“...what is sacred is the other person -we forget that sometimes - and fail to honor who they are ...”
“How did so many women get to this unhappy place of not understanding how truly simple men are in their requirements and how much benevolent power their wives have over them? Why did notions like assuaging male ego and using feminine wiles rocket into disrepute? How is it that so many women are angry with men in general yet expect to have a happy life married to one of them? There are a number of reasons for this, and I believe they all revolve around the assault upon, and virtual collapse of, the values of religious morality, modesty, fidelity, chastity, respect for life, and a commitment to family and child-rearing.”
“Wazazi wetu ni watu wa kuheshimu kuliko kitu chochote. Wanaweza kuona tusipoweza kuona – nyuma na mbele ya tarehe zetu za kuzaliwa.”
“There is no doubt, that in this world, there are all sorts of people who look nice, but are empty inside; who do not feel either moral or spiritual aspirations in addition to the physical gifts with which nature blessed them ... But Corneliu Codreanu, his magnificient physique corresponds to an exceptional inner wholeness. Exclamations of admiration from men left him indifferent. Praise angered him. He had only a fighter s greatness and the ambition of great reformers... The characteristic of his soul was goodness. If you want to penetrate the initial motive which prompted Corneliu Codreanu to throw in a fight so hard and almost desperate, the best answer is that he did it out of compassion for suffering people. His heart bled with thousands of injuries to see the misery in which peasants and workers struggled. His love for the people - unlimited! He was sensitive to any suffering the working masses endured. He had a cult for the humble, and showed an infinite attention to their aspirations and their hopes. The smallest window, the most trivial complaint, were examined with the same seriousness with which he addressed grave political problems.”
“Without trust and respect, only fear and distrust of others motives and intentions are left. Without trust and respect between parties, it is nearly impossible to find good solutions to effective communication.”
“And now it [grass] seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves, Tenderly will I use you curling grass, It may be you transpire from the breasts of young men, It may be if I had known them I would have loved them, It may be you from old people, or from offspring taken soon out of their mother s laps, And here you are the mothers laps. - Song of Myself: 6”
“Death, in its certainty, is exacting its due respect and repose before it takes my hand.”
“The root of liberalism, in a word, is hatred of compulsion, for liberalism has the respect for the individual and his conscience and reason which the employment of coercion necessarily destroys. The liberal has faith in the individual – faith that he can be persuaded by rational means to beliefs compatible with social good.”
“Cette qualité de la joie n’est-elle pas le fruit le plus précieux de la civilisation qui est nôtre ? Une tyrannie totalitaire pourrait nous satisfaire, elle aussi, dans nos besoins matériels. Mais nous ne sommes pas un bétail à l’engrais. La prospérité et le confort ne sauraient suffire à nous combler. Pour nous qui fûmes élevés dans le culte du respect de l’homme, pèsent lourd les simples rencontres qui se changent parfois en fêtes merveilleuses… Respect de l’homme ! Respect de l’homme !… Là est la pierre de touche ! Quand le Naziste respecte exclusivement qui lui ressemble, il ne respecte rien que soi-même ; il refuse les contradictions créatrices, ruine tout espoir d’ascension, et fonde pour mille ans, en place d’un homme, le robot d’une termitière. L’ordre pour l’ordre châtre l’homme de son pouvoir essentiel, qui est de transformer et le monde et soi-même. La vie crée l’ordre, mais l’ordre ne crée pas la vie. Il nous semble, à nous, bien au contraire, que notre ascension n’est pas achevée, que la vérité de demain se nourrit de l’erreur d’hier, et que les contradictions à surmonter sont le terreau même de notre croissance. Nous reconnaissons comme nôtres ceux mêmes qui diffèrent de nous. Mais quelle étrange parenté ! elle se fonde sur l’avenir, non sur le passé. Sur le but, non sur l’origine. Nous sommes l’un pour l’autre des pèlerins qui, le long de chemins divers, peinons