text:
Golden Rule

The Golden Rule or ethic of reciprocity is an ethical directive which has been expressed in many moral maxims which essentially state that "one should treat others as you want to be treated", or that "one should not treat others in ways that one would not like to be treated" (in this form it is also known as "the Silver Rule").

Quotes

 * Variant expressions of the Golden Rule, in order of historical appearance

 * ab alterō expectēs quod alterī fēceris
 * Publilius Syrus Sententiae
 * :לֹא-תִקֹּם וְלֹא-תִטֹּר אֶת-בְּנֵי עַמֶּךָ, וְאָהַבְתָּ לְרֵעֲךָ כָּמוֹךָ, אֲנִי יְהוָה
 * οὐκ ἐκδικᾶταί σου ἡ χείρ, καὶ οὐ μηνιεῖς τοῖς υἱοῖς τοῦ λαοῦ σου, καὶ ἀγαπήσεις τὸν πλησίον σου ὡς σεαυτόν
 * You shall not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of your people, and you shall love your friend/neighbor as yourself, I am the Lord.
 * כְּאֶזְרָח מִכֶּם יִהְיֶה לָכֶם הַגֵּ֣ר הַגָּ֣ר אִתְּכֶם וְאָהַבְתָּ֥ לוֹ֙ כָּמוֹךָ כִּֽי־גֵרִים הֱיִיתֶם בְּאֶרֶץ מִצְרָיִם אֲנִי יְהוָ֥ה אֱלֹהֵיכֶֽם׃
 * Like a native from among you shall the stranger who sojourns with you be for you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt, I am the Lord your God.
 * Leviticus 19:18 and 19:34
 * Ἐὰν ἃ τοῖς ἄλλοις ἐπιτιμῶμεν, αὐτοὶ μὴ δρῶμεν
 * Avoid doing what you would blame others for doing.
 * Thales, as quoted in The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers by Diogenes Laërtius

 * 己所不欲，勿施於人.
 * What you do not want others to do to you, do not do unto others.
 * Confucius, in Analects (c. 500 BCE), XV:24

 * That character is best that doesn't do to another what isn't good for itself" and "Don't do to others what isn't good for you.
 * Zoroaster, Persia (c. 500 BC), Iː36

 * Universal love is to regard another's state as one's own. A person of universal love will take care of his friend as he does of himself, and take care of his friend's parents as his own. So when he finds his friend hungry he will feed him, and when he finds him cold he will clothe him.
 * Mo Tzu, China (Book of Mozi), ch. 4, c. 479-438 BC

 * ἃ πάσχοντες ὑφʹ ἑτέρων ὀργίζεσθε, ταῦτα τοὺς ἄλλους μὴ ποιεῖτε.
 * What thou thyself hatest, do to no man.
 * Isocrates, 3.61

 * ὃ μισεῖς, μηδενὶ ποιήσῃς
 * Never do to anyone else anything that you would not want someone to do to you.
 * Tobit 4:15

 * न तत्परस्य संदध्यात्प्रतिकूलं यदात्मनः। एष संक्षेपतो धर्मः कामादन्यः प्रवर्तते ॥
 * na tat parasya saṁdadhyāt pratikūlaṁ yad ātmanaḥ. eṣa saṁkṣepato dharmaḥ kāmād anyaḥ pravartate.
 * One should never do that to another which one regards as injurious to one’s own self. This, in brief, is the rule of dharma. Other behavior is due to selfish desires.
 * Mahabharata, Anushasana Parva 113:8

 * Ἐρωτηθεὶς πῶς ἂν τοῖς φίλοις προσφεροίμεθα, ἔφη, « ὡς ἂν εὐξαίμεθα αὐτοὺς ἡμῖν προσφέρεσθαι. »
 * The question was once put to Aristotle how we ought to behave to our friends; and his answer was, "As we should wish them to behave to us."
 * Diogenes Laertius, The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers Vː21

 * ὅσα ἐὰν θέλητε ἵνα ποιῶσιν ὑμῖν οἱ ἄνθρωποι, οὕτως καὶ ὑμεῖς ποιεῖτε αὐτοῖς
 * Do to others whatever you would like them to do to you. This is the essence of all that is taught in the law and the prophets.
 * Jesus, as quoted in the Matthew 7:12

 * καθὼς θέλετε ἵνα ποιῶσιν ὑμῖν οἱ ἄνθρωποι, καὶ ὑμεῖς ποιεῖτε αὐτοῖς ὁμοίως.
 * As you would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise.
 * Jesus, in Luke 6:31 (KJV)
 * As ye will that men do to you, and do ye to them in like manner.
 * As translated by John Wycliffe (1389)

 * πάντα δὲ ὅσα ἐὰν θελήσῃς μὴ γίνεσθαί σοι, καὶ σὺ ἄλλῳ μὴ ποίει.
 * All things whatsoever that thou wouldst not wish to be done to thee, do thou also not to another.
 * The Didache, or Teaching of the Twelve Apostles (c. 135 CE), 1.2 (or 1.5 in the Joseph Barber Lightfoot translation)

