars. But I have said it once and I will say it again. The real enemy of my people is here. I will not disgrace my religion, my people or myself by becoming a tool to enslave those who are fighting for their own justice, freedom and equality. If I thought the war was going to bring freedom and equality to 22 million of my people they wouldn’t have to draft me, I’d join tomorrow. I have nothing to lose by standing up for my beliefs. So I’ll go to jail, so what? We’ve been in jail for 400 years." - Muhammad Ali, born Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr.

"When we struggle against capitalism, we are really struggling against our own dehumanisation, and once we become fully cognisant of that, then the danger of surrender to the system reinforces our resistance. As revolutionaries, we are fighting not only for a better society but for our very humanity." - Murray Bookchin

"Fights between individuals, as well as governments and nations, invariably result from misunderstandings in the broadest interpretation of this term. Misunderstandings are always caused by the inability of appreciating one another's point of view. This again is due to the ignorance of those concerned, not so much in their own, as in their mutual fields. The peril of a clash is aggravated by a more or less predominant sense of combativeness, posed by every human being. To resist this inherent fighting tendency the best way is to dispel ignorance of the doings of others by a systematic spread of general knowledge. With this object in view, it is most important to aid exchange of thought and intercourse." - Nikola Tesla

"The bardo is suggestions to the dying person: “Now be silent. Leave this life consciously. Rather than death taking it away from you, relax your hold; don’t be defeated by death, don’t struggle. Just drop all your attachment. This world is finished for you, and this life is finished for you. There is no point in holding on to it; in holding on to it you will be fighting with death. You cannot win, and a very significant possibility will be missed." - Osho, born Chandra Mohan Jain, also known as Acharya Rajneesh and Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh NULL

"There is not a person alive who isn't going to have some awfully bad days in their lives. I tell my players that what I mean by fighting is when your house burns down, and your wife runs off with the drummer, and you've lost your job and all the odds are against you. What are you going to do? Most people just lay down and quit. Well, I want my people to fight back. " - Bear Bryant, fully Paul William "Bear" Bryant

"And the best way to know who we are is often to find out how others see us… And the person who loves wholeheartedly feels free… And the world we live in will be either better or worse, depending on whether we become better or worse. And that's where the power of love comes in. Because when we love, we always strive to become better than we are… And there are defeats. No one can avoid them. But it's better to lose some of the battles in the struggle for your dreams than to be defeated without ever even knowing what you're fighting for. " - Paulo Coelho

"But there is suffering in life, and there are defeats. No one can avoid them. But it's better to lose some of the battles in the struggles for your dreams than to be defeated without ever knowing what you're fighting for… But we must never forget that spiritual experience is above all a practical experience of love and in love there are no rules. We try to be guided by a manual, check the heart, have a behavioral strategy ... But that is nonsense. Who decides is the heart, and what he decides is what counts. We've all experienced it in life. Everyone, at some point, we have said in tears: I am suffering for a love that is not worth the pain. We suffer because we found that most of what we receive. We suffer because our love is not recognized. We suffer because we fail to enforce our rules. Unexpectedly suffer, because love is the seed of our growth. The more we love, the closer we are spiritual experience. The truly enlightened, with souls lit by Love, overcame all the prejudices of the time… by taking risks, by risking failure, disappointment, disillusion, but never ceasing in your search for love. As long as you keep looking, you will triumph in the end. " - Paulo Coelho

"True generosity consists precisely in fighting to destroy the causes which nourish false charity. False charity constrains the fearful and subdued, the rejects of life, to extend their trembling hands. True generosity lies in striving so that these hands--whether of individuals or entire peoples--need be extended less and less in supplication, so that more and more they become human hands which work and, working, transform the world. " - Paulo Freire

"The people who work within these industries or public services know that there are basic flaws. But they are almost forced to ignore them and to concentrate instead on patching here, improving there, fighting the fire or caulking that crack. They are thus unable to take the innovation seriously, let alone to try to compete with it. They do not, as a rule, even notice it until it has grown so big as to encroach on their industry or service, by which time it has become irreversible. In the meantime, the innovators have the field to themselves. " - Peter F. Drucker, fully Peter Ferdinand Drucker

"All that was an element of progress in the past or an instrument of moral and intellectual improvement of the human race is due to the practice of mutual aid, to the customs that recognized the equality of men and brought them to ally, to unite, to associate for the purpose of producing and consuming, to unite for purpose of defense to federate and to recognize no other judges in fighting out their differences than the arbitrators they took from their own midst." - Peter Kropotkin, fully Prince Pyotr Alexeyevich Kropotkin

