Politics Of Eternity Quotes

In the politics of eternity, the seduction by a mythicized past prevents us from thinking about possible futures. The habit of dwelling on victimhood dulls the impulse of self-correction. ~ Timothy Snyder

The second antihistorical way of considering the past is the politics of eternity. Like the politics of inevitability, the politics of eternity performs a masquerade of history, though a different one. It is concerned with the past, but in a self-absorbed way, free of any real concerns with facts. Its mood is a longing for past moments that never really happened during epochs that were, in fact, disastrous. Eternity politicians bring us the past as a vast misty courtyard if illegible monuments to national victimhood, all of them equally distant from the present, all of them equally accessible for manipulation. Every reference to the past seems to involve an attack by some external enemy upon the purity of the nation. ~ Timothy Snyder

Inevitability and eternity have specific propaganda styles. Inevitability politicians spin facts into a web of well-being. Eternity politicians suppress facts in order to dismiss the reality that people are freer and richer in other countries, and the idea that reforms could be formulated on the basis of knowledge. ~ Timothy Snyder

You will find that there is no other difference of opinion as regards any portions of the Universe, except that the philosophers believe in the Eternity of the Universe and we believe in the Creation. Note this. ~ Maimonides

Patriarchal hip-hop ushered in a world where black males could declare that they were "keeping it real" when what they were really doing was taking the dead patriarchal protest of the black power movement and rearticulating it in forms that, though entertaining, had for the most part no transformative power, no ability to intervene on the politics of domination, and turn the real lives of black men around. ~ Bell Hooks

It is complete nihilism to propose laying down arms in a world where atom bombs are around. It is very simple: there is no way of achieving peace other than with weapons. ~ Karl Popper

Nearly 100% of innovation-from business to politics-is inspired not by "market analysis" but by people who are supremely pissed off by the way things are. ~ Tom Peters

The current political dispensation in the country takes pride in its affiliations with religion and culture. But unfortunately, they have become a corporate government more than a moral government. Religion to them does not mean the supremacy of moral, family and social values prescribed by religion, but hatred based on religious identity. If they can revisit their strategy, and take a bold stand against social vices, almost all the religious communities of the country, which means more than 95 pc of the people, will be standing behind them. But unfortunately, they stand for the rest 5 per cent. ~ Javed Jamil

No government should be given too much power, or the people comprising that government will use the power in the worst ways possible; individual freedom, when used within the boundaries of morality, is the highest good. The Constitution was written as a living testimony to this view. ~ Andrew Breitbart

It is only when he speaks German, as now, that he allows himself to lament the enslavement of the world's downtrodden classes. We cannot live in a bubble, Mr. Mundy. Comfortable ignorance is not a solution. In German student societies that I was not permitted to join, they made a toast: 'Better to be a salamander, and live in the fire. ~ John Le Carre

You must keep your honor! You can't speak for the country; you can do little about the national economy or actions of moral weaklings who excuse themselves with the expression, "That is politics; nor can you be responsible for deception in others. But you are responsible for yourself! There are no collective panaceas - only individual ones." ~ Ezra Taft Benson

Scientists are peeping toms at the keyhole of eternity. ~ Arthur Koestler

After all, when 'the Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become' He resolved to 'wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have created – and with them the animals, the birds and the creatures that move along the ground – for I regret that I have made them' (Genesis 6:7). The Bible thinks it is perfectly all right to destroy all animals as punishment for the crimes of Homo sapiens, as if the existence of giraffes, pelicans and ladybirds has lost all purpose if humans misbehave. The Bible could not imagine a scenario in which God repents having created Homo sapiens, wipes this sinful ape off the face of the earth, and then spends eternity enjoying the antics of ostriches, kangaroos and panda bears. ~ Yuval Noah Harari

I've always enjoyed mixing and mingling with the Tasmanian community and that's, if you like, the bread and butter of politics. And from my perspective, it's meant more time at home, which I also enjoy and it's also meant the greater interaction with the Tasmanian community. And it's also given me freedom to speak out. ~ Eric Abetz

There is no glory in the sacrificing of oneself in the name of imperialism by order of elitist politicians. But this is what our young service members are led to believe. ~ Aaron B. Powell

There's a tradition in British intellectual life of mocking any non-political force that gets involved in politics, especially within the sphere of the arts and the theatre. ~ Harold Pinter

The basic distortions in the media are not innocent errors, for they are not random; rather they move in the same overall direction again and again, favoring management over labor, corporatism over anti-corporatism, the affluent over the poor, private enterprise over socialism, Whites over Blacks, males over females, officialdom over protesters, conventional politics over dissidence, anticommunism and arms-race militarism over disarmament, national chauvinism over internationalism, US dominance of the Third World over revolutionary or populist nationalist change. The press does many things and serves many functions but its major role, its irreducible responsibility, is to continually recreate a view of reality supportive of existing social and economic class power. ~ Michael Parenti

