Rodney Ulyate > Rodney's Quotes

“Was it not part of the secret black art of truly grand politics of revenge, of a farseeing, subterranean, slowly advancing, and premeditated revenge, that Israel must itself deny the real instrument of its revenge before all the world as a mortal enemy and nail it to the cross, so that 'all the world,' namely all the opponents of Israel, could unhesitatingly swallow just this bait? And could spiritual subtlety imagine any more dangerous bait than this? Anything to equal the enticing, intoxicating, overwhelming, and undermining power of that symbol of the 'holy cross,' that ghastly paradox of a 'God on the cross,' that mystery of an unimaginable ultimate cruelty and self-crucifixion of God for the salvation of man?”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals / Ecce Homo

“The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven..”
― John Milton, Paradise Lost

“I will not deny but that the best apology against false accusers is silence and sufferance, and honest deeds set against dishonest words.”
― John Milton

“As is well known, the priests are the most evil enemies—but why? Because they are the most impotent. It is because of their impotence that in them hatred grows to monstrous and uncanny proportions, to the most spiritual and poisonous kind of hatred. The truly great haters in world history have always been priests; likewise the most ingenious haters: other kinds of spirit hardly come into consideration when compared with the spirit of priestly vengefulness.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals / Ecce Homo

“John Milton almost single-handedly created the identity of the writer as political activist.”
― Anna Beer, Milton: Poet, Pamphleteer and Patriot

“Quality and consistency of conjecture are one good measure of the ambition and the inwardness of any literary biography. The biographer is master of the archive, but also and equally master of the subjunctive mood, of un-certainty, of non-factuality.”
― Geoffrey Wall

“No one, not even Shakespeare, surpasses Milton in his command of the sound, the music, the weight and taste and texture of English words.”
― Philip Pullman

“Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.”
― Samuel Johnson

“Faith must trample under foot all reason, sense, and understanding. ”
― Martin Luther

“Irony cleans away all those secret stains. Irony is the path that leads safely back to official realities.”
― Geoffrey Wall, Madame Bovary

“Fancy can hardly forbear to conjecture with what temper Milton surveyed the silent progress of his work, and marked his reputation stealing its way in a kind of subterraneous current through fear and silence. I cannot but conceive him calm and confident, little disappointed, not at all dejected, relying on his own great merit with steady consciousness, and waiting, without impatience, the vicissitudes of opinion, and the impartiality of a future generation.”
― Samuel Johnson, Lives of the poets: Milton

“We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.”
― Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion

“Thou canst not touch the freedom of my mind.”
― John Milton, Comus

“Truth is great and will prevail if left to herself.”
― Thomas Jefferson

“What am I pondering, you ask? So help me God, immortality.”
― John Milton

“To delight the ear and the eye is a mere sensual indulgence;—true poetry strikes at the soul.”
― Egerton Brydges

“Today evolution of human intelligence has advanced us to the stage where most of us are too smart to invent new gods but are reluctant to give up the old ones.”
― Ruth Hurmence Green

“I am now convinced that children should not be subjected to the frightfulness of the Christian religion [...]. If the concept of a father who plots to have his own son put to death is presented to children as beautiful and as worthy of society's admiration, what types of human behavior can be presented to them as reprehensible?”
― Ruth Hurmence Green, The Born Again Skeptic's Guide To The Bible

“There was a time when religion ruled the world. It is known as the Dark Ages.”
― Ruth Hurmence Green

“Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind.”
― Bernard M. Baruch

“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.”
― Albert Einstein

“I cannot live without books.”
― Thomas Jefferson

“I'm selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best.”
― Marilyn Monroe

“Be the change that you wish to see in the world.”
― Mahatma Gandhi

“You know you're in love when you can't fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.”
― Dr. Seuss

“A room without books is like a body without a soul.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero

“You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.”
― Mae West

“For the sake of my country, and perhaps a little for the sake of my soul, I have given up the deep peace of being in opposition.”
― Rebecca West, Black Lamb and Grey Falcon

“When the Washington Post telephoned me at home on Valentine's Day 1989 to ask my opinion about the Ayatollah Khomeini's fatwah, I felt at once that here was something that completely committed me. It was, if I can phrase it like this, a matter of everything I hated versus everything I loved. In the hate column: dictatorship, religion, stupidity, demagogy, censorship, bullying, and intimidation. In the love column: literature, irony, humor, the individual, and the defense of free expression. Plus, of course, friendship—though I like to think that my reaction would have been the same if I hadn't known Salman at all. To re-state the premise of the argument again: the theocratic head of a foreign despotism offers money in his own name in order to suborn the murder of a civilian citizen of another country, for the offense of writing a work of fiction. No more root-and-branch challenge to the values of the Enlightenment (on the bicentennial of the fall of the Bastille) or to the First Amendment to the Constitution, could be imagined. President George H.W. Bush, when asked to comment, could only say grudgingly that, as far as he could see, no American interests were involved…”
― Christopher Hitchens, Hitch 22: A Memoir

“It is better to remain silent at the risk of being thought a fool, than to talk and remove all doubt of it.”
― Maurice Switzer, Mrs. Goose, Her Book