text:
Ward Churchill

Ward LeRoy Churchill (born October 2, 1947) is an American writer and activist. He was a professor of ethnic studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder prior to being fired for academic misconduct. He filed a lawsuit against the University of Colorado for this decision, claiming that he was wrongfully dismissed in response to his political views; this case was dismissed by the Colorado Supreme Court. He has written over twenty books and hundreds of essays.

Quotes

 * White domination is so complete that even American Indian children want to be cowboys. It's as if Jewish children wanted to play Nazis.
 * Fantasies of the Master Race, 1992

 * I hear Republicans and Libertarians and so forth talking about property rights, but they stop talking about property rights as soon as the subject of American Indians comes up, because they know fully well, perhaps not in a fully articulated, conscious form, but they know fully well that the basis for the very system of endeavor and enterprise and profitability to which they are committed and devoted accrues on the basis of theft of the resources of someone else. They are in possession of stolen property. They know it. They all know it. It's a dishonest endeavor from day one.
 * in Z Magazine, vol. 8 (1995), p. 32

 * As to those in the World Trade Center… True enough, they were civilians of a sort. But innocent?… They formed a technocratic corps at the very heart of America's global financial empire—the "mighty engine of profit" to which the military dimension of U.S. policy has always been enslaved—and they did so both willingly and knowingly.… If there was a better, more effective, or in fact any other way of visiting some penalty befitting their participation upon the little Eichmanns inhabiting the sterile sanctuary of the twin towers, I'd really be interested in hearing about it.
 * "Some People Push Back: On the Justice of Roosting Chickens" Pockets of Resistance no. 27 (September 12, 2001).

 * People have a bad habit of blaming the victims. [Sarcastically] Damn Jews! If hadn't been for them the Nazis wouldn't have exterminated 'em all!
 * "Pacifism and Pathology in the American Left," speech in Oakland, California (16 November 2001)

 * And why, by the way, did it take Arabs to do what people here should have done a long time ago?
 * Discussion at the Seattle Independent Media Center, August 10, 2003

 * You carry the weapon. That's how they don't see it coming. You're the one. They talk about 'color blind or blind to your color.' You said it yourself. You don't send the Black Liberation Army into Wall Street to conduct an action. You don't send the American Indian Movement into downtown Seattle to conduct an action. Who do you send? You. With your beard shaved, your hair cut close and wearing a banker's suit. There's probably a whole lot more to it, you know that, but there is where you start. Who carries the front-end? Why is it always people of color carrying the weight on this, when people who are much more proximate in terms of acceptability to the centers of power, professing solidarity and principled nonviolence on the one hand, and critiquing the practice of those who are carrying the weight on the other. Why is that?
 * Discussion at the Seattle Independent Media Center, August 10, 2003

 * Your first thought was, "Oh shit, that plays right into what they want to do to us." Well, then, welcome to the club. Welcome to the club along with 565,000 Iraqi children who were systematically starved, and denied medical attention, to death, in less than 10 years, while Madeleine Albright goes on television, on 60 Minutes no less, receives the number, says, "Yes, I've heard it, we've decided it's worth the cost." Welcome to the club with the rest of the world, a little bit. I don't care if it plays into the hands of what they had in mind for you, unless you're doing something tangible to make it stop, what's already being done to those people on the receiving end. Why should you be exempt and immune? So, instead of "Oh shit", "Right on".
 * Discussion at the Seattle Independent Media Center, August 10, 2003

 * Among the worst examples is that of the Alberni Indian Residential School where, during the 1920s, children caught "talking Indian" suffered the hideous ordeal of having sewing needles pushed through their tongues.
 * Churchill's source:
 * Churchill's source:

 * Mel H. Buffalo, an advisor to the Samson [Cree] band in Hobbema, Alberta, reported that "every Indian person I've spoken to who attended these schools has a story of mental, physical or sexual abuse to relate."
 * Churchill's source:
 * Churchill's source:

 * Insofar as the genocide embodied in residential schooling arises as an integral aspect of colonialism, then colonialism must be seen as constituting that source... To be in any way an apologist for colonialism is to be an active proponent of genocide.

 * By 1970, approximately two-thirds of the marriages of those on the tribal rolls were to people who were not, with the result that only 59 percent of births reflected a situation in which both parents registered themselves as possessing any Indian blood at all; U.S. Dept. of Health, Education and Welfare, A Study of Selected Socio-Economic Characteristics of Ethnic Minorities Based on the 1970 Census, Vol. 3: American Indians (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1974) pp. 74, 78. For effects in terms of the "blood quantum" criteria by which native identity is officially defined in the U.S., see Thorton, American Indian Holocaust and Survival, pp. 174-5. The implications are clear: "Set the blood quantum at one-quarter, hold to it as a rigid definition of Indians, let intermarriage proceed as it [has] and eventually Indians will be defined out of existence"; Patricia Nelson Limerick, The Legacy of Conquest; The Unbroken Past of the American West (New York; W.W. Norton, 1987) p. 338.

 * Would you render the same level of support to someone who hadn't conscientiously objected, but rather instead rolled a grenade under their line officer in order to neutralize the combat capacity of their unit? … Conscientious objection removes a given piece of the cannon fodder from the fray; fragging an officer has a much more impactful effect.
 * Denver Post (30 June 2005) "CU prof defends military remarks" by Jim Kirksey and Amy Herdy; Churchill said in a followup conversation, "I neither advocated nor suggested to anyone, anything. I asked them to think about where they stood on things."

 * I retract nothing. What I said has been validated beyond my wildest expectations, to tell you the truth, so let's just say that I rest my case. A lot of people were outraged by my remark, of course, but … the people upset were the fucking Eichmanns. Look in the mirror and own it, guys. You identified yourselves by frothing at the mouth for being called by your right name.
 * Huffington Post (10 November 2011) "Professor Rights Group Condemns CU-Boulder Firings Of Ward Churchill, Phil Mitchell In New Report" by Matt Ferner

title: Ward Churchill


text:
Steven Spielberg

Steven Allan Spielberg, KBE (born December 18, 1946) is an American filmmaker. A three-time Academy Award winner, Spielberg is also the most financially successful motion picture director of all time.

Quotes

 * There is no such thing as science fiction, there is only science eventuality.
 * The Making of Jurassic Park

 * Failure is inevitable. Success is elusive.
 * OM

 * I love Rambo but I think it's potentially a very dangerous movie. It changes history in a frightening way.
 * Rolling Stone

 * Oh, torture. Torture. My pubic hairs went gray.
 * Rolling Stone

 * The most expensive habit in the world is celluloid, not heroin, and I need a fix every few years.
 * Time, 1979

 * I dream for a living.
 * Time (July 15, 1985)

 * Godzilla was the most masterful of all dinosaur movies because it made you believe it was really happening.
 * The Making of Jurassic Park (Pg. 15)

 * I interviewed survivors, I went to Poland, saw the cities and spent time with the people and spoke to the Jews who had come back to Poland after the war and talked about why they had come back.
 * The Making of Schindler's List

 * People have forgotten how to tell a story.
 * "Science Fiction in Steven Spielberg’s Suburbia" by Chris Hodenfield, Rolling Stone, January 26, 1978

 * Watching violence in movies or TV programs stimulates the spectators to imitate what they see much more than if seen live or on TV news. In movies, violence is filmed with perfect illumination, spectacular scenery, and in slow motion, making it even romantic. However, in the news, the public has a much better perception of how horrible violence can be, and it is used with objectives that do not exist in the movies.
 * In an interview by the Brazilian magazine Veja (1993). Spielberg adds that so far he has not permitted his young son to watch some of his well-known movies (Jaws, the Indiana Jones series) because of the amount of blood and violence shown.

Quotes about Spielberg

 * I couldn't retire if I hadn't done The Psychiatrist, one thing that was absolutely right! I was a last-minute choice. I hadn't read the script when I came on the set. But I watched Spielberg directing — this kid, this infant in a cowboy hat — and I knew after five minutes we had something. You get so distrustful in this business that you get to expect nothing from a director. If he leaves you alone, he's a good director. But to find one like Spielberg who really brings a scene to life, who genuinely contributes — it makes you want to cry. It's like being an orphan all your life who is suddenly adopted.
 * , recalling the experience of working with Spielberg on the final episode of the short-lived NBC series, The Psychiatrist; as quoted in "A Career Switch for Joan Darling" by Cecil Smith, The Los Angeles Times (January 3, 1973)

 * Spielberg has been ridiculed for shooting his actors from below against impossibly Spielbergian skies and a denouement that lays the love on copiously. But there’s nothing simpleminded about how he uses movie magic, as a spell to dispel nihilism, to save us from the worst of ourselves by summoning up the best.
 * David Edelstein, in a review of War Horse, in "Many Happy Returns" in New York Magazine (December 23, 2011)

 * [Steven Spielberg's films] are comforting, they always give you answers and I don't think they're very clever answers. … The success of most Hollywood films these days is down to fact that they're comforting. They tie things up in nice little bows and give you answers, even if the answers are stupid, you go home and you don't have to think about it. … The great filmmakers make you go home and think about it.
 * Terry Gilliam Interview to TCM comparing the work of Steven Spielberg and Stanley Kubrick (2009)

 * I think there's a side of me that's trying to compete with Lucas and Spielberg — I don't usually admit this publicly — because I tend to think that they only go so far, and their view of the world is rather simplistic. What I want to do is take whatever cinema is considered normal or successful at a particular time and play around with it — to use it as a way of luring audiences in.
 * Terry Gilliam IMDB profile

 * Steven's films are marked most importantly by a faith in our common humanity. His stories have shaped America's story, and his values have shaped our world.
 * Barack Obama, as quoted in "Steven Spielberg has 'shaped America's story', says President Obama", The Telegraph (5 November 2015)

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

title: Steven Spielberg


text:
User:Marcin Otorowski~enwikiquote

Hi, my name is Marcin Otorowski, and I'm 19-year old student from the I Secondary School in Szczecin, Poland.