 * What you shun enduring yourself, don't impose on others. You shun slavery - beware of enslaving others!
 * Epictetus, ex-slave and Stoic

 * דעלך סני לחברך לא תעביד. זו היא כל התורה כולה, ואידך פירושה הוא: זיל גמור
 * D'`alakh s'nai l'khavrekh la ta`avaid. Zo hi kol hatora kulahh, ve'idakh perusha hu: zil g'mor
 * That which is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. That is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation. Go and study it.
 * Hillel the Elder, as quoted in the Talmud (c. 200 CE), Shabbat 31a

 * None of you is a true believer unless he wishes for his brother what he wishes for himself.
 * Muhammad, Hadith (Bukhari 1:2:12, Muslim 1:72f, and An-Nawawi 13

 * Whatever I wish for myself, I am to wish for another; and whatever I do not wish for myself or for my friends, I am not to wish for another. This injunction is contained in God's words: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'
 * Maimonides, Sefer Hamitzvot (positive commandment 208), c.1200

 * Each one should do unto others as he would have others do unto him.
 * Manco Cápac, Inca leader in Peru c. 1200 (Wattles 1996: 192)

 * Do as ye wald be done to.
 * David Ferguson, Scottish Proverbs (1641)

 * Do not that to another, which thou wouldest not have done to thyself.
 * This is that law of the Gospel; whatsoever you require that others should do to you, that do ye to them.
 * Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (1651)

 * My duty towards my neighbor is to love him as myself, and to do to all men as I would they should do unto me.
 * catechism in The Book of Common Prayer (1662)

 * ...bonum quod unusquisque qui virtutem sectatur, sibi appetit, reliquis hominibus etiam cupiet.
 * The good, which each follower of virtue seeks for himself, he will desire also for others.
 * Baruch Spinoza, Ethica (1667), Part 4, Prop. XXXVII, as translated by R. H. M. Elwes

 * Quod malum tibi fieri nolles, à faciendo illud alteri ipse debes abstinere, quoad fieri potest absque tertii alicujus injuria.
 * The evil that you do not wish done to you, you ought to refrain from doing to another, so far as may be done without injury to some third person.
 * Henry More, Enchiridion Ethicum (1667), Chap. 4, Noema XV

 * If a man any ways doubt whether what he is going to do to another man be agreeable to the law of nature, then let him suppose himself to be in that other man's room.
 * John Wise, in A Vindication of the Government of New England Churches (1717)

 * Fais aux autres ce que tu voudrais qu'ils te fassent dans les mêmes circonstances.
 * Do unto others as you would have others do unto you in like case.
 * Peter Kropotkin, La Morale Anarchiste (1891)

 * To do, as one would be done by, and to love one's neighbor as one's self, constitute the ideal perfection of utilitarian morality.
 * John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism (1863)

 * Reason shows me that if my happiness is desirable and a good, the equal happiness of any other person must be equally desirable.
 * Henry Sidgwick, in The Methods of Ethics (1874)

 * Learn to treat others in the way that you want to be treated.
 * Silo, in Silo's Message (2008), The Path

Quotes about the Golden Rule

 * Jesus offers his disciples a simple rule of thumb which will enable even the least sophisticated of them to tell whether his intercourse with others is on the right lines or not. All he need do is to say “I” instead of “Thou,” and put himself in the other man’s place.
 * Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Nachfolge (1937), The Cost of Discipleship (1959), p. 188

 * The golden rule is a good standard which can perhaps even be improved by doing unto others, wherever possible, as they would be done (unto)...
 * Karl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies, Vol. 2 (1966 [1945]), p. 386

 * [No one should] find the Golden Rule surprising in any way because at its base lies the foundation of most human interactions and exchanges and it can be found in countless texts throughout recorded history and from around the world — a testimony to its universality.
 * Michael Shermer, The Science of Good and Evil (2004)

 * No matter how much and often it is betrayed and violated, the “Golden Rule” remains a moral standard theoretically valid for all human beings, be they religious or not. …This Rule is defined as made of gold because it grants, if observed and implemented, true justice, hence unlimited peace. …Its secret is quite simple. No one of us wants to suffer evil. If others are expected to do to us what we do to them, to suffer no evil it is then enough to avoid doing evil. It is so simple in theory that it is difficult in practice. Probably this is why an elementary principle like this needs a divine book to be taught time and again.
 * Marco Respinti, "Whatsoever Ye Would That Men Should Do to You, Do Ye Even So to Tai Ji Men", Bitter Winter (February 2024)

 * When you treat others as you want them to treat you, you liberate yourself.
 * Silo, in Silo's Message (2008) The Book, Chapter XIIIː Principles, Principle 10

 * We make a growing commitment to follow the rule that reminds us to treat others as we want to be treated.
 * Silo, in Silo's Message (2008), The Experience, Recognition Ceremony

 * ... if we are to adhere to the Golden Rule, we should give especially high priority to the alleviation of the extreme suffering of others.
 * Magnus Vinding, Suffering-Focused Ethics: Defense and Implications (2020), p. 99