vers le même rendez-vous. Mais voici qu’aujourd’hui le respect de l’homme, condition de notre ascension, est en péril. Les craquements du monde moderne nous ont engagés dans les ténèbres. Les problèmes sont incohérents, les solutions contradictoires. La vérité d’hier est morte, celle de demain est encore à bâtir. Aucune synthèse valable n’est entrevue, et chacun d’entre nous ne détient qu’une parcelle de la vérité. Faute d’évidence qui les impose, les religions politiques font appel à la violence. Et voici qu’à nous diviser sur les méthodes, nous risquons de ne plus reconnaître que nous nous hâtons vers le même but. Le voyageur qui franchit sa montagne dans la direction d’une étoile, s’il se laisse trop absorber par ses problèmes d’escalade, risque d’oublier quelle étoile le guide. S’il n’agit plus que pour agir, il n’ira nulle part. La chaisière de cathédrale, à se préoccuper trop âprement de la location de ses chaises, risque d’oublier qu’elle sert un dieu. Ainsi, à m’enfermer dans quelque passion partisane, je risque d’oublier qu’une politique n’a de sens qu’à condition d’être au service d’une évidence spirituelle. Nous avons goûté, aux heures de miracle, une certaine qualité des relations humaines : là est pour nous la vérité. Quelle que soit l’urgence de l’action, il nous est interdit d’oublier, faute de quoi cette action demeurera stérile, la vocation qui doit la commander. Nous voulons fonder le respect de l’homme. Pourquoi nous haïrions-nous à l’intérieur d’un même camp ? Aucun d’entre nous ne détient le monopole de la pureté d’intention. Je puis combattre, au nom de ma route, telle route qu’un autre a choisie. Je puis critiquer les démarches de sa raison. Les démarches de la raison sont incertaines. Mais je dois respecter cet homme, sur le plan de l’Esprit, s’il peine vers la même étoile. Respect de l’Homme ! Respect de l’Homme !… Si le respect de l’homme est fondé dans le cœur des hommes, les hommes finiront bien par fonder en retour le système social, politique ou économique qui consacrera ce respect. Une civilisation se fonde d’abord dans la substance. Elle est d’abord, dans l’homme, désir aveugle d’une certaine chaleur. L’homme ensuite, d’erreur en erreur, trouve le chemin qui conduit au feu.”
“Listen, in dreams and especially in nightmares, from indigestion or anything, a man sees sometimes such artistic visions, such complex and real actuality, such events, even a whole world of events, woven into such a plot, with such unexpected details from the most exalted matters to the last button on a cuff, as I swear Leo Tolstoy has never invented.”
“The potential, for anything, was overwhelming to a degree that bothered him. It wasn’t, he thought, the idea of power. It certainly wasn’t that nervous feeling T.C. would get in the pit of his stomach when he knew he had an incredible opportunity in front of him, that amazing brief pause before an act of creation. This was something else. Something to fear and respect.”
“Respect the dead, learn from them, do not follow or avenge them.”
“Animals do not respect their master s brother, but they do respect their brothers as masters.”
“Respect is for those who Deserve it, not for those who Demand it.”
“Of all Emotions, Respect alone stands: Not for Sale. Do good, Revenges be futile, Save your intregrity, For, Let Love to Prevail.”
“We cannot live with each other at the exclusion of each other for then the richness of our shared experience will die an impoverished death, and in the dying it will kill the dreams that we were both fighting for.”
“There is, as well, a tactical side to the new emphasis on self-defense and the suggestion that nonviolence be abandoned. The reasoning here is that turning the other cheek is not the way to win respect, and that only if the Negro succeeds in frightening the white man will the white man begin taking him seriously. The trouble with this reasoning is that it fails to recognize that fear is more likely to bring hostility to the surface than respect. Far from prodding the white power structure into action, the new militant leadership, by raising the slogan of black power and lowering the banner of nonviolence, has obscured the moral issue facing this nation, and permitted the President and Vice-President to lecture us about racism in reverse instead of proposing more meaningful programs for dealing with the problems of unemployment, housing, and education.”