My contributions include Titanic (ship) and the arcticles connected with it. So far I have written only in Polish, but I am going to write English soon.

Please visit my Polish wikiuser page (link on the left).

pl:Wikipedysta:Marcin Otorowski

title: User:Marcin Otorowski~enwikiquote


text:
Bhagavad Gita

The Bhagavad Gita (Sanskrit in Devanagari script: भगवद्गीता, in transliteration: Bhagavad Gītā) is a 700-verse, 18-chapter religious text within the Mähābhāräŧä, located in the Bhisma Parva chapters 25–42. A core text of Hinduism and Indian philosophy, often referred to simply as "the Gita", it is a summation of many aspects of the Vedic, Yogic, Vedantic and Tantric philosophies. The Bhagavad Gita, meaning "Song of the Lord", refers to itself as an 'Upanishad' and is sometimes called Gīŧöpänïšäđ. During the message of the Gita, Krishna proclaims that he is an Avatar, or a Bhagavat, an appearance of the all-embracing God. To help Arjuna believe this, he reveals to him his divine form which is described as timeless and leaves Arjuna shaking with awe and fear.

Chapter 1 (Arjuna–Visada yoga)

 * धर्मक्षेत्रे कुरुक्षेत्रे समवेता युयुत्सवः । मामकाः पाण्डवाश्चैव किमकुर्वत संजय ॥
 * dharmakṣetre Kurukṣetre samavetā yuyutsavaḥ māmakāḥ Pāṇḍavāścaiva kimakurvata Sañjaya
 * On the field of justice, the Kuru-field, my men and the sons of Pāndu too [stand] massed together ready for the fight. What, Sanjaya, did they do?
 * Dhritarashtra; Chapter 1, verse 1; Robert Charles Zaehner translation

 * Now seeing the armies of the Pandavas arrayed in battle formation,King Duryodhana, approaching his teacher, spoke these words: Behold these mighty warriors of the sons of Pandu, O Revered Teacher, Arrayed in battle formation by the son of Drupada, your own skillful student.
 * Sanjaya; Chapter 1, verses 2–3; Graham M. Schweig translation

 * [Duryodhana said:] This force of ours guarded by Bhishma is unbounded; although this force, of theirs – guarded by Bhima,  is bounded.
 * Sanjaya; Chapter 1; verse 10; Laurie L. Patton translation

 * Hrishikesha blew the conch shell named Panchajanya and Dhananjaya blew the conch shell named Devadatta. Vrikodara, whose deeds give rise to fear, blew the giant conch shell named Poundra.
 * Sanjaya; Chapter 1, verse 15; Bibek Debroy translation

 * The blowing of these different conchshells became uproarious, and thus, vibrating both in the sky and on the earth, it shattered the hearts of the sons of Dhṛtarāṣṭra.
 * Verse 19, Swami Prabhupada translation, 1972

 * All those for whom i'd want to live it up are here to die
 * Arjuna; Chapter 1, verse 33; Mani Rao translation

 * And even if, because their minds are overwhelmed by greed, they cannot see the evil incurred by destroying one's own family, and the degradation involved in the betrayal of a friend, How can we be so ignorant as not to recoil from this wrong? The evil incurred by destroying one's own family is plain to see, Janardana.
 * Arjuna; Chapter 1, verses 38–39; W. J. Johnson translation

 * What is this crime I am planning, O Krishna? Murder most hateful,Murder of brothers!Am I indeed So greedy for greatness?
 * Arjuna; Chapter 1, verse 45; Swami Prabhavananda and Christopher Isherwood translation

 * If me unresisting, Weaponless, with weapons in their hands Dhritarāshtra's men should slay in battle,That would be a safer course for me.
 * Arjuna; Chapter 1, verse 46; Franklin Edgerton translation

 * Thus speaking Arjuna in the battle Sat down in the box of the car, Letting fall his bow and arrows, His heart smitten with grief.
 * Sanjaya; Chapter 1, verse 47 (the last verse in the chapter); Franklin Edgerton translation

Chapter 2 (Sankhya yoga)

 * My dear Arjuna, how have these impurities come upon you? They are not at all befitting a man who knows the progressive values of life. They do not lead to higher planets, but to infamy. O son of Prtha, do not yield to this degrading impotence. It does not become you. Give up such petty weakness of heart and arise, O chastiser of the enemy.
 * Krishna; Chapter 2, verses 2–3; A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada translation

 * My Lord! How can I, when the battle rages, send an arrow through Bheeshma and Drona, who should receive my reverence?
 * Arjuna; Chapter 2, verse 4; Shri Purohit Swami translation

 * You grieve for those who should not be grieved for; yet you speak wise words.Neither for the dead nor those not dead do the wise grieve.Never was there a time when I did not exist nor you nor these lords of men. Neither will there be a time when we shall not exist; we all exist from now on. As the soul experiences in this body childhood, youth, and old age, so also it acquires another body; the sage in this is not deluded.
 * Krishna; Chapter 2, verses 11–13; Sanderson Beck translation

 * The senses, moving toward their appropriate objects, are producers of heat and cold, pleasure and pain, which come and go and are brief and changeable; these do thou endure, O son of Bharata!
 * Krishna; Chapter 2, verse 14; Charles Wilkins

 * As you put on fresh new clothes and take off those you've worn, You'll replace your body with a fresh one, newly born.
 * Krishna; Chapter 2, verse 22; Carl E. Woodham

 * Swords cut him not, nor may fire burn him, O son of Bharata, waters wet him not, nor dry winds parch. He may not be cut nor burned nor wet nor withered; he is eternal, all-present, firm, unshaken, everlasting. He is called unmanifest, unimaginable, unchanging; therefore, knowing him thus, deign not to grieve!
 * Krishna; Chapter 2, verses 23–25; Charles Johnston

 * One sees This as a wonder; another speaks of This as a wonder; another hears of This as a wonder; yet, having heard none understands This at all!
 * Krishna; Chapter 2, verse 29; Swami Chinmayananda commentary

 * Either slain thou shalt go to heaven; or victorious thou shalt enjoy the earth. Therefore arise, O Son of Kuntī (Arjuna), resolved on battle.
 * Krishna; Chapter 2, verse 37; Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan translation

 * You are only entitled to the action, never to its fruits. Do not let the fruits of action be your motive, but do not attach yourself to nonaction.
 * Krishna; Chapter 2, verse 47; Lars Martin Fosse translation

 * The wise, engaged in devotional service, take refuge in the Lord, and free themselves from the cycle of birth and death by renouncing the fruits of action in the material world. In this way they can attain that state beyond all miseries.
 * Krsna, Text 51, Swami Prabhupada translation, ISKCON, 1972

 * When your intelligence has passed out of the dense forest of delusion, you shall become indifferent to all that has been heard and all that is to be heard.
 * Krsna, Text 52, Swami Prabhupada translation, ISKCON, 1972

 * When your mind is no longer disturbed by the flowery language of the Vedas, and when it remains fixed in the trance of self-realization, then you will have attained the Divine consciousness.
 * Krsna, Text 53, Swami Prabhupada translation, ISKCON, 1972

 * When your intellect transcends the mire of delusion, then you will attain to disgust of what has been heard and what is yet to be heard. When, perplexed by what you have heard, you stand immovable in samadhi, with steady intellect, then you will attain yoga.
 * Krishna; Chapter 2, verses 52–53; Jeaneane D. Fowler translation

 * When one's mind dwells on the objects of Senses, fondness for them grows on him, from fondness comes desire, from desire anger. Anger leads to bewilderment, bewilderment to loss of memory of true Self, and by that intelligence is destroyed, and with the destruction of intelligence he perishes
 * Krishna; Chapter 2, verses 62–63

 * To him [the Sage], what seemeth the bright things of day to the mass, are known to be the things of darkness and ignorance—and what seemeth dark as night to the many, he seeth suffused with the light of noonday.
 * Krishna; Chapter 2, verse 69; Yogi Ramacharaka edition

Chapter 3 (Karma yoga)

 * If thou deemest that (the path of) understanding is more excellent than (the path of) action, O Janardana (Krishna), why then dost thou urge me to do this savage deed, O Kesava (Krishna)?
 * Arjuna; Chapter 3, verse 1; Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan translation

