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"We are going to suffer, I am afraid, terribly in this war, whether we are in it or whether we stand aside. Foreign trade is going to stop, not because the trade routes are closed, but because there is no trade at the other end. Continental nations engaged in war all their populations, all their energies, all their wealth, engaged in a desperate struggle they cannot carry on the trade with us that they are carrying on in times of peace, whether we are parties to the war or whether we are not. I do not believe for a moment that at the end of this war, even if we stood aside and remained aside, we should be in a position, a material position, to use our force decisively to undo what had happened in the course of the war, to prevent the whole of the west of Europe opposite to us—if that had been the result of the war—falling under the domination of a single power, and I am quite sure that our moral position would be such as to have lost us all respect." Edward Grey   "The revolution needs the enemy! The proletariat does not reject the enemy, it needs the enemy! The revolutionary, in order to develop, needs his antithesis, which is the counterrevolutionary." Fidel Castro   "The only vice that I perceive in the universe is avarice; all the others, whatever name they be known, are only variations, degrees, of this one; it is the Proteus, the Mercury, the basis, the vehicle, of all the vices. Analyse vanity; fatuousness; pride; ambition; duplicity; hypocrisy; dishonesty; break down most of our sophistic virtues into their component parts, and they all resolve themselves into this subtle and pernicious element, the desire to have. You will even find it at the bottom of disinterestedness." Étienne-Gabriel Morelly   "In every age the men who want us under their thumb, if they have any sense, will put forward the particular pretension which the hopes and fears of that age render most potent. They 'cash in.' It has been magic, it has been Christianity. Now it will certainly be science. Perhaps the real scientists may not think much of the tyrants' 'science'—they didn't think much of Hitler's racial theories or Stalin's biology. But they can be muzzled." Clive Staples Lewis   "In New York City, the number two guy in the fire department retired on a pension worth $242,000 a year. In New York State, a single official holding two jobs and one pension took in $641,000. A lieutenant with the Port Authority police retired with an annual pension of $196,767, and 738 of the city's teachers, principals and such have pensions worth more than $100,000 a year. Their former employer, it goes almost without saying, is steamed. Their former employer is me." Richard Cohen   "We see people buying food in the market, eating during the day, sleeping at night-time, talking nonsense, marrying, growing old and then contentedly carting their dead off to the cemetery. But we don't hear or see those who suffer: the real tragedies of life are enacted somewhere behind the scenes. Everything is calm and peaceful and the only protest comes from statistics—and they can't talk. Figures show that so many went mad, so many bottles of vodka were emptied, so many children died from malnutrition. And clearly this kind of system is what people need. It's obvious that the happy man feels contented only because the unhappy ones bear their burden without saying a word: if it weren't for their silence, happiness would be quite impossible. It's a kind of mass hypnosis. Someone ought to stand with a hammer at the door of every happy contented man, continually banging on it to remind him that there are unhappy people around and that however happy he may be at the time, sooner or later life will show him its claws and disaster will overtake him in the form of illness, poverty, bereavement and there will be no one to hear or see him. But there isn't anyone holding a hammer, so our happy man goes his own sweet way and is only gently ruffled by life's trivial cares, as an aspen is ruffled by the breeze." Anton Chekhov   "Where national memories are concerned, griefs are of more value than triumphs, for they impose duties, and require a common effort." Ernest Renan   "Picture the life of a young Urdu-speaking woman brought to Yorkshire from Pakistan to marry a man—quite possibly a close cousin—whom she has never met. He takes her dowry, beats her, and abuses the children he forces her to bear. She is not allowed to leave the house unless in the company of a male relative and unless she is submissively covered from head to toe. Suppose that she is able to contact one of the few support groups that now exist for the many women in Britain who share her plight. What she ought to be able to say is, 'I need the police, and I need the law to be enforced.' But what she will often be told is, 'Your problem is better handled within the community.' And those words, almost a death sentence, have now been endorsed and underwritten—and even advocated—by the country's official spiritual authority." Christopher Hitchens   "In writing schools, in reading groups, in universities, various general reading