Matt Erlacher > Matt's Quotes

Showing 1-30 of 30

#1

“If you want to find out what a man is to the bottom, give him power. Any man can stand adversity — only a great man can stand prosperity. It is the glory of Abraham Lincoln that he never abused power only on the side of mercy”
― Robert Ingersoll

tags: adversity, character, power

3235 likes

#2

“A book lying idle on a shelf is wasted ammunition.”
― Henry Miller, The Books in My Life

tags: books, power

3333 likes

#3

“The day the power of love overrules the love of power, the world will know peace.”
― Mahatma Gandhi

tags: humanism, jimi-hendrix, love, mahatma-gandhi, peace, philosophy, power

1692 likes

#4

“How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property – either as a child, a wife, or a concubine – must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the faith: all know how to die but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome.”
― Winston Churchill, The River War

tags: africa, agriculture, ancient-rome, apathy, brave, central-africa, civilization, commerce, concubine, curse, death, development, dignity, europe, faith-of-islam, fanatical, grace, hydrophobia, influence, insecurity, islam, militant, militant-faith, mohammed, mohammedan, mohammedanism, muslims, paralysis, power, property, proselytizing, religious-fanaticism, retrograde, rome, science, sharia-law, slavery, the-prophet

700 likes

#5

“I was the lion who forced you to join with Aravis. I was the cat who comforted you among the houses of the dead. I was the lion who drove the jackals from you while you slept. I was the lion who gave the horses the new strength of fear for the last mill so that you should reach King Lune in time. And I was the lion you do not remember who pushed the boat in which you lay, a child near death, so that it came to shore where a man sat, wakeful at midnight, to receive you.”
― C.S. Lewis

tags: aslan, love, power

333 likes

#6

“Persistence. Perfection. Patience. Power. Prioritize your passion. It keeps you sane.”
― Criss Jami, Killosophy

tags: ambition, business, calling, career, commitment, determination, dreams, entrepreneur, faith, genius, hobbies, insanity, living, passion, patience, peace, perfection, perfectionist, perseverance, persistence, power, priorities, risk, sanity, strategy, strength, success

561 likes

#7

“The object of terrorism is terrorism. The object of oppression is oppression. The object of torture is torture. The object of murder is murder. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?”
― George Orwell, 1984

tags: oppression, power, terrorism, torture

557 likes

#8

“When it comes to controlling human beings there is no better instrument than lies. Because, you see, humans live by beliefs. And beliefs can be manipulated. The power to manipulate beliefs is the only thing that counts.”
― Michael Ende, The Neverending Story

tags: beliefs, lies, power

595 likes

#9

“Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral. ”
― Paulo Freire

tags: inequality, neutrality, power, powerlessness, radicalism

622 likes

#10

“Since mankind's dawn, a handful of oppressors have accepted the responsibility over our lives that we should have accepted for ourselves. By doing so, they took our power. By doing nothing, we gave it away. We've seen where their way leads, through camps and wars, towards the slaughterhouse.”
― Alan Moore, V for Vendetta

tags: freedom, oppression, politics, power

574 likes

#11

“Man is not, by nature, deserving of all that he wants. When we think that we are automatically entitled to something, that is when we start walking all over others to get it.”
― Criss Jami, Diotima, Battery, Electric Personality

tags: competition, deserving, destruction, dictatorship, entitlement, man, nature, overpowering, power, pride, selfishness, stealing, thieves, tyranny

640 likes

#12

“Power does not corrupt. Fear corrupts... perhaps the fear of a loss of power.”
― John Steinbeck

tags: corruption, fear, life, power

658 likes

#13

“I know nothing in the world that has as much power as a word. Sometimes I write one, and I look at it, until it begins to shine.”
― Emily Dickinson

tags: books, literature, meaning, power, words

761 likes

#14

“The measure of a man is what he does with power.”
― Plato

922 likes

#15

“Almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.”
― Robert A. Heinlein

tags: cult, danger, law, organized-religion, power, religion, sect, separation-of-church-and-state

429 likes

#16

“When your desires are strong enough, you will appear to possess superhuman powers to achieve.”
― Napoleon Hill

296 likes

#17

“It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes. But a half-wit remains a half-wit, and the emperor remains an emperor.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Sandman, Vol. 9: The Kindly Ones

tags: power, protest, truth-telling

243 likes

#18

“Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power.”
― George Orwell, 1984

tags: power, realism, truth

334 likes

#19

“Scientia potentia est.

Knowledge is power.”
― Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan

tags: knowledge, power

235 likes

#20

“Fire wants to burn
Water wants to flow
Air wants to rise
Earth wants to bind
Chaos wants to devour
Cal wants to live”
― Cassandra Clare, The Iron Trial

tags: bind, burn, cal, devour, elements, fire, flow, humor, magic, power, rise

192 likes

#21

“It may not be easy, in every possible case, to trace the line of separation between the rights of religion and the Civil authority with such distinctness as to avoid collisions and doubts on unessential points. The tendency to usurpation on one side or the other, or to a corrupting coalition or alliance between them, will be best guarded agst. by an entire abstinence of the Govt. from interference in any way whatsoever, beyond the necessity of preserving public order, and protecting each sect agst. trespasses on its legal rights by others.

[Letter to the Reverend Jasper Adams, January 1, 1832]”
― James Madison, Letters and Other Writings of James Madison Volume 3

tags: authority, power

131 likes

#22

“There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.”
― Ernest Hemingway

tags: humility, self-improvement

5320 likes

#23

“One shouldn't be afraid of the humans. Well, I am not afraid of the humans, but of what is inhuman in them.”
― Ivo Andric

tags: fear, human

231 likes

#24

“Lands of great discoveries are also lands of great injustices.”
― Ivo Andric

tags: discovery, injustice

59 likes

#25

“What can and doesn't have to be always, at the end, surrenders to something that has to be.”
― Ivo Andric

tags: signs-near-the-travel-road

21 likes

#26

“There comes a time when a man finds himself in front of a dark uncrossable abyss, which he himself has spent years digging. He cannot go forward, and has no way back. Words have failed, tears won't help, and who would he call out to? He can't even remember his own name. Then the man sees that on this god's green earth there is but one true suffering: the torment of guilty conscience.”
― Ivo Andric

tags: signs-near-the-travel-road

18 likes

#27

“I gave in to life. I was not defeated but outplayed.”
― Ivo Andric

tags: signs-near-the-travel-road

11 likes

#28

“When I am not desperate, I am worthless.”
― Ivo Andric

tags: signs-near-the-travel-road

8 likes

#29

“Whenever a government feels the need of promising peace and prosperity to its citizens by means of a proclamation, it is time to be on guard and expect the opposite.”
― Ivo Andrić, The Bridge on the Drina

tags: government, peace

14 likes