 * Not by not acting in this world does one become free from action, nor does one approach perfection by renunciation only. Not even for a moment does someone exist without acting. Even against one’s will, one acts by the nature-born qualities.
 * Krishna; Chapter 3, verses 4–5; Gavin Flood and Charles Martin translation

 * From food come forth beings; from rain food is produced; from sacrifice arises rain, and sacrifice is born of action. Know you that action comes from BRAHMAJI (the Creator) and BRAHMAJI come from the Imperishable. Therefore, the all-pervading BRAHMAN (God-principle) ever rests in sacrifice.
 * Krishna; Chapter 3, verses 14–15; Swami Chinmayananda commentary

 * Not for me, partha, is there any duty in the three worlds, nor anything to attain that is unattained;and I am always at work.
 * Krishna; Chapter 3, verse 22; Ramesh Menon translation

 * All actions are performed by the gunas of prakriti. Deluded by identification with the ego, a person thinks, "I am the doer."
 * Krishna; Chapter 3, verse 27; Eknath Easwaran translation

 * One's own duty, even if imperfectly performed, is better than being done by other even if well performed. Death in (performance of) one's own duty is preferable. (The adoption of) the duty of another carries fear (with it).
 * Krishna; Chapter 3, verse 35; Kisari Mohan Ganguli translation

Chapter 4 (Gyaana–Karma-Sanyasa yoga)

 * I explained this eternal science of yoga to Vivasvān. Vivasvān shared it with Manu, then Manu imparted it to Ikṣvāku. This science was taught and handed down in succession, but in time it was broken and the science of yoga seems to be lost.
 * Krishna; Chapter 4, verses 1–2; The Times of India

 * Although I am unborn and My transcendental body never deteriorates, and although I am the Lord of all sentient beings, I still appear in every millennium in My original transcendental form. Whenever and wherever there is a decline in religious practice, O descendant of Bharata, and a predominant rise of irreligion — at that time I descend Myself. In order to deliver the pious and to annihilate the miscreants, as well as to reestablish the principles of religion, I advent Myself millennium after millennium.
 * Krishna; Verses 6, 7, & 8.  Swami Prabhupada translation (1972)

 * Whensoever there is the fading of the Dharma and the uprising of unrighteousness, then I loose myself forth into birth. For the deliverance of the good, for the destruction of the evil-doers, for the enthroning of the Right, I am born from age to age.
 * Krishna; Chapter 4, verses 7–8; Sri Aurobindo translation

 * However men try to reach me, I return their love with my love; whatever path they may travel, it leads to me in the end.
 * Krishna; Chapter 4, verse 11; Stephen Mitchell translation

 * The four divisions of human order were created by me according to differences in quality, activities, and aptitude; although the creator of this, know me as the non-doer being immutable.
 * Krishna; Chapter 4, verse 13; Bhagavad-Gita Trust translation (1998)

 * Depending upon the distribution of the three attributes or guṇas and actions, I have created the four castes. Yet, I am to be known as the non-doer, the unchangeable.
 * Krishna; Chapter 4, verse 13; as translated by Paramahamsa Nithyananda (2011) translation

 * Works do not stain me, nor in me is there longing for fruit of works; who recognizes this to be my state, he is not bound by works.
 * Krishna; Chapter 4, verse 14; W. Douglas P. Hill translation

 * For verily (the true nature) of 'right action' should be known; also (that) of 'forbidden (or unlawful) action' and of 'inaction'; imponderable is the nature (path) of action. He who recognises inaction in action and action in inaction is wise among men; he is a YOGI and a true performer of all actions.
 * Krishna; Chapter 4, verses 17–18; Swami Chinmayananda commentary

 * Kill therefore with the sword of wisdom the doubt born of ignorance that lies in thy heart. Be one in self-harmony, in Yoga, and arise, great warrior, arise.
 * Krishna; Chapter 4, verse 42 (the last verse in the chapter); Juan Mascaró translation

Chapter 5 (Karma–Sanyasa yoga)

 * You commend, O Krishna, the renunciation of action and you also praise yoga. Tell me definitely which is the better of the two.
 * Arjuna; Chapter 5, verse 1; B. Srinivasa Murthy translation

 * Both renunciation and the yoga of action lead to the supreme good. But of these two, performance of action is superior to the renunciation of action.
 * Krishna; Chapter 5, verse 2; B. Srinivasa Murthy translation

 * He is unaffected by Karma, although engaged in action, who has yoked himself to the way of Yoga, whose mind is purified, whose self has triumphed and whose senses have been subdued, and whose self has, indeed, become the self of all beings. Although acting he remains unaffected by Karma.
 * Krishna; Chapter 5, verse 7; C. Rajagopalachari translation

 * The humble sages, by virtue of true knowledge, see with equal vision a learned and gentle brahmana, a cow, an elephant, a dog and a dog-eater [outcaste].
 * Krishna; Chapter 5, verse 18;  translation source with commentary

 * As enjoyments, born of contacts (with external objects), have a beginning and an end, they become the cause of unhappiness. The wise man, O Kaunteya! does not find happiness in them.
 * Krishna; Chapter 5, verse 22; Bal Gangadhar Tilak translation (The original, B. G. Tilak translation is in Marathi, whose English translation is by Bhalchandra Sitaram Sukthankar; published for Tilak Brothers by D. J. Tilak & S. S. Tilak under the title "Gita Rahasya": B. G. Tilak, 13th edition)

Chapter 6 (Dhyan yoga or Atmasanyam yoga)

 * To the sage who wishes to rise to devotion, action is said to be a means, and to him, when he has risen to devotion, tranquillity is said to be a means.
 * Krishna; Chapter 6, verse 3; Kashinath Trimbak Telang translation

 * Use the atman to raise the atman. Do not lower the atman. The atman is the atman’s friend and the atman is the atman’s enemy. The atman, which has been used to conquer the atman, is the atman’s friend. For someone who has failed to control the atman, the atman harms like an enemy.
 * Krishna; Chapter 6, verses 5–6; Bibek Debroy translation

 * यो मां पश्यति सर्वत्र सर्वं च मयि पश्यति । तस्याहं न प्रणश्यामि स च मे न प्रणश्यति ॥
 * yo māṁ paśyati sarvatra sarvaṁ ca mayi paśyati tasyāhaṁ na praṇaśyāmi sa ca mē na praṇaśyati
 * Who sees Me everywhere, and sees all in Me, him I lose not, nor will he lose Me.
 * Krishna; Chapter 6, verse 30; Charles Johnston translation

 * O Madhusūdana, the mind is an unsteady thing. Hence it is unrealistic to expect evenness out of it as your system of yoga demands. O, Keśava, it is easier to control the wind than to try and control the fickle, unsettling, dominant, and stubborn mind.
 * Arjuna; Chapter 6, verses 33–34; The Times of India translation

 * O strong armed arjuna no doubt the mind's moves are hard to stay you get a grip by practice & undifference
 * Krishna; Chapter 6, verse 35; Mani Rao translation

 * The yogin is greater than the ascetic; he is considered to be greater than the man of knowledge, greater than the man of ritual works, therefore do thou become a yogin, O Arjuna.
 * Krishna; Chapter 6, verse 46; Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan translation

Chapter 7 (Gyaana–ViGyaana yoga)

 * Among thousands of men hardly one strives after perfections; among those who strive hardly one knows Me in truth.
 * Krishna; Chapter 7, verse 3; Mahatma Gandhi translation

 * This divine illusion of Mine, caused by the qualities, is hard to pierce; they who come to Me, they cross over this illusion.
 * Krishna; Chapter 7, verse 14; Annie Besant translation

 * Men without wisdom consider Me, the Unmanifest, as assuming embodiment (like a mortal being taking a form)—not understanding My unsurpassable state, My unchangeable unutterable nature.
 * Krishna; Chapter 7, verse 24; Paramahansa Yogananda translation

 * I am not plain to all, being cloaked by my yogamaya; this foolish world does not know me: un-born, immortal.
 * Krishna; Chapter 7, verse 25; Ramesh Menon translation

 * I know all past and all present and future existences, O Arjuna, but Me none yet knows.
 * Krishna; Chapter 7, verse 26; "Bhagavad Gita and Its Message", by Sri Aurobindo, edited by Anilbaran Roy

Chapter 8 (Aksara–Brahma yoga)

 * Yogis not yet free from the world revolve back again (to the world) even from the high sphere of Brahma (union with God in samadhi). But on entering into Me (the transcendental Spirit) there is no rebirth, O son of Kunti (Arjuna)!
 * Krishna; Chapter 8, verse 16; Paramahansa Yogananda translation

Chapter 9 (Raja–Vidya–Raja–Guhya yoga)

 * As an eon ends, all creatures fold into my nature, Arjuna; and I create them again as a new eon begins. Gathering in my own nature, again and again I freely create this whole throng of creatures, helpless in the force of my nature.
 * Krishna; Chapter 9, verses 7–8; Barbara Stoler Miller translation

 * But those acts do not affect Me, Arjuna – >I am neutral, unattached.
 * Krishna; Chapter 9, verse 9; Purushottama Lal translation

 * For Nature while I supervise gives birth to moving and unmoving, and as this motive-force applies the cosmos is revolving.
 * Krishna; Chapter 9, verse 10; Geoffrey Parrinder translation

 * Fools scorn me when I dwell in human form: my higher being they know not as Great Lord of beings.
 * Krishna; Chapter 9, verse 11; W. Douglas P. Hill translation

 * Even those who are devotees of other gods and sacrifice to them with faith, they too worship me — but in the wrong way
 * Krishana: Chapter 9, verse 15 Doniger, Wendy. On Hinduism (p. 15). Oxford University Press.