When I feed the poor, they call me a saint, but when I ask why the poor are hungry, they call me a communist. Dom Helder Camara – one of the great prophets of Christian "Liberation theology". ~ Dom Helder Camara Archbishop Of Recife In Brazil

It's as if inside the White House the belief in Obama's inspirational charisma is still such that every time the ugliness of brute politics intrudes, it's a startling revelation. ~ Tina Brown

I do not believe that artists or actors and people should be out there like voicing their full-blown opinions on politics because, let's face it, at the end of the day, I'm not that smart of a guy. ~ Kid Rock

Politics in the United States consists of the struggle between those whose change has been arrested by success or failure, on one side, and those who are still engaged in changing themselves, on the other. Agitators of arrested metamorphosis versus agitators of continued metamorphosis. The former have the advantage of numbers (since most people accept themselves as successes or failures quite early), the latter of vitality and visibility (since self-transformation, though it begins from within, with ideology, religion, drugs, tends to express itself publicly through costume and jargon). ~ Harold Rosenberg

Like the archers of Agincourt, John O'Neal and the 254 Swiftboat Veterans took down their own haughty Frenchman. ~ Ann Coulter

For it is precisely because certain groups have no representation in a number of recognized political structures that their position tends to be so stable, their oppression so continuous. ~ Kate Millett

We must recognize the fact that philosophy at the present time is entirely at an impasse concerning the problem of the origin of values. This theoretical failure is reflected in the practical antinomy between submission and rebellion that infects the daily concerns of education, politics, and ethics. If no decision can be made at this level, we must retrace our steps, extricate ourselves from the impasse, and try to gain access, by means of a nonethical approach, to the problem of autonomy and obedience. ~ Paul Ricoeur

This was an infidel country, whose way of life we Muslims were supposed to oppose and reject. Why was it, then, so much better run, better led, and made for such better lives than the places we came from? Shouldn't the places where Allah was worshipped and His laws obeyed have been at peace and wealthy, and the unbelievers' countries ignorant, poor, and at war? ~ Ayaan Hirsi Ali

The whole point of what Jesus was up to was that he was doing close up, in the present, what he was promising long-term in the future. And what he was promising for that future and doing in the present was not saving souls for a disembodied eternity, but rescuing people from the corruption and decay of the way the world presently is so that they could enjoy, already in the present, that renewal of creation which is God's ultimate purpose
and so they could thus become colleagues and partners in that large project. ~ N. T. Wright

It is necessary to take an active part in politics to observe how often the welfare of the party organization is put before the issues, even before the welfare of the commonwealth. ~ Charles Edison

The ancients tell us what is best; but we must learn of the moderns what is fittest. ~ Benjamin Franklin

Cleopatra was on a political mission to save her country and her power, but what we remember about her are these two famed seductions, which are a matter of politics, not a matter of love. ~ Stacy Schiff

I hate to hear people say this Judge will vote so and so, because he is a Democrat
and this one so and so because he is a Republican. It is shameful. The Judges have the Constitution for their guidance; they have no right to any politics save the politics of rigid right and justice when they are sitting in judgment upon the great matters that come before them. ~ Mark Twain

From the starch-heavy 'food pyramid' to ethanol fuel, the government adopts programs not because they are right but because they gains votes, money or political power or solve problems that politics has already created, such as silos full of subsidized wheat or a shortage of gasoline due to the maze of controls on refining. ~ Robert Prechter

Politics is much too serious to be taken too seriously; equally, there are many aspects of it so laughable as to be lamentable. ~ Charles Kennedy

Let the Kingdom be always before you, and believe with certainty and consistency the things that are yet unseen. Let nothing that is on this side of eternal life get inside you. ~ John Bunyan

What man is capable of the insane self-conceit of believing that an eternity of himself would be tolerable even to himself? Those who try to believe it postulate that they shall be
made perfect first. But if you make me perfect I shall no longer be myself, nor will it be possible for me to conceive my present imperfections (and what I cannot conceive I cannot remember); so that you may just as well give me a new name and face the fact that I am a new person and that the old Bernard Shaw is as dead as mutton. Thus,oddly enough, the conventional belief in the matter comes to this: that if you wish to live for ever you must be wicked enough to be irretrievably damned, since the saved are no longer what they were, and in hell alone do people retain their sinful nature: that is to say, their individuality. And this sort of hell, however convenient as a means of intimidating persons who have practically no honor and no conscience, is not a fact. ~ George Bernard Shaw

While von Clausewitz said, 'War is the continuation of policy (politics) by other means,' when considering the welfare of our men and women in uniform, their families, our veterans and survivors, don't let politics drive your decisions. ~ Joe Heck