 * It is often mistakenly held that the key concept of Jesus' ethic is the "Golden Rule": "do unto others as you would have them do unto you." This is stated by Jesus, however, not as the sum of his own teaching but as the center of the law (Mark 12:28-29, Matt. 22:40, citing Lev. 19:15). But Jesus' own "fulfillment" of this thrust of the law, which thereby becomes through his own work a "new commandment" (John 13:34, 15:12, 1 John 2:18) is different, "Do as I have done to you" or "do as the Father did in sending his Son."
 * John Howard Yoder, The Politics of Jesus (1972), p. 119

The following quotes are often taken as equivalent to the golden rule, but in fact they are not:

 * Sic cum inferiore vivas quemadmodum tecum superiorem velis vivere.
 * Treat your inferiors as you would be treated by your superiors.
 * Seneca the Younger, in the Epistle 47, line 11

 * An it harm none, do as thou wilt.
 * Anonymous,, also rendered: "Do what thou will but harm none."

In literature and popular culture

 * Do not do unto others as you would that they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same.
 * George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman, Maxims for Revolutionists

 * The golden rule is that there are no golden rules.
 * George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman, Maxims for Revolutionists

 * What has become of the Golden Rule? It exists, it continues to sparkle, and is well taken care of. It is Exhibit A in the Church's assets, and we pull it out every Sunday and give it an airing...It is strictly religious furniture, like an acolyte, or a contribution-plate, or any of those things. It is never intruded into business; and Jewish persecution is not a religious passion, it is a business passion.
 * Mark Twain, "Concerning the Jews" (March 1898)

 * Ralph: When she put two potatoes on the table, one big one and one small one, you immediately took the big one without asking me what I wanted.
 * Norton: What would you have done?
 * Ralph: I would have taken the small one, of course.
 * Norton: You would?
 * Ralph: Yes, I would.
 * Norton: So, what are you complaining about? You got the small one!
 * The Honeymooners, as quoted in The Science of Good and Evil : Why People Cheat, Gossip, Care, Share, and Follow the Golden Rule (2004) by Michael Shermer

 * "Do unto others as you'd have them do unto you" is the greatest phrase ever written. If everyone followed that creed, this world would be a paradise.
 * Stan Lee

title: Golden Rule


text:
Adam and Eve

Adam and Eve, according to the Creatio ex nihilo ("creation out of nothing") myth of the Abrahamic religions, were the first man and woman. They are central to the belief that humanity is in essence a single family, with everyone descended from a single pair of original ancestors. They also provide the basis for the doctrines of the fall of man and original sin that are important beliefs in Christianity, although not held in Judaism or Islam.

Quotes

 * When Adam dalf and Eve span, go spire – if thou may spede – Where was than the pride of man that now marres his mede?
 * When Adam delved and Eve spun, go ask – if you may succeed – Where then was the pride of man, which now deprives him of his reward?
 * "When Adam dalf and Eve span", line 1, in The Oxford Book of Medieval English Verse (1970) edited by Celia Sisam and Kenneth Sisam p. 617, translation, p. 404
 * Anonymous, sometimes attributed to Richard Rolle; adapted by John Ball during the Peasants' Revolt as "When Adam dalf, and Eve span, who was thanne a gentilman".

 * “Adam knew Eve his wife and she conceived.” It is a pity that this is still the only knowledge of their wives at which some men seem to arrive.
 * F. H. Bradley, Aphorisms, no. 94 (1930).

 * Adam was created with two bodies, one of which was cut away from him and formed Eve.
 * Michael and Gabriel acted as 'best men' at the nuptials of Adam and Eve. God joined them in wedlock, and pronounced the marriage benediction on them.
 *  8, Tales and Maxims from the Midrash by Rev. Samuel Rapaport, (1907), p. 63

 * The appearance of Adam and Eve, when just formed, was like that of persons of twenty years of age.
 *  14, Tales and Maxims from the Midrash by Rev. Samuel Rapaport, (1907), p. 66

 * The builder mixes a thick sand with a thinner one in the mortar, by which contrivance the latter becomes very strong and the building more substantial.
 * Ibid., p. 67

 * Oh, but of course the story of Adam and Eve was only ever symbolic, wasn't it? Symbolic?! So Jesus had himself tortured and executed for a symbolic sin by a non-existent individual? Nobody not brought up in the faith could reach any verdict other than "barking mad". (Part 2, 00:30:25)
 * Richard Dawkins, The Root of All Evil? (January 2006), Part 2: "The Virus Of Faith".

 * Adam blamed Eve, Eve blamed the serpent and the serpent didn't have a leg to stand on.
 * Charles R. Gerber, in Healing for a Bitter Heart: Releasing the Power of Forgiveness

 * Had Adam tenderly reproved his wife, and endeavored to lead her to repentance instead of sharing in her guilt, I should be much more ready to accord to man that superiority which he claims; but as the facts stand disclosed by the sacred historian, it appears to me that to say the least, there was as much weakness exhibited by Adam as by Eve. They both fell from innocence, and consequently from happiness, but not from equality.
 * Sarah Grimké, Letters on the Equality of the Sexes and the Condition of Woman (1838), no. 1.

 * The Lord made Adam, the Lord made Eve, he made ‘em both a little bit naive.
 * Yip Harburg, “The Begat,” Finian’s Rainbow (1947).