 * I take upon Myself the concern for the welfare of those who worship Me with undistracted mind, and have thereby yoked themselves permanently to Divine Spirit.
 * Krishna; Chapter 9, verse 22; C. Rajagopalachari translation

 * For even if the greatest sinner worships me with all his soul, he must be considered righteous, because of his righteous will. And he shall soon become pure and reach everlasting peace. For this is my word of promise, that he who loves me shall not perish.
 * Krishna; Chapter 9, verses 30–31; Juan Mascaró translation

Chapter 10 (Vibhuti–Vistara–yoga)

 * Worlds of flesh and spirit both originate with Me. Sages understand this well and serve me earnestly. My devotees think of Me and serve Me all the time. Speaking of Me makes their lives delightful and sublime.
 * Krishna; Chapter 10, verses 8–9; Carl E. Woodham translation

 * Of the Vrishnis, I am Vasudeva; of the sons of Pandu, Arjuna; of the sages, moreover, I am Vyasa; of poets, the poet Ushana.
 * Krishna; Chapter 10, verse 37; Winthrop Sargeant translation

Chapter 11 (Visvarupa–Darsana yoga)

 * Arjuna said: My illusion is dispelled by Your profound words, that You spoke out of compassion towards me, about the supreme secret of the Self.  O Krishna, I have heard from You in detail about the origin and dissolution of beings, and Your imperishable glory. O Lord, You are as You have said, yet I wish to see Your divine cosmic form, O Supreme Being.  O Lord, if You think it is possible for me to see this, then O Lord of the yogis, show me Your imperishable Self. V. 1, 2, 3 & 4

 * The Supreme Lord said: O Arjuna, behold My hundreds and thousands of multifarious divine forms of different colors and shapes. See the Adityas, the Vasus, the Rudras, the Ashvins, and the Maruts. Behold, O Arjuna, many wonders never seen before. O Arjuna, now behold the entire creation; animate, inanimate, and whatever else you like to see; all at one place in My body. But, you are not able to see Me with your physical eye; therefore, I give you the divine eye to see My majestic power and glory. V. 5-8

 * (Arjuna saw the Universal Form of the Lord) with many mouths and eyes, and many visions of marvel, with numerous divine ornaments, and holding divine weapons. Wearing divine garlands and apparel, anointed with celestial perfumes and ointments, full of all wonders, the limitless God with faces on all sides. If the splendor of thousands of suns were to blaze forth all at once in the sky, even that would not resemble the splendor of that exalted being. Arjuna saw the entire universe, divided in many ways, but standing as (all in) One (and One in all) in the body of Krishna, the God of gods.''' Then Arjuna, filled with wonder and his hairs standing on end, bowed his head to the Lord and prayed with folded hands. V. 10-14

 * Tell me who are You in such a fierce form? My salutations to You, O best of gods, be merciful! I wish to understand You, the primal Being, because I do not know Your mission. V.31

 * Thou seest Me as Time who kills, Time who brings all to doom, The Slayer Time, Ancient of Days, come hither to consume; Excepting thee, of all these hosts of hostile chiefs arrayed, There shines not one shall leave alive the battlefield! Dismayed No longer be! Arise! obtain renown! destroy thy foes! Fight for the kingdom waiting thee when thou hast vanquished those. By Me they fall—not thee! the stroke of death is dealt them now, Even as they stand thus gallantly; My instrument art thou! Strike, strong-armed Prince! at Drona! at Bhishma strike! deal death To Karna, Jyadratha; stay all this warlike breath! ’Tis I who bid them perish! Thou wilt but slay the slain.  Fight! they must fall, and thou must live, victor upon this plane!
 * Krishna; Chapter 11, verses 32–34 (Lines 201–212); Sir Edwin Arnold translation

 * The Supreme Lord said: I am death, the mighty destroyer of the world, out to destroy. Even without your participation all the warriors standing arrayed in the opposing armies shall cease to exist.The Lord said: I am Time, the mighty force which destroys everything, fully Manifesting Myself, I am here engaged in destroying the worlds. Even without you, none of the warriors arrayed in the enemy ranks shall survive.
 * Krishna; Chapter 11, verse 32; Paramahamsa Vishwananda translation

 * Saying thus to Arjuna, Krishna revealed again his own familiar form. Having thus assumed that gentle form, the Exalted One comforted the awe-struck Arjuna over again.
 * Sanjaya; Chapter 11, verse 50; Swami Tapasyananda translation

 * This My form, which you have seen, is very difficult to see. Even the gods always desire to see this form. It is not possible for any one to see Me, as you have seen Me, whether by Vedas, or by austerity, or by charity, or by Yajnās. O Arjuna! only by exclusive devotion, is it possible to thus acquire knowledge of Me, and O Parantapa! to enter Me essentially.
 * Krishna; Chapter 11, verses 52–54; Bal Gangadhar Tilak translation

Chapter 12 (Bhakti yoga)

 * Which is considered to be more perfect, those who are properly engaged in Your devotional service, or those who worship the impersonal Brahman, the unmanifested?
 * Arjuna; Chapter 12, verse 1; A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada translation

 * The Blessed Lord said: Those who, fixing their minds on Me, adore Me, ever united to Me with supreme devotion, are in My eyes the perfect knowers of yoga.
 * Krishna; Chapter 12, verse 2; Paramahamsa Yogananda's translation

 * But those who seek after the indefinable unmanifested, immutable, omnipresent, unthinkable, self-poised, immobile, constant, having subdued all their senses, unprejudiced, intent on the welfare of all beings - they too come to Me alone.
 * Krishna; Chapter 12, verses 3-4; Paramahamsa Vishwananda's translation

 * The difficulty of those who devote themselves to the search of the unmanifested Brahman is greater; it is a think to which embodied souls can only arrive by a constant mortification, a suffering of all the repressed members, a stern difficulty and anguish of the nature.
 * Krishna; Chapter 12, verse 5; Paramahamsa Vishwananda's translation

 * But those who giving up all their actions to Me, and wholly devoted to Me, worship meditating on me with an unswerving Yoga, those who fix on Me all their consciousness, O Paartha, speedily I deliver them out of the sea of death-bound existence.
 * Krishna; Chapter 12, verses 6-7; Paramahamsa Vishwananda's translation

 * On Me repose all your mind and lodge all thy understanding in Me; doubt not that you shall dwell in Me above this mortal existence.
 * Krishna; Chapter 12, verse 8; Paramahamsa Vishwananda's translation

 * And if you are not able to consciousness fixed steadily in Me, then by the Yoga of practice seek after Me, O Arjuna.
 * Krishna; Chapter 12, verse 9; Paramahamsa Vishwananda's translation

 * If you are unable even to seek by practice, then be it your supreme aim to do My work; doing all actions for My sake, you shall attain perfection.
 * Krishna; Chapter 12, verse 10; Paramahamsa Vishwananda's translation

 * But if even this constant remembering of Me and lifting up of your works to Me is felt beyond your power, then renounce all fruit of action with the self-controlled.
 * Krishna; Chapter 12, verse 11; Paramahamsa Vishwananda's translation

 * Verily, wisdom (born from yoga practice) is superior to (mechanical) yoga practice; meditation is more desirable than the possession of (theoretical) wisdom; the relinquishment of the fruits of action is better than (the initial states of) meditation. Renunciation of the fruits of actions is followed immediately by peace.
 * Krishna; Chapter 12, verse 12; Paramahamsa Yogananda's translation

 * He who is free from hatred toward all creatures, is friendly and kind to all, is devoid of the consciousness of "I-ness" and possessiveness; is evenminded in suffering and joy, forgiving, ever contented; a regular yoga practitioner, constantly trying by yoga to know the Self and to unite with Spirit, possessed of firm determination, with mind and discrimination surrendered to Me - he is My devotee, dear to Me.
 * Krishna; Chapter 12, verse 13-14; Paramahamsa Yogananda's translation

 * A person who does not disturb the world and who cannot be disturbed by the world, who is free from exultation, jealousy, apprehension, and worry - he too is dear to Me.
 * Krishna; Chapter 12, verse 15; Paramahamsa Yogananda's translation

 * He who is free from worldly expectations, who is pure in body and mind, who is ever ready to work, who remains unconcerned with and unafflicted by circumstances, who has forsaken all ego initiated desireful undertakings - he is My devotee, dear to Me.
 * Krishna; Chapter 12, verse 16; Paramahamsa Yogananda's translation

 * He who feels neither rejoicing not loathing toward the glad nor the sad (aspects of phenomenal life), who is free from grief and cravings, who has banished the relative consciousness of good and evil, and who is intently devout - he is dear to Me.
 * Krishna; Chapter 12, verse 17; Paramahamsa Yogananda translation