systems are offered—the post-colonial, the gendered, the postmodern, the state-of-the-nation and so on. They are like the instructions that come with furniture at IKEA. All one need do is seek out the flatpack novels that most closely resemble the blueprints already to hand." Zadie Smith   "The most important point to be made about the German intellectuals' attack upon the West is that it was produced for domestic consumption. It was directed against a devil who lived in Germany, chiefly in the factories, political assemblies, and big urban centers. In this respect, the German position in the cultural war was very closely related to 'the ideas of 1914.' Everything that had disturbed the mandarins in the social and cultural life of their country since 1870 was introduced into the caricature of England. Everything they had sought to preserve or to re-create became a part of the 'spirit of 1914.' The purpose of both maneuvers was to erect permanent symbols of the mandarins' own values and, if possible, to perpetuate the national consensus embodied in the 'ideas of 1914' beyond the period of the war itself. Thus Sombart's characterization of the English trader functioned primarily as a foil for his praise of the German hero." Fritz Ringer   "People's fantasies are what give them problems. If you didn't have fantasies you wouldn't have problems because you'd just take whatever was there. But then you wouldn't have romance, because romance is finding your fantasy in people who don't have it." Andy Warhol   "The fetters in which pre-existing laws bound our commerce have been removed, and the result is that we possess the greatest, the most stable, and the most lucrative commerce which the world has ever seen. Deep as was Adam Smith's conviction of the truth of his principles, the history of England for the last thirty years would have been almost inconceivable to him. Thirty years ago Carlyle and Arnold had nearly convinced the world of the irrecoverable poverty of our lower classes. The 'condition of England question,' as they termed it, was bringing us fast to ruin. But, in fact, we were on the eve of the greatest prosperity which we have ever seen, or perhaps any other nation. And it was to the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846, and to the series of changes of which this was the type, and the most important, that we owe this wonderful contrast. The nature and the direction of the result Adam Smith would have unquestionably accepted; but the magnitude and the rapidity—the 'figures and the pace'—would have been far beyond his imagination. Even to us, with the aid of our modern experience of large transactions, they are amazing, and no mind trained in the comparatively slow and small school of the eighteenth century would, a hundred years since, have been able to think them possible." Walter Bagehot   "The guys who know a whole lot about how banks work work in banks. So, you might disco on down to Goldman Sachs, where they scrupulously seek to accumulate evidence of the production of social value in great quantities, and try to hire yourself some staffers. And when they are done laughing at you, you can head down to some lower-tier, south-on-the-food-chain bank, where you'll find some guys who got their MBAs at Eastern Michigan and who might want to spend a few years in government work. There's job security, for one thing, and the pensions and benefits are great. Also, they know that Goldman Sachs cares a lot about how the bank regulations are written for the same reasons that McDonald's cares a lot about how the all-beef-patty regulations are written, and so a third-tier banker who becomes a government regulator might in five or ten years be a pretty good candidate for a job at Goldman Sachs, which will shunt great fresh roaring streams of social value at people who can help it outcompete its rivals in the regulatory arena, Eastern Michigan grads or no. That's because the most efficient form of regulatory competition known to man and Goldman Sachs is to make sure that the regulations are written the way you want them to be written in the first place. Lloyd Blankfein does not much care whether there is a new regulation; he cares whether there is a new regulation that puts Goldman Sachs at a disadvantage vis-à-vis J. P. Morgan or whomever. Which is to say, Lloyd gets his Underoos backward only if there's a regulation that costs Lloyd money, because Lloyd is big on competition among firms, and will compete just murderously in whatever regulatory arena he finds himself in, like a gladiator with a smokin' hot date the next night. You don't really know what the public interest is, and neither does Lloyd—but Lloyd is the world's leading Ph.D.