 * Eve was not taken out of Adam's head to top him, neither out of his feet to be trampled on by him, but out of his side to be equal with him, under his arm to be protected by him, and near his heart to be loved by him.
 * Mathew Henry, in Happy Spouse-- Happy House: The Best Game Plan for a Winning Marriage, p. 119

 * When Eve upon the first of Men The apple press’d with specious cant, Oh! what a thousand pities then That Adam was not adamant!
 * Thomas Hood, in The Routledge Dictionary of Religious & Spiritual Quotations, p. 84

 * None of us can boast about the morality of our ancestors. The record does not show that Adam and Eve were ever married.
 * Edgar Watson Howe, in- Family Stories and Myths (Revised), p. 8

 * When our first parents were driven out of Paradise, Adam is believed to have remarked to Eve: "My dear, we live in an age of transition".
 * W.R. Inge, in World Wide Agora, p. 22

 * Without the Christian explanation of original sin, the seemingly silly story of Adam and Eve and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, there was no explanation of conflict. At all.
 * Don Miller, Blue Like Jazz (2003).

 * The first pages of memory are like the old family Bible. The first leaves are wholly faded and somewhat soiled with handling. But, when we turn further, and come to the chapters where Adam and Eve were banished from Paradise, then, all begins to grow clear and legible.
 * Max Muller, in Memories: A Story of German Love, p. 21

 * The true unconscious is the well-head, the fountain of real motivity. The sex of which Adam and Eve became conscious derived from the very God who bade them be not conscious of it.
 * D. H. Lawrence, Psychoanalysis and the Unconscious, ch. 1 (1921).

 * That was the birth of sin. Not doing it, but KNOWING about it. Before the apple, [Adam and Eve] had shut their eyes and their minds had gone dark. Now, they peeped and pried and imagined. They watched themselves.
 * D. H. Lawrence, “Nathaniel Hawthorne and ‘The Scarlet Letter’,” Studies in Classic American Literature, ch. 7 (1923).

 * All mankind is from Adam and Eve, an Arab has no superiority over a non-Arab nor a non-Arab has any superiority over an Arab; also a white has no superiority over black nor a black has any superiority over white except by piety and good action. You know that every Muslim is the brother of another Muslim. Remember, one day you will appear before Allah and answer for your deeds. So beware, do not astray from the path of righteousness after I am gone.
 * Muhammad The Last Sermon of Muhammad delivered on the Ninth Day of Dhul Hijjah 10 A.H (c. 630 AD)
 * Yet for all this reverence, the Bible is one long celebration of violence. In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. And the Lord God took one of Adam’s ribs, and made he a woman. And Adam called his wife’s name Eve; because she was the mother of all living. And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain. And she again bare his brother Abel. And Cain talked with Abel his brother: and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him. With a world population of exactly four, that works out to a homicide rate of 25 percent, which is about a thousand times higher than the equivalent rates in Western countries today.
 * Steven Pinker, The Better Angels of Our Nature (2012)

 * The Bible depicts a world that, seen through modern eyes, is staggering in its savagery. People enslave, rape, and murder members of their immediate families. Warlords slaughter civilians indiscriminately, including the children. Women are bought, sold, and plundered like sex toys. And Yahweh tortures and massacres people by the hundreds of thousands for trivial disobedience or for no reason at all. These atrocities are neither isolated nor obscure. They implicate all the major characters of the Old Testament, the ones that Sunday-school children draw with crayons. And they fall into a continuous plotline that stretches for millennia, from Adam and Eve through Noah, the patriarchs, Moses, Joshua, the judges, Saul, David, Solomon, and beyond. According to the biblical scholar Raymund Schwager, the Hebrew Bible “contains over six hundred passages that explicitly talk about nations, kings, or individuals attacking, destroying, and killing others. . . . Aside from the approximately one thousand verses in which Yahweh himself appears as the direct executioner of violent punishments, and the many texts in which the Lord delivers the criminal to the punisher’s sword, in over one hundred other passages Yahweh expressly gives the command to kill people.” Matthew White, a self-described atrocitologist who keeps a database with the estimated death tolls of history’s major wars, massacres, and genocides, counts about 1.2 million deaths from mass killing that are specifically enumerated in the Bible. (He excludes the half million casualties in the war between Judah and Israel described in 2 Chronicles 13 because he considers the body count historically implausible.) The victims of the Noachian flood would add another 20 million or so to the total. The good news, of course, is that most of it never happened. Not only is there no evidence that Yahweh inundated the planet and incinerated its cities, but the patriarchs, exodus, conquest, and Jewish empire are almost certainly fictions. Historians have found no mention in Egyptian writings of the departure of a million slaves (which could hardly have escaped the Egyptians’ notice); nor have archaeologists found evidence in the ruins of Jericho or neighboring cities of a sacking around 1200 BCE. And if there was a Davidic empire stretching from the Euphrates to the Red Sea around the turn of the 1st millennium BCE, no one else at the time seemed to have noticed it.
 * Steven Pinker, The Better Angels of Our Nature (2012)

 * Ever since Eve gave Adam the apple, there has been a misunderstanding between the sexes about gifts.
 * Nan Robertson, New York Times (November 28, 1957).

