„We wear the clothes and embrace the forms of democracy. Are they worth anything? We don't know yet. But we do know one thing. We know it for sure. That some of the largest and most civilized nations of Europe have discarded those clothes and have acquired new ones. Did they get rid of them forever? Other nations are doing their best to dispose of them and to get new ones also. Why? Have all nations gone mad? Are the Rumanian politicians the only wise men in the world? Somehow I doubt it.“

„There is one thing, and only one, in the whole universe which we know more about than we could learn from external observation. That one thing is Man. We do not merely observe men, we are men. In this case we have, so to speak, inside information; we are in the know.“

—  Clive Staples Lewis, книга Mere Christianity

Book I, Chapter 4, "What Lies behind the Law"
Mere Christianity (1952)

„News reports don't change the world. Only facts change it, and those have already happened when we get the news.“

—  Friedrich Dürrenmatt Swiss author and dramatist 1921 - 1990

„The last 60 years have seen collapse of many democracies. For a poor country, it is more difficult to sustain a democracy. From poverty, we have come to being a developing nation. Not only did we survive, we have the distinction of becoming world’s largest democracy.“

—  Arun Jaitley Indian politician 1952 - 2019

On the occasion of the Indian Parliament completing 60 years, as quoted in " Democracy is behind our growing global stature says PM http://www.abplive.in/india-news/democracy-is-behind-our-growing-global-stature-says-pm-153064", ABP Live (13 May 2012)

„Each of us, face to face with other men, is clothed with some sort of dignity, but we know only too well all the unspeakable things that go on in the heart.“

—  Luigi Pirandello Italian dramatist, novelist, short story writer, and poet, Nobel Prize for Literature laureate 1867 - 1936

Источник: Six Characters in Search of an Author and Other Plays

„We are only seeking Man. We have no need of other worlds. We need mirrors. We don't know what to do with other worlds.“

—  Stanisław Lem, книга Solaris

Источник: Solaris (1961), Ch. 6: "The Little Apocrypha", p. 72
Контексте: We are only seeking Man. We have no need of other worlds. We need mirrors. We don't know what to do with other worlds. A single world, our own, suffices us; but we can't accept it for what it is. We are seaching for an ideal image of our own world: we go in quest of a planet, of a civilisation superior to our own but developed on the basis of a prototype of our primeval past. At the same time, there is something inside us which we don't like to face up to, from which we try to protect ourselves, but which nevertheless remains, since we don't leave Earth in a state of primal innocence. We arrive here as we are in reality, and when the page is turned and that reality is revealed to us — that part of our reality which we would prefer to pass over in silence — then we don't like it any more.

„Why is one of the most important words in any language. You have to know why the world is the way it is or you have to want to know. If you do not have this curiosity and if you do not have the intelligence in order to be able to express this curiosity in terms that others can understand than we will not be able to contribute to progress in our world.“

—  Aung San Suu Kyi State Counsellor of Myanmar and Leader of the National League for Democracy 1945

Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought Acceptance Speech (2013)
Контексте: Why is one of the most important words in any language. You have to know why the world is the way it is or you have to want to know. If you do not have this curiosity and if you do not have the intelligence in order to be able to express this curiosity in terms that others can understand than we will not be able to contribute to progress in our world. How many of our people over these past few decades ever ask themselves why that had to submit to the authority of people who did not have the mandate of the general public. I do not think very many did. It was taken for granted that those who had power and authority could do exactly as they please. This was something that we could not accept.

„Without the body and the mind, as all men know, the Nation could not live. But if the spirit of America were killed, even though the Nation's body and mind, constricted in an alien world, lived on, the America we know would have perished.“

—  Franklin D. Roosevelt 32nd President of the United States 1882 - 1945

1940s, Third Inaugural Address (1941)
Контексте: But it is not enough to achieve these purposes alone. It is not enough to clothe and feed the body of this Nation, and instruct and inform its mind. For there is also the spirit. And of the three, the greatest is the spirit. Without the body and the mind, as all men know, the Nation could not live. But if the spirit of America were killed, even though the Nation's body and mind, constricted in an alien world, lived on, the America we know would have perished.

„We didn't have a chance to form the world we were born into. Now we have the opportunity to make a new one.“

—  Jane Roberts American Writer 1929 - 1984

Источник: The Rebellers (1963), p. 129

„Do you not think that there are things which you cannot understand, and yet which are, that some people see things that others cannot? But there are things old and new which must not be contemplated by men's eyes, because they know, or think they know, some things which other men have told them.“

—  Bram Stoker, книга Dracula

Professor Van Helsing to Dr. Seward
Dracula (1897)
Контексте: You reason well, and your wit is bold, but you are too prejudiced. You do not let your eyes see nor your ears hear, and that which is outside your daily life is not of account to you. Do you not think that there are things which you cannot understand, and yet which are, that some people see things that others cannot? But there are things old and new which must not be contemplated by men's eyes, because they know, or think they know, some things which other men have told them. Ah, it is the fault of our science that it wants to explain all, and if it explain not, then it says there is nothing to explain. But yet we see around us every day the growth of new beliefs, which think themselves new, and which are yet but the old, which pretend to be young, like the fine ladies at the opera.

