Ancient Governments Quotes

The Bible is a book of Science. Secular Humanism is a religion of mythology. ~ Michael J. Findley

As readers, we have gone from learning a precious craft whose secret was held by a jealous few, to taking for granted a skin that has become subordinate to principles of mindless financial profit or mechanical efficiency, a skill for which governments care almost nothing. ~ Alberto Manguel

These Red Pill analyses of ancient texts may seem simplistic and misguided to us. In fact, they are not really producing analyses at all. Their interpretations of the Classics should be approached not as readings of the ancient world, but rather as aspirational representations of the world they wish we inhabited. ~ Donna Zuckerberg

The sea's only gifts are harsh blows and, occasionally, the chance to feel strong. Now, I don't know much about the sea, but I do know that that's the way it is here. And I also know how important it is in life not necessarily to be strong but to feel strong, to measure yourself at least once, to find yourself at least once in the most ancient of human conditions, facing blind, deaf stone alone, with nothing to help you but your own hands and your own head ... ~ Primo Levi

I've laid out my economic plans. I want to grow the economy. That's why I have plans for jobs and raising incomes. I do want to go after bad actors on and off Wall Street, because I think companies that take money from federal, state, and local governments and then pick up and move should have to pay that back. ~ Hillary Clinton

The Shariyat-Ki-Sugmad, which means the "Way of the Eternal," is the ancient scripture of Eckankar, the science of Soul Travel and total consciousness.

Shariyat-Ki-Sugmad Book One ~ Paul Twitchell

In ancient times, determinism rested on a belief in an omniscient God. Today, it is not old-time religion, but, rather, our culture's newfound faith - science - that challenges the belief in free will. ~ Jeffrey M. Schwartz

Even some of us who make movies underestimate their influence abroad. American movies sell American culture. Foreigners want to see American movies. But that's also why so many foreign governments and groups object to them. ~ Irwin Winkler

Starting with Bacon's Rebellion in Virginia, by 1760, there had been eighteen uprisings aimed at overthrowing colonial governments. There had also been six black rebellions, from South Carolina to New York, and forty riots of various origins. By this time also, there emerged, according to Jack Greene, "stable, coherent, effective and acknowledged local political and social elites." And by the 1760s, this local leadership saw the possibility of directing much of the rebellious energy against England and her local officials. It was not a conscious conspiracy, but an accumulation of tactical responses. ~ Howard Zinn

One was an ancient tortoiseshell cat with arthritis, who creaked around the house--but when Aunt Sibby flickered her fingers and crooned, Miminy, miminy, tall-as-a-chi-mi-ny, danced on his hind legs like a kitten. ~ Jane Louise Curry

I read Mailer's Ancient Evenings with great interest because I was interested in ... the seven souls structure, which was very helpful to me in Western Lands. And also in Place of Dead Roads. So that's Mailer. ~ William S. Burroughs

Shankara commented on Krishna, on the Upanishads, on the Brahma Sutras. Ramanuja commented on the ancient enlightened people, Vallabha did the same. It has always been so in the East, because much dust gathers as time passes. Now, the Upanishads were written in a totally different world. That man has disappeared, that mind has disappeared, that world no more exists. ~ Rajneesh

Ages of happiness. - An age of happiness is quite impossible, because men want only to desire it but not to have it, and every individual who experiences good times learns to downright pray for misery and disquietude. The destiny of man is designed for happy moments - every life has them - but not for happy ages. Nonetheless they will remain fixed in the imagination of man as 'the other side of the hill' because they have been inherited from ages past: for the concepts of the age of happiness was no doubt acquired in primeval times from that condition of which, after violent exertion in hunting and warfare, man gives himself up to repose, stretches his limbs and hears the pinions of sleep rustling about him. It is a false conclusion if, in accordance with that ancient familiar experience, man imagines that, after whole ages of toil and deprivation, he can then partake of that condition of happiness correspondingly enhanced and protracted. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

When Steinbeck was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962, only five Americans had previously been so honored. Accepting the prize in Stockholm, he gave an impassioned speech in which he argued that "the ancient commission of the writer has not changed. He is charged with exposing our many grievous faults and failures, with dredging up to the light our dark and dangerous dreams for the purpose of improvement. ~ John Steinbeck

