“The public at large, and not alone the comparatively few students who can attend the University, are the chief and ultimate beneficiaries of the foundation. While the instruction offered must be such as will qualify the students for personal success and direct usefulness in life, they should understand that it is offered in the hope and trust that they will become thereby of greater service to the public.”
—To the Trustees of The Leland Stanford, Junior, University, 1902
“Remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious. And however difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at. It matters that you don't just give up.”
— January 8, 2012
“Indifference to immediate usefulness is a luxury central to the mission of some luxuries of our civilization — the great research universities, free from the tyranny of commercial pressures for short-term results. Only government can have the long time horizon required for the basic research that produces, in time, innovations that propel economic growth."
“They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." Historical Review of Pennsylvania.
“The jury has a right to judge both the law as well as the fact in controversy." Georgia vs. Brailsford, 1794
“Heav'n has no rage, like love to hatred turn'd, Nor Hell a fury, like a woman scorn'd." III.viii The Old Bachelor (1693), I.i
From the Synergy Journal. To all would-be “Synergy saviors”:
“It is by attraction, and not by direction or commandment that [the liberative artist] is sought out as a teacher in the way of liberation. It is easy enough to become a martyr by throwing open challenges and judgments at the ways of the world. But the high art ... of a true Bodhisattva is possible only for him or her who has gone beyond all need for self-justification, for so long as there is something to prove, some axe to grind, there is no dance."
— Alan Watts, pp. 212-213 in “Invitation to the Dance”, Psychotherapy East and West, 1961.
BUILD A UNIVERSITY FOR PEOPLE, INSTEAD OF PEOPLE FOR A UNIVERSITY“You've been taught all along that education is something that someone does for you, that teachers educate. A better way of understanding it is that education is something that takes place in your own mind, and things outside of that serve only as stimuli. ... The university is asking you to be dependent upon it. I'm saying that education is fundamentally based on independence. ...'' [more]
I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse: therefore choose life, that you may live, you and your seed.— Moses quoting God, Deuteronomy 30:19.
You have heard that it has been said, “You shall love your neighbour, and hate your enemy.” But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.— Jesus, Matthew 5:43-44
“Only a few years ago did it suddenly dawn on me that my existential fear regarding my nation’s future and my moral outrage regarding my nation’s occupation policy are not unconnected. On the one hand, Israel is the only nation in the West that is occupying another people. On the other hand, Israel is the only nation in the West that is existentially threatened. ”— Ari Shavit, My Promised Land: The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel
“To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.”
—Theodore Roosevelt (1918)
“Why of course the people don't want war ... But after all it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship ...Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger.”
—Hermann Goering, Nazi leader, at the Nuremberg Trials after World War II
“Finally, the neoconservatives are fanatics. They believe it is worth killing people for unproved ideas. Traditional morality says that war is justified in legitimate defense. Totalitarian morality justifies war to make people or societies better.”—William Pfaff, April 10, 2003, "The Neoconservative Agenda: Which Country is Next on the List?", lnternational Herald Tribune.
I tell you how we achieve peace. We bring to Washington a group of talented young people who believe that peace is possible. We work them to the bone until they no longer believe that peace is possible. Then we throw them out and bring in a new group of young people who believe that peace is possible.
—as best as I can remember the quote, from a book either on the Cold War, or on resistance to the Vietnam War