 * He who is tranquil before friend and foe alike, and in encountering adoration and insult, and during the experiences of warmth and chill and of pleasure and suffering; who has relinquished attachment, regarding blame and praise in the same light; who is quiet and easily contented, not attached to domesticity, and of calm disposition and devotional - that person is dear to Me.
 * Krishna; Chapter 12, verse 18-19; Paramahamsa Yogananda translation

 * But those who adoringly pursue this undying religion (dharma) as heretofore declared, saturated with devotion, supremely engrossed in Me - such devotees are extremely dear to Me.
 * Krishna; Chapter 12, verse 20; Paramahamsa Yogananda translation

Chapter 13 (Ksetra–Ksetrajna Vibhaga yoga)

 * This body, O Kaunteya, is called the Field; he who knows it is called knower of the Field by those who know. And understand Me to be, O Bharata, the knower of the Field in all the Fields; and the knowledge of the Field and the knower of the Field, I hold, is true knowledge.
 * Krishna; Chapter 13, verses 1–2; Mahatma Gandhi translation

 * O Arjuna! The Supreme Self, having no beginning, (no ending,) and no attributes, even though it dwells in a body (as a realized master), neither acts nor is touched by any action.
 * Krishna; Chapter 13, verse 31; Swami Kriyananda edition

Chapter 14 (Gunatraya–Vibhaga yoga)

 * Those who live in Sattva go upwards; those in rajas remain where they are. But those immersed in tamas sink downwards. The wise see clearly that all action is the work of the gunas. Knowing that which is above the gunas, they enter into union with me.
 * Krishna; Chapter 14, verses 18–19; Eknath Easwaran translation

Chapter 15 (Purusottama yoga)

 * There is a fig tree In ancient story, The giant Aswattha, The everlasting, Rooted in heaven, Its branches earthward: Each of its leaves Is a song of the Vedas, And he who knows it Knows all the Vedas.
 * Krishna; Chapter 15, verse 1; Swami Prabhavananda and Christopher Isherwood translation

 * It is I who remain seated in the heart of all creatures as the inner controller of all; and it is I who am the source of memory, knowledge and the ratiocinative faculty. Again, I am the only object worth knowing through the Vedas; I alone am the origin of Vedānta and the knower of the Vedas too.
 * Krishna; Chapter 15, verse 15; Gita Press translation (code: 1658)

 * There are two Beings (Purushas) in the cosmos, the destructible and the indestructible. The creatures are the destructible, the Kutastha is the indestructible. But there exists Another, the Highest Being, designated the "Supreme Spirit"—the Eternal Lord who, permeating the three worlds, upholds them.
 * Krishna; Chapter 15, verses 16–17; Paramahansa Yogananda translation

 * Since I am wholly beyond the perishable world of matter or Ksetra, and am superior even to the imperishable soul, Jivatma, hence I am known as the Purushottama, the Supreme Self, in the world as well as in the Vedas.
 * Krishna; Chapter 15, verse 18; Gita Press translation

Chapter 16 (Daivasura–Sampad–Vibhaga yoga)

 * These cruel and wretched haters, the vilest of men, I continually cast into demoniac wombs in mortal worlds. Fallen into demoniac wombs, deluded birth after birth, O son of Kunti, they, instead of attaining to Me, tread the lowest path.
 * Krishna; Chapter 16, verses 19–20; Jogindranath Mukharji translation, first published in 1900 under the title Young Men's Gita.

 * Hell has three gates – lust, anger, and greed; for your own sake, Arjuna, give up these three.
 * Krishna; Chapter 16, verse 21; Purushottama Lal translation

Chapter 17 (Sraddhatraya-Vibhaga yoga)

 * Pure men worship the Shining Ones; the passionate the gnomes and giants; the others, the dark folk, worship ghosts and troops of nature-spirits.
 * Krishna; Chapter 17, verse 4; Annie Besant translation

Chapter 18 (Moksha–Sanyasa yoga)

 * What's the nature of asceticism, i want to know how's renunciation different
 * Arjuna; Chapter 18, verse 1; Mani Rao translation

 * Asceticism is giving up selfish activities as poets know & the wise declare renunciation is giving up fruits of action
 * Krishna; Chapter 18, verse 2; Mani Rao translation

 * Acts of sacrifice, charity and austerity should not be abandoned, but should be performed; worship, charity, and also austerity, are the purifiers of even the 'wise'. But even these actions should be performed leaving aside attachment and the fruits, O Partha; this is my certain and best belief.
 * Krishna; Chapter 18, verses 5–6; Swami Chinmayananda commentary

 * Better is one's own duty though performed faultily than another's duty well-performed. Performing the duty prescribed by (one's own) nature, one incurreth no sin. One must not abandon, O son of Kunti, one's natural duty though tainted with evil, for all actions are enveloped by evil like fire by smoke.
 * Krishna; Chapter 18, verses 47–48; Kisari Mohan Ganguli translation

 * If, having recourse to self-conceit, thou thinkest--I will not fight,--that resolution of thine would be vain, (for) Nature will constrain thee. That which, from delusion, thou dost not wish to do, thou wilt do involuntarily, bound by thy own duty springing from (thy own) nature.
 * Krishna; Chapter 18, verses 59–60; Kisari Mohan Ganguli translation

 * If you become conscious of Me, you will pass over all the obstacles of conditional life by My grace. If, however, you do not work in such consciousness but act through false ego, not hearing Me, you will be lost.If you do not act according to My direction and do not fight, then you will be falsely directed. By your nature, you will have to be engaged in warfare.  Under illusion you are now declining to act according to My direction. But, compelled by your own nature, you will act all the same, O son of Kuntī.
 * Verses 59 & 60,  Swami Prabhupada translation, 1972

 * The Supreme Lord is situated in everyone's heart, O Arjuna, and is directing the wanderings of all living entities, who are seated as on a machine, made of the material energy.
 * Verse 61, Swami Prabhupada translation, 1972

 * O Arjuna, God resides in the hearts of all beings, directing their wanderings by the magical power of Māyā, on which they are seated as if it were a machine.
 * Krishna; Chapter 18, verse 61; The Times of India translation

 * In him alone seek refuge with all thy being, Bharata; by his grace shalt thou win to peace supreme, the eternal resting place.
 * Krishna; Chapter 18, verse 62; W. Douglas P. Hill translation

 * All duty abandoning, to me, the sole refuge, come; i will liberate you from every sin, do not grieve.
 * Krishna; Chapter 18, verse 66; Ramesh Menon translation

 * Abandon all varieties of religion and just surrender unto Me. I shall deliver you from all sinful reaction. Do not fear.
 * Verse 66, Swami Prabhupada translation, 1972

 * Never share these truths with one who is without self-control or devotion, nor with one who won't share with others in a spirit of service, nor give them to one who is indifferent to them, or who finds fault with Me.
 * Krishna; Chapter 18, verse 67; Swami Kriyananda edition

 * And one who listens with faith and without envy becomes free from sinful reaction and attains to the planets where the pious dwell.
 * Sanjaya; Chapter 18, verse 71; Geoffrey Parrinder translation

 * And one who listens with faith and without envy becomes free from sinful reaction and attains to the planets where the pious dwell.
 * Verse 71, Swami Prabhupada translation, 1972

 * Krishna, my delusion is destroyed, And by your grace I have regained memory; I stand here, my doubt dispelled, ready to act on your words.
 * Arjuna; Chapter 18, verse 73; Barbara Stoler Miller translation

 * I heard by grace of Vyasa of Krishna’s highest mystery, Yoga from the Lord of Yoga explaining personally.
 * Sanjaya; Chapter 18, verse 75; Geoffrey Parrinder translation

 * Where Krishna is the Master of combinations, where Partha is the wielder of the bow, there, I am convinced, would be glory, victory, growth and firm morality.
 * Sanjaya; Chapter 18, verse 78 (the last verse in the Bhagavad Gita); Jogindranath Mukharji translation

 * Wherever there is Kṛṣṇa, the master of all mystics, and wherever there is Arjuna, the supreme archer, there will also certainly be opulence, victory, extraordinary power, and morality.
 * Verse 78, Swami Prabhupada translation, 1972

Quotes about the Bhagavad Gita

 * The Bhagavad-Gita is a true scripture of the human race a living creation rather than a book, with a new message for every age and a new meaning for every civilization.
 * Sri Aurobindo, "Sacred Jewels of Yoga: Wisdom from India's Beloved Scriptures, Teachers, Masters, and Monk"