If one is going to go traipsing around ancient giant ruins hunting for treasure, one should first make sure they are abandoned. ~ Julie Kagawa

She should feel sick. Horrified, stunned. But the horrible truth was, she felt fine. He killed. He killed to protect her. And some
ancient, atavistic streak inside her wanted to preen and purr. She was one sick puppy. ~ Anne Stuart

I waited patiently for the Lord and He inclined unto me and He heard my cry. He lifted me out of the horrible pit, out of the miry clay,and He has set my feet upon a ROCK and He established my steps, and He has given me a a new song even praise unto our God; many shall see it and fear and shall trust in the Lord ... the first 3 lines of an ancient Hebrew song Psalm 40:1-3 ~ King David

The ancient Romans built their greatest masterpieces of architecture, their amphitheaters, for wild beasts to fight in. ~ Voltaire

People shouldn't be afraid of their government. Governments should be afraid of their people. ~ Alan Moore

Did you ever face Death and let it stare back at you right in the Eyes? ~ Luis Marques

Before I left home I cut my hair close to my scalp so I could be a free woman with free thoughts, open to all possibilities. I was making a map of the world. In ancient times maps were made to help people find food, water, and the way back home. I needed a map to help me find love and language and since one didn't exist, I'd have to invent one, following the trails and signs left by other travelers. I didn't know what I wanted to be, but I knew I wanted to be the kind of woman who was bold, took chances, and had adventures. I wanted to travel around the world. It was my little-girl dream. ~ Shay Youngblood

Citizens, equally the friends of public and private faith, and of public and personal liberty, that our governments are too unstable, that the public good is disregarded in the conflicts of rival parties, and that measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice and the rights of the minor party, but by the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority. However anxiously we may wish that these complaints had no foundation, the evidence, of known facts will not permit us to deny that they are in some degree true. ~ Alexander Hamilton

A major premise of my fictional novel Noah Primeval is that the gods of the ancient world were real spiritual beings with supernatural powers. Thus, the mythical literature and artistic engravings of the gods that have been uncovered by Mesopotamian archeology reflect a certain amount of factual reality. The twist is that these gods are actually fallen divine angelic beings called "Sons of God" (Bene Elohim) in the Bible. ~ Brian Godawa

they've put a price on my head because, like all governments who buy brains, they like to limit what the brains are used for. ~ Marion Zimmer Bradley

Agnosticism is of the essence of science, whether ancient or modern. It simply means that a man shall not say he knows or believes that which he has no scientific grounds for professing to know or believe. Consequently Agnosticism puts aside not only the greater part of popular theology, but also the greater part of anti-theology. On the whole, the "bosh" of heterodoxy is more offensive to me than that of orthodoxy, because heterodoxy professes to be guided by reason and science, and orthodoxy does not. ~ Thomas Henry Huxley

Contrary to what certain governments say, human rights are universal. Arbitrary detention, torture and discrimination hurt the human dignity of anybody, whatever his or her country of origin, religion, descent, or any other ground. ~ Shirin Ebadi

Have you noticed how few men in the peerage are young and nice-looking?" Lillian asked wryly. "Most of them are dull-witted, ancient, or possess the kind of face that should have a hook in its mouth. ~ Lisa Kleypas

The man who first gave history a recognized place in science was an ancient historian. ~ James Henry Breasted

One form of religion perpetually gives way to another; if religion did not change it would be dead ... Each time the new ideas appear they are seen at first as a deadly foe threatening to make religion perish from the earth; but in the end there is a deeper insight and a better life with ancient follies and prejudices gone. ~ Edith Hamilton

The beauty of the whole exercise is that as you strive to improve the lives of others, your own life will be elevated into its highest dimensions. This truth is based on an ancient paradigm for extraordinary living. ~ Robin S. Sharma

Considering how common illness is, how tremendous the spiritual change it brings, how astonishing, when the lights of health go down, the undiscovered countries that are then disclosed, what wastes and deserts of the soul a slight attack of influenza brings to view, what precipices and lawns sprinkled with bright flowers a little rise of temperature reveals, what ancient and obdurate oaks are uprooted in us by the act of sickness ... it is strange indeed that illness has not taken its place with love and battle and jealousy among the prime themes of literature.
from her essay, On Being Ill ~ Virginia Woolf