"If you want peace, stop fighting. If you want peace of mind, stop fighting with your thoughts." - Peter McWilliams, fully Peter Alexander McWilliams

"Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle. " - Philo, aka Philo of Alexandria, Philo Judaeus, Philo Judaeus of Alexandria, Yedidia, "Philon", and Philo the Jew NULL

"It's not at all uncommon to find a person's desires compelling him to go against his reason, and to see him cursing himself and venting his passion on the source of the compulsion within him. It's as if there were two warring factions, with passion fighting on the side of reason. But I'm sure you won't claim that you had ever, in yourself or in anyone else, met a case of passion siding with his desires against the rational mind, when the rational mind prohibits resistance. " - Plato NULL

"To draw for a moment from an entirely different corner of my life, that part of me still attached to the biological sciences, there is ample evidence that animals — rats and monkeys, for example — that are forced into a subordinate status within their social systems adapt their brain chemistry accordingly, becoming 'depressed' in humanlike ways. Their behavior is anxious and withdrawn; the level of serotonin (the neurotransmitter boosted by some antidepressants) declines in their brains. And — what is especially relevant here — they avoid fighting even in self-defense ... My guess is that the indignities imposed on so many low-wage workers — the drug tests, the constant surveillance, being 'reamed out' by managers — are part of what keeps wages low. If you're made to feel unworthy enough, you may come to think that what you're paid is what you are actually worth. " - Barbara Ehrenreich, born Barbara Alexander

"No matter what you think about the Iraq war, there is one thing we can all agree on for the next days - we have to salute the courage and bravery of those who are risking their lives to vote and those brave Iraqi and American soldiers fighting to protect their right to vote." - Hillary Rodham Clinton

"Over the last decades we have made some significant progress in fighting AIDS in our country. But we cannot rest until this progress reaches every corner of the globe and we are able to ensure that no matter where you live, the scourge of AIDS ceases to be the terrifying killer that it is today." - Hillary Rodham Clinton

"I believe that Gandhi’s views were the most enlightened of all the political men in our time. We should strive to do things in his spirit: not to use violence in fighting for our cause, but by non-participation in anything you believe is evil. " - Albert Einstein

"You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete." - Buckminster Fuller, fully Richard Buckminster "Bucky" Fuller

"The millions of human beings who were shot, tortured, starved, treated like animals and made the object of a conspiracy of ridicule, can sleep in peace in their communal graves, for at least the struggle in which they died has enabled their descendants, isolated in their air-conditioned apartments, to believe, on the strength of their daily dose of television, that they are happy and free. The Communards went down, fighting to the last, so that you too could qualify for a Caribbean cruise." - Raoul Vaneigem

"Man warring on himself an old tale is; But Man discovering the source of all his sorrow in himself, Finding his left hand and his right are similar sons, are children fighting In the porchyards of the void?!" - Ray Bradbury, fully Ray Douglas Bradbury

"A few locks of dry, white hair clung to his scalp, like wildflowers fighting for life on a bare rock." - Raymond Chandler, fully Raymond Thornton Chandler

"I therefore declare, that if you wish any remission of the taxation which falls upon the homes of the people of England and Wales, you can only find it by reducing the great military establishments, and diminishing the money paid to fighting men in time of peace." - Richard Cobden

"We should take astrology seriously. No, I don't mean we should believe in it. I am talking about fighting it seriously instead of humoring it as a piece of harmless fun." - Richard Dawkins

"Indeed, the greatest blessing that can follow the death of those we love is reconciliation. Without it there is no peace. But with it come quiet thoughts and quickened memories. And what else shall a man do except become reconciled? What purpose does he serve by fighting what he cannot touch or by brooding upon what he cannot change? We have to trust the Lord God for so many things, and it is but one thing more to trust him in the issues of life and death, and to accept the fact that his plans and promises and purposes transcend the bounds of this world and of this life. With such faith the years are kind, and peace and reconciliation do come to those who have laid to rest their loved ones - who, even in death, are not far removed from us, and of whom our Father in heaven will be mindful until we meet again even as we are mindful of our own children. Bitter grief without reconciliation serves no good purpose. Death comes to all of us, but so does life everlasting." - Richard L. Evans, fully Richard Louis Evans

"I think most Americans understood that the My Lai massacre was not representative of our people, of the war we were fighting, or of our men who were fighting it; but from the time it first became public the whole tragic episode was used by the media and the antiwar forces to chip away at our efforts to build public support for our Vietnam objectives and policies." - Richard Nixon, fully Richard Milhous Nixon

"I think we're living in an age which despises humanity and despises bravery and doesn't need bravery because modern warfare has rather gone beyond bravery. It is a kind of warfare where people are fighting enemies they never see, killing people of whom they know nothing." - Robertson Davies