 * The thought of the Gita is not pure Monism although it sees in one unchanging, pure, eternal Self the foundation of all cosmic existence, nor Mayavada although it speaks of the Maya of the three modes of Prakriti omnipresent in the created world; nor is it qualified Monism although it places in the One his eternal supreme Prakriti manifested in the form of the Jiva and lays most stress on dwelling in God rather than dissolution as the supreme state of spiritual consciousness; nor is it Sankhya although it explains the created world by the double principle of Purusha and Prakriti; nor is it Vaishnava Theism although it presents to us Krishna, who is the Avatara of Vishnu according to the Puranas, as the supreme Deity and allows no essential difference nor any actual superiority of the status of the indefinable relationless Brahman over that of this Lord of beings who is the Master of the universe and the Friend of all creatures. Like the earlier spiritual synthesis of the Upanishads this later synthesis at once spiritual and intellectual avoids naturally every such rigid determination as would injure its universal comprehensiveness. Its aim is precisely the opposite to that of the polemist commentators who found this Scripture established as one of the three highest Vedantic authorities and attempted to turn it into a weapon of offence and defence against other schools and systems. The Gita is not a weapon for dialectical warfare; it is a gate opening on the whole world of spiritual truth and experience and the view it gives us embraces all the provinces of that supreme region. It maps out, but it does not cut up or build walls or hedges to confine our vision.
 * Śrī Aurobindo in Essays on the Gita (2000), p. 8

 * That the spiritual man need not be a recluse, that union with the divine Life may be achieved and maintained in the midst of worldly affairs, that the obstacles to that union lie not outside us but within us—such is the central lesson of the Bhagavad-Gītā.
 * Annie Besant, "The Bhagavad Gita: The Lord's Song", The Theosophical Publishing House, Adyar, Preface

 * Among the priceless teachings that may be found in the great Indian epic Mahabharata, there is none so rare and priceless as the Gita... This is the India of which I speak–the India which, as I said, is to me the Holy Land. For those who, though born for this life in a Western land, and clad in a Western body, can yet look back to earlier incarnations in which they drank the milk of spiritual wisdom from the breast of their true mother–they must feel ever the magic of her immemorial past; must dwell ever under the spell of her deathless fascination; for they are bound to India by all the sacred memories of their past and with her, too, are bound up all the radiant hopes of their future, a future which they know they will share with her who is their true mother in the soul-life.
 * Annie Besant, India: Essays and Lectures, Vol. IV, The Theosophical Publishing Company, London, 1895, p.11. (quoted from A Look at India From the Views of Other Scholars, by Stephen Knapp )

 * This (Bhagavad Gita) is a most inspiring book; it has brought comfort and consolation in my life—I hope it will do the same to you. Read it.’
 * Thomas Carlyle, to Emerson: Quoted from Gewali, Salil (2013). Great Minds on India. New Delhi: Penguin Random House.

 * The subject matter of the Gita ranges from vast universal cosmology to our innermost life. We learn to see the world around us from the perspective of sages who saw the beauty of God reflected in every aspect of nature – the rivers, the mountains, the sky, the ocean, the plants, the animals. And we then learn how to move from appreciation of the reflected beauty of God to contemplation of the original beauty of God Himself. We learn that the journey of life did not begin with birth and will not end with the death of the body—for the soul there is neither birth nor death. We learn how we can become modern yogis, satisfied with the pleasure that comes from within, undisturbed by the turbulence of life in even the fastest lanes of third millenium society.
 * Michael A. Cremo, "Bhagavad Gita: The Song Divine" (2003), Carl E. Woodham, Pilgrims Publishing, Foreword

 * Embedded in the narrative of the great battle is the loftiest philosophical poem in the world’s literature—the Bhagavad-Gita, or Lord’s Song. This is the New Testament of India, revered next to the Vedas themselves, and used in the law-courts, like our Bible or the Koran, for the administration of oaths. Wilhelm von Humboldt pronounced it “the most beautiful, perhaps the only true, philosophical song existing in any known tongue; . . . perhaps the deepest and loftiest thing the world has to show.”...
 * Will Durant, Our Oriental Heritage : India and Her Neighbors.

 * The Gita does not present a system of philosophy. It offers something to every seeker after God, of whatever temperament, by whatever path. The reason for this universal appeal is that it is basically practical: it is a handbook for Self-realization and a guide to action.
 * Eknath Easwaran, "The Bhagavad Gita" (2010), Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Introduction: The Essence of the Gita

 * At some point, a theistic coup d’état has eclipsed the godless schools of thought and written them out of the record. The Gītā is a blatant instance, with Krishna imposing his presence as object of devotion on chapters named after (and giving an otherwise fair summary of) godless philosophies like Sānkhya.... The Gita is [in Prof. Kedar Nath Mishra's words] a “hodge-podge” of all the then-thriving schools of Hindu philosophy, given a veneer of “synthesis” by having them all gathered under a single umbrella of Krishna devotion... The Gita’s role in Hindu tradition is to incorporate diverse schools of thought, including Sankhya atheism, into an overarching theistic and devotional worldview.
 * Kedar Nath Mishra cited and quoted in Elst K. The Argumentative Hindu (2012) (24-37)

 * For, as we have now abundantly seen, the Gītā makes no attempt to be logical or systematic in its philosophy. It is frankly mystical and emotional. What we may, if we like, call its inconsistencies are not due to slovenliness in reasoning; nor do they express a balanced reserve of judgment. This is sufficiently proved in several cases by the fact that the Gītā deliberately brackets two opposing views and asserts the validity of both. It is only in the realm of logic that we must choose between yes and no, or else confess ignorance. The Gītā finds no difficulty in saying both yes and no, at the same time. For its point of view is simply unrelated to logic. Even what it calls "knowledge" is really intuitional perception; it is not, and is not intended to be, based on rational analysis. And, as we have seen, "knowledge" is not the Gītā’s favorite "way of salvation." To the Gītā, as to the Christian mystics, reason is an uncertain and flickering light. The truly "wise" man should abandon it wholly and follow the "kindly Light," the lux benigna, of God’s grace.
 * Franklin Edgerton, "The Bhagavad Gītā", Motilal Banarsidass Publ., 1994, Vol. II, p. 91, Conclusion. (First Published : Cambridge, 1944)

 * I owed a magnificent day to the Bhagavad-gita. It was the first of books’ it was as if an empire spoke to us, nothing small or unworthy, but large, serene, consistent, the voice of an old intelligence which in another rage and climate had pondered and thus disposed of the same questions which exercise us.
 * Ralph Waldo Emerson, as quoted on bhaktivedantamanor.co.uk . Quoted from Gewali, Salil (2013). Great Minds on India. New Delhi: Penguin Random House.

 * Today my position is that though I admire much in Christianity, I am unable to identify myself with orthodox Christianity. I must tell you in all humility that Hinduism as I know it, entirely satisfies my. soul, fills my whole being and I find a solace in the Bhagavad Gita and Upanishads that I miss even in the Sermon on the Mount. Not that I do not prize the ideal presented therein, not that some of the precious teachings in the Sermon on the Mount have not left a deep impression upon me, but I must confess to you that when doubts haunt me, when disappointments stare me in the face, and when I see not one ray of light on the horizon I turn to the Bhagavad Gita, and find a verse to comfort me; and I immediately begin to smile in the midst of overwhelming sorrow. My life has been full of external tragedies and if they have not left any visible and indelible effect on me, I owe it to the teaching of the Bhagavad Gita.
 * Mahatma Gandhi, The Collected Works, Volume 27, New Delhi, 1968, p. 435, as quoted in Goel, S.R. History of Hindu-Christian Encounters (1996)

 * As a scripture, the Gītā embodies the supreme spiritual mystery and secret. It contains the essence of all the four Vedas. Its style is so simple and elegant that after a little study a man can easily follow the structure of its words; but the thought behind those words, is so deep and abstruse that even a lifelong constant study does not show one the end of it. Everyday the book exhibits a new facet to thought; hence the Gītā remains eternally new.
 * Gita Press, "Śrīmad Bhagavadgītā", code 1658, Glory of the Gītā.

 * It was also Bankim Chandra who restored the Mahabharata to its rightful place as a profound elaboration of what the Veda had said in the form of mystic mantras. The Gita which had been subjected to sectarian interpretations for several centuries past, was rescued by Bankim Chandra from the quagmire of casuistry. This great scripture had been interpreted by many ãchãryas either to support sannyãsa or to bolster bhakti. Its central core of karmayoga had been consigned to oblivion. Bankim Chandra was the first in modern times to restore the lost balance, so much so that in his Ãnandamatha it was the sannyãsin who took up the sword in defence of Dharma. In days to come, the Gita was to become the greatest single inspiration for revolutionary action. Many a freedom fighter mounted the gallows with the Gita in his hands and Bankim Chandra’s Vande Mãtaram on his lips.
 * Sita Ram Goel: Muslim Separatism - Causes and Consequences. (1983) ISBN 9788185990262

 * I hesitate not to pronounce the Gita a performance of great originality, of sublimity of conception, reasoning and diction almost unequalled; and a single exception, amongst all the known religions of mankind.
 * Lord Warren Hastings (1732–1818). source: Indian Horizons, Indian Council for Cultural Relations. Quoted from Gewali, Salil (2013). Great Minds on India. New Delhi: Penguin Random House.

 * The marvel of the Bhagavad-Gita is its truly beautiful revelation of lifes wisdom which enables philosophy to blossom into religion.
 * Herman Hesse, "Indic Visions: In An Age of Science", p. 162
 * The Gita, the most beautiful, perhaps the only true philosophical song existing in any known tongue—perhaps the deepest and loftiest thing the world has to show.
 * Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767–1835) source: The Idea of Justice, Amartya Sen.Quoted from Gewali, Salil (2013). Great Minds on India. New Delhi: Penguin Random House.