 * The first idea was not our own. Adam In Eden was the father of Descartes And eve made air the mirror of herself, Of her sons and of her daughters.
 * Wallace Stevens, It Must Be Abstract, part IV.

 * Adam and Eve, according to the fable, wore the bower before other clothes. Man wanted a home, a place of warmth, or comfort, first of physical warmth, then the warmth of the affections.
 * Henry David Thoreau, Walden (1854).

 * It all began with Adam. He was the first man to tell a joke — or a lie. How lucky Adam was. He knew when he said a good thing, nobody had said it before. Adam was not alone in the Garden of Eden, however, and does not deserve all the credit; much is due to Eve, the first woman, and Satan, the first consultant.
 * Mark Twain, Notebook (1867).

 * Adam was but human — this explains it all. He did not want the apple for the apple's sake, he wanted it only because it was forbidden. The mistake was in not forbidding the serpent; then he would have eaten the serpent.
 * Mark Twain, Pudd'nhead Wilson (1894).

 * Whoever has lived long enough to find out what life is, knows how deep a debt of gratitude we owe to Adam, the first great benefactor of our race. He brought death into the world.
 * Mark Twain, Pudd'nhead Wilson (1894).

 * Adam and Eve had many advantages but the principal one was, that they escaped teething.
 * Mark Twain, Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar (1894).

 * Let us be thankful to Adam our benefactor. He cut us out of the 'blessing' of idleness and won for us the 'curse' of labor.
 * Mark Twain, Following the Equator, Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar (1897).

 * Adam and Noah were ancestors of mine. I never thought much of them. Adam lacked character. He couldn't be trusted with apples. Noah had an absurd idea that he could navigate without any knowledge of navigation, and he ran into the only shoal place on earth.
 * Mark Twain, Speech, November 9, 1901. Reported in The New York Times, November 10, 1901.

 * Adam, man's benefactor — he gave him all he has ever received that was worth having — Death.
 * Mark Twain Notebook (1902-1903).

 * After all these years, I see that I was mistaken about Eve in the beginning; it is better to live outside the Garden with her than inside it without her.
 * Mark Twain, Extracts from Adam's Diary (1904).

 * Adam's temperament was the first command the Deity ever issued to a human being on this planet. And it was the only command Adam would never be able to disobey. It said, "Be weak, be water, be characterless, be cheaply persuadable." The later command, to let the fruit alone, was certain to be disobeyed. Not by Adam himself, but by his temperament — which he did not create and had no authority over.
 * Mark Twain, "The Turning Point of my Life", §3, Harper's Bazar, February 1910, as reprinted in Essays and Sketches of Mark Twain (1995), ed. Stuart Miller, ISBN 1566198798.

 * It is and has always been God’s intention that we should live in friendship and harmony. That was the point of the story of the Garden of Eden, where there was no bloodshed, not even for religious sacrifice. The lion and the lamb gamboled together and all were vegetarian. Then the primordial harmony that was God’s intention for all God’s creation was shattered and a fundamental brokenness infected the entire creation. Human beings came to be at loggerheads, blaming one another and being at one another’s throats. They were alienated from their Maker. Now they sought to hide from the God who used to stroll with them in the garden. Creation was now “red in tooth and claw.” Where there had been friendship, now we experienced enmity. Humans would crush the serpent’s head before it bruised their heels. This story is the Bible’s way of telling a profound existential truth in the form of highly imaginative poetry.
 * Desmond Tutu, No Future Without Forgiveness (1999).

Bible

 * The Bible on Wikiquote

 * And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.
 * Genesis 2:21-25 (KJV)

 * God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
 * Genesis 1:27 (KJV)

And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden. And the Lord God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou? And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself. And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat? And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat. And the Lord God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.
 * When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat. And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.
 * Genesis, Ch. 3:6-13 (KJV)

 * Adam called his wife's name Eve; because she was the mother of all living. Unto Adam also and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins, and clothed them. And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever: Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.
 * Genesis 3:20-24 (KJV)

 * And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the Lord. And she again bare his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground.
 * Genesis 4:1-2 (KJV).

 * And Adam knew his wife again; and she bare a son, and called his name Seth: For God, said she, hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel, whom Cain slew.
 * Genesis 4:25 (KJV).