"It's coming soon and soon, mother, it's nearer every day, When only men who work and sweat will have a word to say; When all who earn their honest bread in every land and soil Will claim the Brotherhood of Man, the Comradeship of Toil; When we, the Workers, all demand: `What are we fighting for?' . . . Then, then we'll end that stupid crime, that devil's madness -- War" - Robert Service, fully Robert William Service

"MAN'S CIVIL WAR - MY hovering thoughts would fly to heaven And quiet nestle in the sky, Fain would my ship in Virtue's shore Without remove at anchor lie. But mounting thoughts are halèd down With heavy poise of mortal load, And blustring storms deny my ship In Virtue's haven secure abode. When inward eye to heavenly sights Doth draw my longing heart's desire, The world with jesses of delights Would to her perch my thoughts retire, Fon Fancy trains to Pleasure's lure, Though Reason stiffly do repine ; Though Wisdom woo me to the saint, Yet Sense would win me to the shrine. Where Reason loathes, there Fancy loves, And overrules the captive will ; Foes senses are to Virtue's lore, They draw the wit their wish to fill. Need craves consent of soul to sense, Yet divers bents breed civil fray ; Hard hap where halves must disagree, Or truce halves the whole betray ! O cruel fight ! where fighting friend With love doth kill a favoring foe, Where peace with sense is war with God, And self-delight the seed of woe ! Dame Pleasure's drugs are steeped in sin, Their sugared taste doth breed annoy ; O fickle sense ! beware her gin, Sell not thy soul to brittle joy !" - Robert Southwell, also Saint Robert Southwell

"Our image has undergone change from David fighting Goliath to being Goliath." - Yitzhak Shamir, born Icchak Jaziernicki

"This is the grimmest, and surely the holiest task we have faced since D–day. Here before us lie the bodies of comrades and friends. Men who until yesterday or last week laughed with us, joked with us, trained with us. Men who were on the same ships with us, and went over the side with us as we prepared to hit the beaches of this island.It is not easy to do so,” He continued. Some of us have buried our closest friends here. We saw these men killed before our very eyes. Any one of us might have died in their place. Indeed some of us are alive and breathing at this very monent only because men who lie here beneath us had the courage and strength to give their lives for ours. To speak in memory of men such as these is not easy . . . No, our poor power of speech can add nothing to what these men and the other dead of our Division who are not here have already done. All we can even hope to do is follow their example. To show the same selfless courage in peace as they did in war. To swear by the grace of God and the stubborn strength and power of human will, their sons and ours will never suffer these pains again. These men have done their job well. They have paid the ghastly price of freedom. . . . “We dedicate ourselves, first, to live together in peace the way they fought and are buried in this war. Here lie men who loved America because their ancestors generations ago helped in her founding and other men who loved her with equal passion because they themselves or their own fathers escaped from oppression to her blessed shores. Here lie officers and men, Negroes and whites, rich men and poor--- together . . . . Theirs is the highest and purest democracy. Any man among us, the living, who fails to understand that will thereby betray those who lie here dead. Whoever of us lifts his hand in hate against a brother . . . . makes of this ceremony and of the bloody sacrifice it commemorates an empty, hollow mockery. To one thing more do we consecrate ourselves in memory of those who sleep beneath these crosses and stars. We shall not foolishly suppose, as did the last generation of America’s fighting men, that victory on the battlefield will automatically guarantee the triumph of Democracy at home. This war with all its frightful heartache and suffering, is but the beginning of our generations struggle for democracy . . . . Thus do we memorialize those who, have ceased living with us, now live within us. Thus do we consecrate ourselves, the living, to carry on the struggle they began. Too much pain and heartache have fertilized the earth on which we stand. We here solemnly swear: This shall not be in vain! Out of this, and from the suffering and sorrow of those who mourn this, will come—we promise – the birth of a new freedom for the sons of men everywhere." - Roland B. Gittelsohn, fully Roland Bertram Gittelsohn