 * The Bhagavad-Gita is the most systematic statement of spiritual evolution of endowing value to mankind. It is one of the most clear and comprehensive summaries of perennial philosophy ever revealed; hence its enduring value is subject not only to India but to all of humanity.
 * Aldous Huxley, "Sacred Jewels of Yoga: Wisdom from India's Beloved Scriptures, Teachers, Masters, and Monk"
 * Different version: The Gita is one of the clearest and most comprehensive summaries of spiritual thoughts ever to have been made. ( Quoted from Gewali, Salil (2013). Great Minds on India. New Delhi: Penguin Random House.)

 * The Bhagavad-Gita is perhaps the most systematic scriptural statement of the Perennial Philosophy. To a world at war, a world that, because it lacks the intellectual and spiritual prerequisites to peace, can only hope to patch up some kind of precarious armed truce, it stands pointing, clearly and unmistakably, to the only road of escape from the self-imposed necessity of self-destruction.
 * Aldous Huxley, "Bhagavad-Gita:: The Song of God"]: Translated by Swami Prabhavananda and Christopher Isherwood, With an Introduction by Aldous Huxley, Signet Classics, 2002, Introduction

 * The second school of yoga is that of Shri Krishna, particularly expounded in the great poem the Bhagavad-Gita... This teaches above all else the doctrine of love. The disciple Arjuna, to whom the Guru spoke, was a great lover of mankind; according to the scripture this great soldier sank down upon the floor of his chariot before the battle of Kurukshetra began, full of sorrow because he loved his enemies and could not bear to injure them. The teacher Shri Krishna then explained to him, amid much philosophical teaching, that the greatest thing in life is service, that God himself is the greatest server—for he keeps the wheel of life revolving, not because any benefit can possibly accrue to him in consequence, but for the sake of the world—and that men should follow his example and work for the welfare of mankind. Many Great Ones, he said, had reached perfection by following this path of life, by doing their duty without personal desire. To love without ceasing is the way of the second Ray; in the Gita it is shown how this love should be directed to men and other beings in karma yoga (the yoga by action or work) and to God in bhakti yoga (the yoga by devotion).
 * C.W. Leadbeater, The Masters and the Path (1925) p. 134

 * The sixth school is that of bhakti or devotion...taught to a large extent in the Bhagavad-Gita; indeed, we find it in every religion among those true devotees who put their trust entirely in the Divine— who do not pray for personal favours, but are quite convinced that God is perfect master of his world, that he knows what he is doing, and that therefore all is well; they are therefore more than content, they are thrilled with ecstasy, if they can but have the opportunity and the privilege to serve and obey him in any way.
 * C.W. Leadbeater, The Masters and the Path (1925) p. 136

 * Readers of the Bhagavad Gita will also remember the teaching of love and devotion with which it is filled... He varies the type of religion to suit the period of the world’s history at which it is put forth, and the people to whom it is given; but though the form may vary as evolution proceeds, the ethics are ever the same.
 * C.W. Leadbeater, The Masters and the Path (1925) p. 298-9

 * The Bhagwat Gita Is the most revered religious book in Hinduism. It is a acceptable to people of many different religious denominations. It has been translated into many different languages. It is considered to be a book not only of religion but also of ethics, espousing eternal moral values. … According to Ambedkar, the Bhagwat Gita is neither a book of religion nor a treatise on philosophy. What the Bhagwat Gita does is to defend certain dogmas of religion on philosophic grounds. It is a philosophic defence of the counter-revolution.
 * Nalini Pandit, in Ambedkar and the "Bhagwat Gita", Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 27, No. 20/21 (May 16-23, 1992), pp. 1063-1065

 * In a very clear and wonderful way, under the guise of physical warfare, the Gita describes the duel that perpetually goes on in the hearts of each one of us; a fight of dharma, justice, against adharma, evil, injustice. The battle takes place not only on the fields of Kurukshetra but also on the elusive dharmakshetra 'field of dharma', a spiritual field within each of us where all moral struggles are waged.
 * Purushottama Lal, "The Bhagavadgita" (1965), Orient Paperbacks

 * I believe that in all the living languages of the world, there is no book so full of true knowledge, and yet so handy as the Bhagawad Geeta..... It brings to men the highest knowledge, the purest love and the most luminous action. It teaches self-control, the threefold austerity, non-violence, truth, compassion, obedience to the call of duty for the sake of duty and putting up a fight against unrighteousness (Adharma)... To my knowledge, there is no book in the whole range of the world's literature so high above all as the Bhagawad Geeta which is treasure-house of Dharma not only for Hindus but for all mankind.
 * Madan Mohan Malaviya, as quoted in "The Holy Geeta", Commentary by Swami Chinmayananda, Central Chinmaya Mission Trust, 1996, The Geeta as others see it.

 * In the Bhagavad Gita we have faith, a faith based on spiritual vision. In this vision we have Light. Shall we see? This Song calls us to Love and Life. Shall we hear?
 * Juan Mascaró, "The Bhagavad Gita", Penguin Books, (1962), Introduction

 * I believe that the Bhagavad Gita contains the voice of God and that it speaks to each of us, to every mind and heart—individually. This intimate communion transcends the merely intellectual: sarvaśah, in every way.
 * Ramesh Menon, "Srimad Bhagavad Gita: A Modern Translation", Rupa Publications India Pvt. Ltd, 2007, Introduction.

 * The Bhagavad-gita deals essentially with the spiritual foundation of human existence. It is a call of action to meet the obligations and duties of life; yet keeping in view the spiritual nature and grander purpose of the universe.
 * Jawaharlal Nehru, as quoted on iskconbangalore.org

 * We knew the world would not be the same. Few people laughed, few people cried, most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita. Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and to impress him takes on his multi-armed form and says, "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." I suppose we all thought that, one way or another.
 * Robert Oppenheimer, in an interview about the Trinity nuclear explosion, first broadcast as part of the television documentary The Decision to Drop the Bomb (1965), produced by Fred Freed, NBC White Paper; Oppenheimer is quoting from the 1944 Vivekananda-Isherwood translation of the Gita (ch. XI verse 32). The line is spoken to Arjuna by Krishna, who is revered in Hindu traditions as one of the major incarnations of Vishnu; some assert that the passage would be better translated "I am become Time, the destroyer of worlds."

 * The Bhagavad Gita... is the most beautiful philosophical song existing in any known tongue.
 * Robert Oppenheimer, "Sacred Jewels of Yoga: Wisdom from India's Beloved Scriptures, Teachers, Masters, and Monks"

 * The juxtaposition of Western civilization's most terrifying scientific achievement with the most dazzling description of the mystical experience given to us by the Bhagavad Gita, India's greatest literary monument.
 * Julius Robert Oppenheimer in

 * Through the centuries, the Gita has remained a relevant text, inspiring militant revolutionaries, non-violent truth-seekers and renouncers of the world. It has enlightened German philosophers such as Schopenhauer and Heidegger; it has inspired Victorian poets such as Sir Edwin Arnold; and it has grounded post-Independence philosophers such as Sarvapelli Radhakrishnan. It has become a literary 'site' which decision-makers turn to to understand their dilemmas, whether they be Indian women and men leading Gandhi's satyagraha, twenty-first-century South Asian-American officers deciding to go to war in the Gulf, or London housewives with their children deciding how to organize their day.
 * Laurie L. Patton, "The Bhagavad Gita"], Penguin Classics, 2008, Introduction.
 * The Bhagavad Gita and the Upanishads contain such godlike fullness of wisdom on all things that I feel the authors must have looked with calm remembrance back through a thousand passionate lives, full of feverish strife for and with shadows, ere they could have written with such certainty of things which the soul feels to be sure.
 * A.E. George Russell (1867–1935) source: Discovery of India, Jawaharlal Nehru.Quoted from Gewali, Salil (2013). Great Minds on India. New Delhi: Penguin Random House.