-level expert in Lloyd's interest. He also knows a little bit about banking. Advantage: Lloyd." Kevin Williamson   "Hitler and his acolytes were firmly convinced that the development of the German standard of living had been held back since 1918 by an unholy alliance formed between selfish bourgeois liberals and primitivist socialists. This conspiracy of low expectations had benefited only the German bourgeoisie, whilst robbing the majority of the German population of the full benefits of the new technologies of mass-production. Ford had had the entrepreneurial vision to break with the past and to turn what had once been a luxury product into a popular commodity. In Germany, what was required to break the deadlock was an act of decisive political will. The Third Reich made it its mission to use the authority of the state to coordinate efforts within industry to devise standardized and simplified versions of key consumer commodities. These would then be produced at the lowest possible price, enabling the German population to achieve an immediate breakthrough to a higher standard of living. The epithet which was generally attached to these products was Volk: the Volksempfaenger (radio), Volkswohnung (apartments), Volkswagen, Volkskuehlschrank (refrigerator), Volkstraktor (tractor). This list contains only those products that enjoyed the official backing of one or more agencies in the Third Reich. Private producers, however, had long appreciated that the term 'Volk' had good marketing potential, and they, too, joined the bandwagon. Amongst the various products they touted were Volksgramophone (people's gramophone), Volksmotorraeder (people's motorbikes) and Volksnaehmaschinen (people's sewing machines). In effect, by 1933 the use of the term 'Volk' had become so inflationary that the newly established German advertising council was forced to ban the unlicensed use of the term." Adam Tooze   "Are our effective legislative enactments anything more than registrations of results of battles previously fought out on the field of human endurance? In many social fields, reformers are now struggling for an extension of governmental activity by way of supervision and regulation. Does not such action always amount to an effort to extend the exercise of force on the part of some section of society, with a corresponding restriction of the forces employed by others?" John Dewey   "I learned how easy it is to listen to some ideology and to have an idea that gives you an excuse for anything. In trying not to be like my father, I ended up being even more like him. Terrorism is close to Nazism. I used ideology to legitimise myself, the same as he did. Creating change requires courage, which I didn't have. That's why I ended up in the RAF." Silke Maier-Witt   "If a couple had a child, either boy or girl, say ten years old, and a baby was then born to them, it might be killed and cooked for its elder brother or sister to eat, in order to make him or her strong by feeding on the muscle of the infant. The mother killed the infant by striking its head against the shoulder of its elder brother or sister." Alfred William Howitt   "God, the tattiness of England now. We seem to be presiding over the collapse of decency and integrity without the energy even to realise what's happening. News tonight that on Monday the London ambulance drivers go on strike and, for the first time, other emergency services too. It's not that I'm against strikes, but where is the law of contract? The unions abide by nothing, and members don't even have to abide by their unions. Bully boy, strong-arm tactics rule." Peter Hall   "When Hemingway published his Snows of Kilimanjaro in 1936, the mountain had already lost more than half its glacier surface area in 56 years. This is more than it has lost in the 70 years since." Bjorn Lomborg   "Not that among the rich class of citizens there are no asssemblies; yet these have only for object, among the women to drink tea, and among the men, to drink wine and other liquors. The conversation of the latter generally hinges on politics, or purchases which some propose and others accept; for the American never loses an opportunity of enriching himself. Gain is the subject of all his discourse, and the lever of all his actions; so that there is scarcely a civilized country in the world, in which there is less generosity of sentiment, less elevation of soul, and less of those soft and brilliant illusions which constitute the charm, or the consolation of life. There a man weighs every thing, calculates all, and sacrifices all to his own interest. He lives only in himself, and for himself, and regards all disinterested acts as so many follies, condemns all talents that are purely agreeable, appears estranged to every idea of heroism and of glory, and in history beholds nothing but the romance of nations." Louis-Auguste Felix Beaujour   "The world can sigh in relief. The idol of communism, which spread everywhere social strife, animosity, and unparalleled brutality, which instilled fear in humanity, has collapsed. It has collapsed, never to rise again." Boris Yeltsin   "By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. By this method they not only confiscate, but they confiscate arbitrarily; and, while the process impoverishes many, it actually enriches some." John Maynard Keynes   "We shall see if a people of merchants is a match for a people of farmers." Maximilien Robespierre   "Even 'true intellectuals' have parents, friends, familiar places, warm memories. Perfect solitude, like existential heroism, is a romantic idea, and it is closely connected to another romantic idea: the absolute opposition between art, philosophy, and moral value, on the one hand, and ordinary life, mundane concern, 'bourgeous society,' on the other. As if the critic plucks his principles from the sky! In bad times, it is precisely the principles of ordinary life that need to be asserted. 