All Church Humour
Anonymous

 * The story of Adam and Eve takes a lot of believing. It’s probably just a rib.
 * In p. 11

 * The Bible says that the last thing God made was Eve. He must have made her on Saturday night – it shows fatigue.
 * In p. 11

 * Surely God must have been disappointed in Adam: He made Eve so different.
 * In p. 11

 * After several days absence from the Garden of Eden, Adam returned to find the lonely Eve sulking and suspicious of his actions. “Really, now darling”, said Adam, “How could you possibly be jealous of me? Don’t you realize that I am the first man and you’re the first woman – the only two humans in existence There just are'nt any others”. Yes, I know replied Eve. Still... Adam was finally able to soothe his wife and soon they both drifted off to sleep. In the midst of the wee dark hours of morning, Eve arose from her sleep, pulled the bearskin covering off Adam and then counted his ribs!
 * In p. 12

 * In the Garden of Eden sat Adam, Disporting himself with his madam, She was filled with elation, For in all of creation, There was only one man – and she had’m.
 * In p. 12

 * An Englishman, a Frenchman, and a Russian were arguing about the nationality of Adam and Eve. “They must have been English”, declares the Englishman. "Only a gentleman would share his last apple with a woman.” ”They were undoubtedly French", says, the Frenchman. “Who else could seduce a woman so easily?” "I think they were Russians", says the Russian. "After all, who else could walk stark-naked, feed on one apple between the two of them and think they are in Paradise?"
 * In p. 12

 * Devil was more generous than Adam, That never laid the fault upon his madam But like a gallant and heroic self, Took freely all the crime upon Himself.
 * In p. 12

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Adam and Eve


text: User:Bjtitus~enwikiquote

title: User:Bjtitus~enwikiquote


text:
Clive Barker

Clive Barker (born 5 October 1952) is an English playwright, author, film director, and visual artist. His novels include The Great and Secret Show, Weaveworld, and Imajica. His films include Hellraiser, Nightbreed, and Lord of Illusions.

Quotes

 * Non-fiction contains facts, fiction contains truth.
 * Next Testament (Boom Studios, 2014)

 * By and large, horror fiction is the most difficult to domesticate because part of the point is that it's one step ahead – or behind – everybody else's taste. And I'm not really convinced I'd like it to change. There's something very healthy about horror fiction being always a little bit on the outside. It's the wild-dog genre.
 * The Advocate (Feb. 21, 1995)

 * Every body is a book of blood; Wherever we're opened, we're red.
 * Clive Barker's Books of Blood

 * Flesh is our indisputable commonality. Whatever our race, our religion, our politics we are faced every morning with the fact of our bodies. Their frailties, their demands, their desires. And yet the erotic appetites that spring from - and are expressed through - those bodies, are so often a source of bitter dissension and division. Acts that offer a glimpse of transcendence to one group are condemned by another. We are pressured from every side - by peers, by church, by state - to accept the consensual definition of taboo; though so often what excites our imaginations most is the violation of taboo.
 * Introduction to "One Flesh" exhibition, April 4-27, 1997

 * If we have nothing to do but service our own pleasure – because society has taught us that's all we're worth and we're exiled from positions of authority from which we could actually shape society – then we just become hedonists. Eventually, despite how great it may look on Saturday night, come Monday morning there's just purposelessness.
 * The Advocate (Feb. 21, 1995)

 * I was a weird little kid. I was very irritable, bored, frustrated. I felt my imagination bubbling inside my head without having any way to express itself. Given a crayon and paper, I would not draw a train or a house. I would draw these monsters, beasts and demons.
 * Gigaplex's interview, 1995

 * I've held a brain in my hands, which is an extraordinary experience.
 * Gigaplex's interview, 1995

 * Memory, prophecy and fantasy the past, the future and the dreaming moment between are all one country, living one immortal day. To know that is Wisdom.  To use it is the Art.
 * The Great and Secret Show

 * Movies are much more fascist than books. They tell you what to feel, when to feel it. Popular movies manipulate you. Music tells you when it's a sad part and when it's a happy part. You're obliged to watch them at the speed the filmmaker has created for you. That, I think, is one of the reasons why they're so popular - because you don't have to think very hard. The filmmaker has done all the thinking for you.
 * "Clive Barker: Love, Death, & the Whole Damned Thing", Locus (1995)

 * One of the reasons why I don't get on with most fantasy writing - enchanted sword fantasy writing - is because I think it's emotionally untrue. People behave in very simple ways, unparadoxical ways. What I'm trying to do is bring into fantasy - as I hope I've been able to bring to horror - a certain kind of emotional realism. People have mentioned sex as being a major part of my fiction. An awful lot of horror fiction simply never contained that kind of material. Which seems to me to be extraordinary because most horror fiction is about the body in some way or other, and therefore it should be about sensuality and eroticism every bit as much as it's about corruption.
 * Writer's Digest, March 1991

 * The fact that Pinhead is a character that audiences want to watch, that women find sexy, that people have tattooed on their own bodies, I think, is perfectly extraordinary, and I'm incredibly pleased about it. I don't think an analysis of what he does in the movies ever completely illuminates the charm that the guy has.
 * "A Living 'Hellraiser'", The Daily Bruin, Thursday, May 7, 1992

 * The monsters act out our rage. They act on their worst impulses, which is appealing to a certain part of us. They get punished for it, but we've enjoyed the spectacle of their liberation.
 * The Advocate (Feb. 21, 1995)

 * The paintings of Francis Bacon to my eye are very beautiful. The paintings of Bosch or Goya are to my eye very beautiful. I've also stood in front of those same paintings with people who've said, "let's get on to the Botticellis as soon as possible." I have lingered, of course.
 * American Heroes #174

 * Writing a book is like masturbation, and making a movie is like an orgy.
 * Gigaplex's interview, 1995