The contrast between the familiar and the exceptional was everywhere around me. A bullock cart was drawn up beside a modern sports car at a traffic signal. A man squatted to relieve himself behind the discreet shelter of a satellite dish. An electric forklift truck was being used to unload goods from an ancient wooden cart with wooden wheels. The impression was of a plodding indefatigable and distant past that had crashed intact through barriers of time into its own future. I liked it. ~ Gregory David Roberts

Out of our deepest memories come the forgotten forms of the past,
given new life by the living sentience of an ancient and eternal forest. ~ Robert Holdstock

Except for the occasional great person or hero, or tragedy, death has always been personal, affecting one individual and the handful of people who cared about that dead individual. The rest of society went on, and that had been true as far back as the ancient pyramids and great walls, and remained true, and would doubtless remain so into the far future. ~ L.E. Modesitt Jr.

The ancient world was settled so sparsely that nature was not yet eclipsed by man. Nature hit you in the eye so plainly and grabbed you so fiercely and so tangibly by the scruff of the neck that perhaps it really was still full of gods. ~ Boris Pasternak

It's the Government's job to print the money, deliver the mail and declare war. Now give me my cigarettes. ~ Florence King

In matters of potential suffering, a single 200,000 years old human being stood against a 550 million years old octopus - acutely aware of its suffering, yet unable to do much to alleviate its misery - is the structural equivalent of comparing the convoluted majesty of the International Space Station to a child's paper and stick kite, and to then stand the octopus against the far more ancient 1.5 billion years old protozoa is to weigh the complexity of the kite to a dust mote caught up in a lazy afternoon breeze. ~ John Zande

The enemy of the spirit is the selfish ego, which thinks that happiness can be gained through causing unhappiness and disharmony to others. In many ancient languages, the word for enemy means "one who falls out of rhythm; one who is not working in harmony with the larger group." ~ Sharon Gannon

Since ancient times, the left side has stood for the side of the unconscious or the unknown; the right side, by contrast, has represented the side of consciousness or wakefulness. Through the late twentieth century, the movement of the Left limited themselves to a materialist understanding of reality- exemplified by Marxism- demanding social justice and economic equality but not the restoration of intuition and the recognition of the hidden, qualitative dimensions of being suppressed by the mental-rational consciousness, narrowly focused on the quantifiable. ~ Jean Gebser

The victims of right-wing violence are typically immigrants, Muslims, and people of color, while the targets of environmental and animal rights activism are among "the most powerful corporations on the planet" - hence the state's relative indifference to the one and obsession with the other.

The broader pattern helps to explain one partial exception to the left/right gap in official scrutiny - namely, the domestic aspects of the "War on Terror." Al Qaeda is clearly a reactionary organization. Like much of the American far right, it is theocratic, anti-Semitic, and patriarchal. Like Timothy McVeigh, the 9/11 hijackers attacked symbols of institutional power, killing a great many innocent people to further their cause. But while the state's bias favors the right over the left, the Islamists were the wrong kind of right-wing fanatic. These right-wing terrorists were foreigners, they were Muslim, and above all they were not white. And so, in retrospect and by comparison, the state's response to the Oklahoma City bombing seems relatively restrained - short-lived, focused, selectively targeting unlawful behavior for prosecution. The government's reaction to the September 11th attacks has been something else entirely - an open-ended war fought at home and abroad, using all variety of legal, illegal, and extra-legal military, police, and intelligence tactics, arbitrarily jailing large numbers of people and spying on entire communities of immigrants, Muslims, and Middle ~ Kristian Williams

The previous Governments took pride in making laws, but I am happier removing laws. Let's open the windows, let some fresh air come in. ~ Narendra Modi

Goethe wrote in 1827, America, you have it better Than our old continent, You have no ruined castles And no ancient basalt. Your inner life remains untroubled By useless memory And futile strife. That was then. Now, almost two hundred years later, we've started to catch up to old Europe. We have plenty of ruined castles now, plenty of wasted strife to call our own. ~ Colin Dickey

The United States stands by its friends. Israel is one of its friends Peace can be based only on agreement between the parties and agreement can be achieved only through negotiations between them. The United States will not impose the terms of peace. The United States is prepared to supply military equipment necessary to support the efforts of friendly governments, like Israel's, to defend the safety of their people. ~ Lyndon B. Johnson