'The values I ought to defend and illustrate today,' Camus wrote in his notebook in October 1946, 'are average values. This requires a talent so spare and unadorned that I doubt I have it.'" Michael Walzer   "The building of the German fleet is but one of the symptoms of the disease. It is the political ambitions of the German government and nation which are the source of mischief." Eyre Crowe   "We have the spirit of feudalism rife and rampant in the midst of the antagonistic development of the age of Watt, Arkwright, and Stephenson! Nay, feudalism is every day more and more in the ascendant in political and social life. So great is its power and prestige that it draws to it the support and homage of even those who are the natural leaders of the newer and better civilization. Manufacturers and merchants as a rule seem only to desire riches that they may be enabled to prostrate themselves at the feet of feudalism. How is this to end? And whither are we tending in both our domestic and foreign relations? Can we hope to avoid collisions at home or wars abroad whilst all the tendencies are to throw power and influence into the wrong scale?" Richard Cobden   "A collectivity united in a belief is a culture. That is what the term means. More particularly, a collectivity united in a false belief is a culture. Truths, especially demonstrable truths, are available to all and sundry, and do not define any continuity of faith. But errors, especially dramatic errors, are culture-specific. They do tend to be the badges of community and loyalty. Assent to an absurdity is an intellectual rite de passage, a gateway to the community defined by that commitment to that conviction." Ernest Gellner   "For our most dangerous enemy is not the one in the East, but rather England, with whom the conspiracy against Germany stands or falls. We can only harm her if we keep our hold on the sea coast. Similarly, we can only hold France in check by maintaining our present position in the West intact. What unfavourable influence any, even the smallest, revival of the French hopes has is well shown by the French behaviour after the German retreat in September, which retreat must in the main be attributed to the weakening of the Western Army in favour of the Eastern Army." Erich von Falkenhayn   "No nuclear weapons have been fired. No massive nuclear retaliation has been considered appropriate. This is another type of war, new in its intensity, ancient in its origin—war by guerrillas, subversives, insurgents, assassins, war by ambush instead of by combat; by infiltration, instead of aggression, seeking victory by eroding and exhausting the enemy instead of engaging him. It is a form of warfare uniquely adapted to what has been strangely called 'wars of liberation,' to undermine the efforts of new and poor countries to maintain the freedom that they have finally achieved. It preys on economic unrest and ethnic conflicts. It requires in those situations where we must counter it, and these are the kinds of challenges that will be before us in the next decade if freedom is to be saved, a whole new kind of strategy, a wholly different kind of force, and therefore a new and wholly different kind of military training." John Kennedy   "The question is: Why were young Germans so taken with Agnoli's critique of parliamentarianism, a critique which had its roots—both in terms of content and biography—in Fascism. And why we disregarded the warnings of Richard Löwenthal, Ralf Dahrendorf and others. And why today no one knows that 1968 was the year in which the most Nazi war crime trials were held in the history of the Federal Republic, and the most life sentences handed down. Thirty huge trials ended in 1968, and 23 life sentences were issued. Also close to 3,000 new investigations were launched in 1968. But the student movement didn't talk about those things. There were no teach-ins about them, no articles about them published in the periodicals of the radical left. There was open talk about Treblinka, Sobibor, Belzec, Auschwitz, Sachsenhausen. Articles about these matters appeared in the newspapers every day, and about the attempted gassings by the Reichskriminalpolizei. The students weren't interested." Götz Aly   "Unless the mass of the population has the spending power there is no possibility of wealth in a mechanical civilization. A vast, penniless slave population may be necessary for wealth where there are no mass production machines, but it is preposterous with mass production machines. You find such a real proletariat in China still; it existed in the great cities of the ancient world; but you do not find it in America, which has gone furtherest in the direction of mechanical industry, and there is no grain of reason in supposing it will exist in the future." Herbert George Wells