 * Your average game show host on TV, for instance, doesn't believe himself to be banal. He actually thinks that he's quite interesting. And if you look at the viewing figures, so do an enormous number of people in this country.
 * American Heroes #174

 * We are all our own graveyards I believe; we squat amongst the tombs of the people we were. If we're healthy, every day is a celebration, a Day of the Dead, in which we give thanks for the lives that we lived; and if we are neurotic we brood and mourn and wish that the past was still present.
 * Foreword: Books of Blood 1-3

 * Here is a list of fearful things: The jaws of sharks, a vulture's wings, The rabid bite of the dog's of war, The voice of one who went before. But most of all the mirror's gaze, which counts us out our numbered days.
 * Abarat, Book One

 * Life is short, and pleasures few, and holed the ship, and drowned the crew, But O! But O! How very blue the sea is!
 * Abarat, Book One

(1987)

 * All page numbers from the hardcover first American edition published by Poseidon Press

BOOK ONE: IN THE KINGDOM OF THE CUCKOO

 * Nothing ever begins. There is no first moment; no single word or place from which this or any other story springs. The threads can always be traced back to some earlier tale, and to the tales that preceded that: though as the narrator’s voice recedes the connections will seem to grow more tenuous, for each age will want the tale told as if it were of its own making. Thus the pagan will be sanctified, the tragic become laughable; great lovers will stoop to sentiment, and demons dwindle to clockwork toys. Nothing is fixed. In and out the shuttle goes, fact and fiction, mind and matter woven into patterns that may have only this in common: that hidden amongst them is a filigree which will with time become a world. It must be arbitrary then, the place at which we chose to embark. Somewhere between a past half forgotten and a future as yet only glimpsed.
 * Part One “Wild Blue Yonder”, Chapter i “Homing”, Section 1 (p. 19; opening words)

 * Lilia sighed. “Why me?” she said, still shaking. “Why should I have to tell it?” “Because you’re the best liar,” Jerichau replied with a tight smile. “You can make it true.”
 * Part Three “The Exiles”, Chapter ii “Walking in the Dark” (p. 123)

 * “Believe nothing,” Apolline advised. “This woman wouldn’t know the truth if it fucked her.”
 * Part Three “The Exiles”, Chapter iii “What She Told” (p. 124)

 * Among their members were some of the wealthiest individuals in the world; between them, fortunes sufficient to trade in nations. None of the seven had a name that would have meant anything to the hoi polloi—they were, like the truly mighty, anonymously great.
 * Part Three “The Exiles”, Chapter ix “On the Might of Princes” (pp. 156-157)

BOOK TWO: THE FUGUE

 * True joy is a profound remembering; and true grief the same.
 * Part Five “Revels”, Chapter i “Cal, Among Miracles” (p. 199)

 * “And us?” said the Hag. “What happens to us then? Will we be free?” “That’s what we agreed.” “We can go into extinction?” “If that’s what you want.” “More than anything,” said the Hag. “More than anything.” “There are worse things than existence,” said Immacolata. “Oh?” the Hag replied. “Can you name one?” Immacolata thought for a short while. “No,” she conceded, with a soft sigh of distress. “You may be right, sister.”
 * Part Five “Revels”, Chapter iv “Allegiances”, Section 1 (p. 210)

 * Of course, there was Hobart. The Inspector was probably insane, but that was all to the good. And he had one particular aspiration which Shadwell knew he might one day need to turn to his own ends. That was, to lead—as Hobart put it—a righteous crusade.
 * Part Six “Back Among the Blind Men”, Chapter v “Our Lady of the Bones”, Section 1 (p. 272)

 * ...Take this all of you and eat it. This is my body which will be given up for you... Old words; old rituals. But they still made sound commercial sense. Talk of Power and Might would always attract an audience. Lords never went out of fashion.
 * Part Six “Back Among the Blind Men”, Chapter v “Our Lady of the Bones”, Section 2 (p. 273)

 * It was absurd and frustrating, to feel so much and know so little.
 * Part Seven “The Demagogue”, Chapter vi “Hello, Stranger”, Section 2 (p. 306)

 * Perhaps there was a natural process at work here; a means by which the mind dealt with experiences that contradicted a lifetime’s prejudices about the nature of reality. People simple forgot.
 * Part Seven “The Demagogue”, Chapter vi “Hello, Stranger”, Section 2 (p. 307)

 * “Shadwell?” said Suzanna. “Their beloved Prophet,” came the reply. “Beneath that show of holiness I lent him there beats a salesman’s heart.” So Shadwell was the Prophet. What a perfect irony, that the seller of encyclopedias should end up peddling hope. “It was his idea,” said the Incantatrix, “to give them a Messiah. Now they’ve got a righteous crusade, as Hobart calls it. They’re going to claim their promised land. And destroy it in the process.” “They won’t fall for this.” “They already have, sister. Holy wars are easier to start than rumors among your Kind or mine. They believe every sacred word he tells them, as though their lives depended upon it. Which in a sense they do. They’ve been conspired against and cheated—and they’re ready to tear the Fugue apart to get their hands on those responsible. Isn’t that perfect? The Fugue’ll die at the very hands of those who’ve come to save it.” “And that’s what Shadwell wants?” “He’s a man: he wants adoration.”She gazed over Suzanna’s shoulder toward the unweaving, and the Salesman, still in its midst. “And that’s what he’s got. So he’s happy.”
 * Part Seven “The Demagogue”, Chapter x “Fatalities”, Section 1 (p. 321)