„We have modernized and ennobled the concept of democracy. With us it means definitely the rule of the people, in accordance with its origin. We have given the principle of Socialism a new meaning. … Never have we left anyone in doubt that National-Socialism is not for export. … We do not aim at world domination, but we do intend to defend our country, and it is our new conceptions which give us the inexhaustible and ever-renewed strength to do so.“

—  Joseph Goebbels Nazi politician and Propaganda Minister 1897 - 1945

On National-Socialism, Bolshevism & Democracy (September 10, 1938) http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/joseph-goebbels-on-national-socialism-bolshevism-and-democracy
1930s

„What I know is that those who risked their lives to earn the pleasure of God are real men. They managed to rid the Islamic nation of disgrace. We hold them in the highest esteem.“

—  Osama bin Laden founder of al-Qaeda 1957 - 2011

In response to the interviewer stating: 'Do you know the men who have been arrested for these attacks?'
1990s, Time magazine interview (1998)

„We are one, we are all brothers and sisters, but the people of the world do not know this.“

—  Donovan Scottish singer, songwriter and guitarist 1946

Контексте: We are one, we are all brothers and sisters, but the people of the world do not know this. So this was the teaching, but how do you teach it? As young people, John Lennon, George Harrison, myself, Carlos Santana and other spiritual seekers in pop music, we wanted to know the answer but we found a question: How do you convince the rest of the western world that they are ill, they are mentally ill, that they have a sickness and that they have lost the way? How do you teach that? You cannot teach that in the normal sense. You have to encourage a spiritual call, so we devoted ourselves to making songs which would have a spiritual call inside of them, hoping to awaken an awareness with this music. And other people in the arts felt the same...

„Similar sentiments have hitherto prevailed among all orders and denominations of men among us. To all general purposes we have uniformly been one people; each individual citizen everywhere enjoying the same national rights, privileges, and protection. As a nation we have made peace and war: as a nation we have vanquished our common enemies: as a nation we have formed alliances, and made treaties, and entered into various compacts and conventions with foreign States.“

—  John Jay, Federalist Papers

1780s, The Federalist Papers, Federalist No. 2 (1787)

„The truth of life is that every year we get farther away from the essence that is born within us. We get shouldered with burdens, some of them good, some of them not so good. Things happen to us. Loved ones die. People get in wrecks and get crippled. People lose their way, for one reason or another. It's not hard to do, in this world of crazy mazes. Life itself does its best to take that memory of magic away from us. You don't know it's happening until one day you feel you've lost something but you're not sure what it is. It's like smiling at a pretty girl and she calls you "sir."“

—  Robert McCammon, книга Boy's Life

It just happens.
Introduction.
Boy's Life (1991)

„We’re ashamed of what we are. That’s why we feel that we have to get rid of the values of our glorious history and run to learn from other, new nations. Don’t I look to you like a man of the world? Don’t I speak to the leading businessmen in the world? And it’s no problem that I’m a Jew, and a proud Jew who wears a skullcap everywhere. That’s my symbol and my identity.“

—  Lev Leviev Soviet-born Israeli businessman, philanthropist and investor 1956

Interview, Jewish Chronicle, 7 March 2008 http://thejc.com/home.aspx?AId58607&ATypeId1&searchtrue2&srchstrLev%20leviev&srchtxt1&srchhead1&srchauthor1&srchsandp1&scsrch0

„To really belong, we have got, first, to get it clear with ourselves that we do not belong and do not want to belong to an unfree world. As free men and women we have got to reject much of it and to know why we are rejecting it.“

—  C. Wright Mills American sociologist 1916 - 1962

Источник: Letters & Autobiographical Writings (1954), p. 187.

„Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends.“

—  Henry David Thoreau 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist 1817 - 1862

„When we buy new clothes not to keep ourselves warm but to look "well-dressed" we are not providing for any important need. We would not be sacrificing anything significant if we were to continue to wear our old clothes, and give the money to famine relief. By doing so, we would be preventing another person from starving. It follows from what I have said earlier that we ought to give money away, rather than spend it on clothes which we do not need to keep us warm. To do so is not charitable, or generous. Nor is it the kind of act which philosophers and theologians have called "supererogatory"“

—  Peter Singer Australian philosopher 1946

an act which it would be good to do, but not wrong not to do. On the contrary, we ought to give the money away, and it is wrong not to do so.
Famine, Affluence, and Morality http://www.utilitarian.net/singer/by/1972----.htm, 1972.

„How can we furnish bread to the Armenians when we can't get enough for our own people? I know that they are suffering and that it is quite likely that they cannot get bread at all this coming winter. But we have the utmost difficulty in getting flour and clothing right here in Constantinople.“

—  İsmail Enver Turkish military officer and a leader of the Young Turk revolution 1881 - 1922

Quoted in "The Armenians, from Genocide to Resistance: From Genocide to Resistance" - Page 82 - by Gérard Chaliand, Yves Ternon - Social Science – 1983.