"THE DAY OF JUDGMENT - Propound a mystery, O my tongue, and give praise to God, For He hath delivered me and exalted my horn. Awake, my heart, and turn to the Almighty, And in awe of His anger let my hand be lifted to Him. Set the Most High before thee, and know that every thought And every hidden imagining are to Him not hidden. Dread the day of His wrath, and the dreadful position Wherein is help or refuge for no creature. On the day He shall judge the peoples and destroy beings And wither all His adversaries as with the fiery blast of his nostrils And decree the fate of all potentates, officers and rulers, Nor pay regard to mighty princes. And destroy tyrants and cut off the scornful, The proud and presumptuous who rely on the preciousness of their palanquin; Who have forgotten their Creator and put their trust in their riches And prided themselves above high God, Who humbleth and uplifteth, And have rebelled against their Master, With their host and their multitude, And the silver they have acquired, and the fine gold and sapphires, And have built structures, and carved out windows, And erected palaces, and battlements and chambers, Nor remember the Almighty, But wax fat in the abundance of power, And speak arrogantly to Him And roar like young lions. But He is great and fearful, And girded about with might; He calleth the generations And from Him are the hill-tops. Doth He not regard the lowly, And abase every one that is proud? He will raise up the broken pauper And lift him from the dunghill. Woe to them for this, When their Creator shall sit in judgment, To take vengeance on them, their grown and their little ones, And they shall fall into the net, weeping bitterly, And when quaffing the cup of foaming wine Shall drain only dregs, And shall be consumed in their iniquity, And their riches shall not profit them, And all they build shall be upset As though overthrown by strangers. And the God of the ages will abhor the man of blood And will break the haughty Like a potter’s vessel, And will bring low their pride And silence their psaltery And make their voice sound Like a ghost from the dust, And demolish their battlements And their houses of pleasure, And make over their inheritance To strangers and aliens, And the gadfly shall sting them To determined destruction, And they shall be trodden of passers-by Like a ground or a street. Therefore turn ye from them and their counsels, Nor vie with them Lest your fate be as that of these arrogant." - Salomon ibn Gabirol, aka Solomon ben Judah or Avicebron

"1. Identify the adaptive challenge. Diagnose the situation in light of the values at stake, and unbundled the issues that come with it. 2. Keep the distress within a tolerable range for doing adaptive work. To use the pressure cooker analogy, keep the heat up without blowing up the vessel. 3. Focus attention on ripening issues and not on stress-reducing distractions. Identify which issues can currently engage attention; and while directing attention to them, counteract work avoidance mechanisms like denial, scapegoating, externalizing the enemy, pretending the problem is technical, or attacking individuals rather than issues. 4. Giving the work back to people, but at a rate they can stand. Place and develop responsibility by putting the pressure on the people with the problem. 5. Protect voices of leadership without authority. Give cover to those who raise hard questions and generate distress – people who point to the internal contradictions of the society. These individuals often will have latitude to provoke rethinking that authorities do not have." - Ronald A. Heifetz

"It has always been a two-way road. It is a Double Search. God is forever seeking us from the Love that comes down from Above. And man is forever striving for eternal reality and the Beauty of the Lord, our God." - Rufus Jones, fully Rufus Matthew Jones

"The Prophet said: 'Women and the wise win hearts full income to their owners. Cahillerse woman is superior, because they act tough and rebellious. ' Subtlety, grace and mercy they are rare, because the natures of the animals' Almighty. Love and kindness characteristic of humanity. Anger and lust, characteristic of animality. He is the light of the grace of Allah, is not dear. O, it is creative, not created." - Rumi, fully Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rumi NULL

"He makes the bed soft, yet it's hard to sleep on." - Russian Proverbs

"In avoiding the appearance of evil, I am not sure but I have sometimes unnecessarily deprived myself and others of innocent enjoyments." - Rutherford B. Hayes, fully Rutherford Birchard Hayes

"It is said that the highest state of prayer is reached when the intellect goes beyond the flesh and the world, and while praying is utterly free from matter and form. He who maintains this state has truly attained unceasing prayer.”" - Saint Maximus the Confessor NULL

"Do not be irritated with those who sin; do not develop a habit of noticing every sin in others, and judging them, as we are so inclined to do. Everyone shall give an answer to God for himself. Correct your own sins; and amend your own heart." - Saint John of Kronstadt, fully John Il’ich Serguiev, aka Holy Father John of the Kronstadt NULL

"One reason why it is as well not to give very much detail is that, no matter how much is given, the eye will always want more; it will know very well that it is not being paid in full. On the other hand, no matter how little one gives, the eye will generally compromise by wanting only a little more. In either case the eye will want more, so one may as well stop sooner or later. Sensible painting, like sensible law, sensible writing, or sensible anything else, consists as much in knowing what to omit as what to insist upon." - Samuel Butler

"The true laws of God are the laws of our own well-being." - Samuel Butler

"The worst crime against working people is a company which fails to operate at a profit." - Samuel Gompers

"Genius, without work, is certainly a dumb oracle, and it is unquestionably true that the men of the highest genius have invariably been found to be amongst the most plodding, hard-working, and intent men -- their chief characteristic apparently consisting simply in their power of laboring more intensely and effectively than others." - Samuel Smiles