 * Shadwell threw down his gun, and—though he had no taste for abattoirs—forced himself to survey the carnage before him. It was, he knew, the responsibility of one aspiring to godhood never to look away. Willful ignorance was the last refuge of humanity, and that was a condition he would soon have transcended. And, when he studied the scene, it wasn’t so unbearable. He could look at the tumble of corpses and see them for the empty sacks they were.
 * Part Eight “The Return”, Chapter iii “The Horse Unharnessed”, Section 2 (p. 344)

 * What the enemy believed of you was probably true, or else why were you enemies in the first place?
 * Part Eight “The Return”, Chapter v “Nonesuch”, Section 2 (p. 353)

 * Life and wisdom. What more could anybody ask?
 * Part Eight “The Return”, Chapter viii “The Essential Dragon” (p. 373)

 * Godhood called, and he went, fleet-footed, to worship at his own altar.
 * Part Eight “The Return”, Chapter xiii “A Fleeting Glimpse”, Section 1 (p. 402)

 * What can be imagined— —need never be lost.
 * Part Nine “Into the Gyre”, Chapter iii “The Miracle of the Loom” (p. 429; catchphrase frequently repeated)

 * He would be vigilant, but he would anticipate nothing, neither disaster nor revelation. That was not to say he would give up looking to the future. True, he was just a Cuckoo: scared and weary and alone. But so, in the end were most of his tribe: it didn’t mean all was lost. As long as they could still be moved by a minor chord, or brought to a crisis of tears by scenes of lovers reunited; as long as there was room in their cautious hearts for games of chance, and laughter in the face of God, that must surely be enough to save them, at the last. If not, there was no hope for any living thing.
 * Part Nine “Into the Gyre”, Chapter v “A Fragile Peace”, Section 3 (p. 440)

BOOK THREE: OUT OF THE EMPTY QUARTER

 * She told him she made a rule of never marrying bankers. The next day he sent flowers, and a note saying that he’d relinquished his profession.
 * Part Eleven “The Dream Season”, Chapter ii “Representations”, Section 2 (p. 479)

 * As to the remnants of his army—those Seerkind who’d embraced the Prophet’s visions—they’d been the authors of their own punishment, waking from their evangelical nightmare to find it had destroyed all they held dear.
 * Part Eleven “The Dream Season”, Chapter ii “Representations”, Section 2 (p. 479)

 * Suzanna didn’t wait for confirmation. There was no use disbelieving the worst now.
 * Part Eleven “The Dream Season”, Chapter iv “The Shrine of the Mortalities”, Section 3 (p. 494)

 * So he believes. The truth may be more...complex.
 * Part Eleven “The Dream Season”, Chapter iv “The Shrine of the Mortalities”, Section 3 (p. 494)

 * Always the sightseers: open-mouthed, disbelieving. There was a force for desolation loose in their midst which could consume their lives at a glance, surely they could see that? But they’d watch anyway, willing to embrace the void if it came with sufficient razzmatazz.
 * Part Eleven “The Dream Season”, Chapter v “The Naked Flame”, Section 4 (p. 502)

 * There was such sanity in his voice; a politician’s sanity, as he sold his flock the wisdom of the bomb. This soulless certainty was more chilling than hysteria or malice.
 * Part Eleven “The Dream Season”, Chapter vi “Death Comes Home”, Section (p. 507)

 * “Don’t be sentimental,” he chided. “Memories aren’t enough.” It was fruitless to argue the niceties of that: he was telling her that he was in pain; he didn’t want platitudes or metaphysics.
 * Part Twelve “Stalking Paradise”, Chapter i “A Chapter of Accidents”, Section 4 (p. 517)

 * “Don’t worry,” he told her. “Me?” she said. “I never worry. It’s all going to end badly whether I worry or not.”
 * Part Thirteen “Magic Night”, Chapter ii “Shelter from the Storm”, Section 2 (p. 553)

 * “Are you coming?” he said. “In a moment.” “It’s now or never.” Maybe it would be never, then. She was so transfixed by the formidable power being unleashed in front of her, she couldn’t avert her astonished gaze. It fascinated her that strength of this magnitude should be turned to the sordid business of atrocity; something was wrong with a reality that made that possible, and offered no cure for it, nor hope of cure.
 * Part Thirteen “Magic Night”, Chapter iv “Symmetry”, Section 2 (p. 569)

About Barker

 * ...I have seen the future of implausible plotting, and his name is Clive Barker.
 * Roger Ebert, reviewing Barker's film Hellraiser, The Chicago Sun Times, September 18, 1987

 * I have seen the future of horror and his name is Clive Barker.
 * Stephen King, as quoted by Richard Harrington, reviewing Barker's film 'Hellraiser, The Washington Post, September 19, 1987

title: Clive Barker