 * The Bhagavadgītā is more a religious classic than a philosophical treatise. It is not an esoteric work designed for and understood by the specially initiated but a popular poem which helps even those 'who wander in the region of the many and variable'.
 * Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, "The Bhagavadgita", HarperCollins, 1948, Introductory Essay

 * The Bhagavad-Gita professes to give nothing new beyond what has previously been taught by the Upanishads. It contents itself with a synthesis of the older teachings.
 * C. Rajagopalachari, "Bhagavad Gita", Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1963, Introductory

 * The Bhagvad-Gita is the fountainhead of Eastern psychology.
 * Swami Rama, as quoted in "Bhagavad Gita"], Charles Johnston, Pilgrims Publishing, 2004 (first published in 1908), Back Cover

 * Time and time again in the Gita, Krishna declares love for the devotee, and seems to long for the devotee's wisdom and love. The Gita is not only a poem, it is a love poem. May fidelity, then, be deep, complex, and lively.
 * Mani Rao, "Bhagavad Gita: A Translation of the Poem" (2011), Penguin Books, Translator's Note

 * I am so fond of a statement in the Bagavad Gita, this finest pearl of the Eastern writings, that I never tire of repeating it, and so I shall quote it to you as well. "Man comes to Me by various paths, but by whatever path man comes to Me, on that path I welcome him, for all paths are Mine."
 * Helena Roerich, Letters II, (11 September 1937)

 * If the Upanishads are the textbooks of philosophical principles discussing man, world and God, the Geeta is a handbook of instructions as to how every human being can come to live the subtle philosophical principles of Vedanta in the actual work-a-day world.
 * Chinmayananda Saraswati (Swami Chinmayananda), "The Holy Geeta", Central Chinmaya Mission Trust, 1996, Chapter: General Introduction to The Bhagawad Geeta

 * In order to approach a creation as sublime as the Bhagavad-gita with full understanding it is necessary to attune our soul to it.
 * Rudolf Steiner, as quoted on iskconbangalore.org

 * In the morning I bathe my intellect in the stupendous and cosmogonal philosophy of the Bhagvat-Geeta, since whose composition years of the gods have elapsed, and in comparison with which our modern world and its literature seem puny and trivial; and I doubt if that philosophy is not to be referred to a previous state of existence, so remote is its sublimity from our conceptions. I lay down the book and go to my well for water, and lo! there I meet the servant of the Bramin, priest of Brahma and Vishnu and Indra, who still sits in his temple on the Ganges reading the Vedas, or dwells at the root of a tree with his crust and water jug. I meet his servant come to draw water for his master, and our buckets as it were grate together in the same well. The pure Walden water is mingled with the sacred water of the Ganges.
 * Henry David Thoreau, in Walden (1854), Ch. XVI : The Pond in Winter

 * The Gītā was not preached either as a pastime for persons tired out after living a worldly life in the pursuit of selfish motives nor as a preparatory lesson for living such worldly life; but in order to give philosophical advice as to how one should live his worldly life with an eye to Release (mokṣa) and as to the true duty of human beings in worldly life.
 * Bal Gangadhar Tilak, "Gita Rahasya", Tilak Brothers, translator: Bhalchandra Sitaram Sukthankar, 13th edition, Author's Preface. (The original quote is in Marathi.)

 * It is not a book teaching you how to worship God. Many other texts do the same. It focuses more on the eternal quest to reach Godhead.
 * The Times of India, Srimad Bhagavad Gita] (2011), Introduction to Gita

 * The message of the Gita is the message of courage, heroism and atmashakti. The Gita teaches us that weakness is a sin, while shakti is a spiritual virtue.
 * J. P. Vaswani, "The Seven Commandments of the Bhagavad Gita" (2010), Jaico Publishing House

 * The Geeta is a bouquet composed of the beautiful flowers of spiritual truths collected from the Upanishads.
 * Swami Vivekananda, as quoted in "The Holy Geeta" Commentary by Swami Chinmayananda (1996), The Geeta as others see it

 * In summation, the sublime essence of the Bhagavad Gita is that right action, nonattachment to the world and to its sense pleasures, and union with God by the highest yoga of pranayama meditation, learned from an enlightened guru, constitute the royal path to God-attainment.
 * Paramahansa Yogananda, "God Talks With Arjuna", Diamond Pocket Books (P) Ltd., Conclusion

title: Bhagavad Gita


text:
User talk:202.71.139.225

Why are you posting links to Google? I see no proper purpose for them. ~ Achilles 20:07, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)

title: User talk:202.71.139.225


text:
Ben Stein

Benjamin Jeremy Stein (born 25 November 1944) is an American lawyer, economist, law professor, actor, comedian, author and former White House speechwriter. He is best known as host of the Comedy Central game show Win Ben Stein's Money, his deadpan portrayal of the history teacher in the film Ferris Bueller's Day Off and as spokesman for Clear Eyes brand eye drops. He has recently gained notoriety as the star of the controversial intelligent design film Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed.

Quotes

 * The indispensable first step to getting the things you want out of life is this: decide what you want.
 * As quoted in Out of the Blue: Delight Comes Into Our Lives (1996) by Mark Victor Hansen, Barbara Nichols, and Patty Hansen, p. 85

 * For any exam in history, here is the answer: all human history is the struggle between systems that attempt to shackle the human personality in the name of some intangible good on the one hand and systems that enable and expand the scope of human personality in the pursuit of extremely tangible aims. The American system is the most successful in the world because it harmonizes best with the aims and longings of human personality while allowing the best protection to other personalities.

1.) The hurricane that hit New Orleans and Mississippi and Alabama was an astonishing tragedy. The suffering and loss of life and peace of mind of the residents of those areas is acutely horrifying. 2.) George Bush did not cause the hurricane. Hurricanes have been happening for eons. George Bush did not create them or unleash this one. 3.) George Bush did not make this one worse than others. There have been far worse hurricanes than this before George Bush was born.
 * A few truths, for those who have ears and eyes and care to know the truth:
 * referring to Hurricane Katrina
 * referring to Hurricane Katrina

 * I hope it won’t come as a surprise to anyone that a big part of male homosexual behavior is interest in young boys.

 * In today’s world, at least in America, an Einstein or a Newton or a Galileo would probably not be allowed to receive grants to study or to publish his research. They cannot even mention the possibility that–as Newton or Galileo believed–these laws were created by God or a higher being. They could get fired, lose tenure, have their grants cut off. This can happen. It has happened.

 * Darwinism is still very much alive, utterly dominating biology. Despite the fact that no one has ever been able to prove the creation of a single distinct species by Darwinist means, Darwinism dominates the academy and the media.

 * [The] Third (problem with Darwinism), which I think is overwhelming, and just sort of blows the whole theory of Random Mutation out of the water, is, at least, let me say, raises big questions, that is. Assuming it all did happen by Random Mutation and Natural Selection, where did the laws of gravity come from. Where did the laws of thermodynamics come from? Where did the laws of motion and, of heat come from? Where, I guess that's the same as thermodynamics. Where did all these laws, that make it possible for the universe to function, where did they all come from? Why isn't all just chaos and everything collapsing in on itself and killing everything?

 * Neo-Darwinists ask us to believe in things not seen. We’re not supposed to have an established religion in America, but we do, and it’s called Darwinism.

 * Evolutionism, as taught by Darwinism, has nothing - nothing - to say about how life originated. Has nothing to say about how the governing principles in the universe - gravity, thermodynamics, motion, fluid motion - how any of those originated. It's...it's got some gigantic missing pieces.

 * We believe that Darwinism is the real Orthodox Church, because Darwinism asks you to believe in things unseen that are incredibly unlikely. Darwinism asks us to believe that out of pure random chance, we got a cell that is as complicated as a Boeing 777. Darwinism asks us to believe that one day there was nothing but mud and ooze, and the next day there was life, and very soon after there was intelligent life. Darwinism asks us to believe that you can destroy genetic material through random mutation and natural selection and yet end up with more genetic material. We don't really ask you to believe anything that difficult; it is sort of innate in mankind to believe that there is a God, a heavenly Father and we're asking you to just follow the consequences of that and see if possibly there could be some scientific validity to that.

 * Humans are alive, therefore life must be complex.

 * My feeling is that Darwinism is only at best a partial solution, and an extremely dangerous partial solution. I would say, based on the little I know, Darwinism explains microevolution within species quite well. As to its broader consequence and implications, I don't think it explains individual species evolution at all well.

 * And for me, it's pretty clear-cut that until we learn some better explanation for how life began, there is a God who always existed and created the heavens and the earth. And until somebody gives me a better explanation, I'll go for it. And it doesn't scare me at all when scientists say, "Oh, but that can't be proved," because neither can any of the Darwinian hypotheses about how life began be proved. Anyway, I couldn't give a [profanity] whether a person calls himself a scientist. It doesn't earn any extra respect from me, because it's not as if science has covered itself with glory, morally, in my time. Scientists were the people in Germany telling Hitler that it was a good idea to kill all the Jews. Scientists were telling Stalin it was a good idea to wipe out the middle-class peasants. Scientists were telling Mao Tse-Tung it was fine to kill 50 million people in order to further the revolution.

 * I'm still not that familiar with it [Intelligent Design]. I'm more familiar with it than most people, but nowhere near as familiar with it as a genuine expert in the subject. I don't pretend to be a scientist. I'm the person who moderates the discussion between and among the scientists.

 * [I did] Some [reading to prep for Expelled]. I read one book cover to cover, From Darwin to Hitler, and that was a very interesting book--one of these rare books I wish had been even longer. It's about how Darwin's theory--supposedly concocted by this mild-mannered saintly man, with a flowing white beard like Santa Claus--led to the murder of millions of innocent people.

 * Yes, it [making Expelled] has made my belief in that [Intelligent Design] much stronger. It has pointed out something which haunted me ever since I learned about Darwinism, which is, Where did it all start? How did life start? Darwinism has nothing to say about that--nothing useful, anyway--but I think Intelligent Design has a great deal to say about it.

 * I went in thinking: "I'm not going to find out that Darwinism is a fraud. I'll probably find out these (intelligent design proponents) are frauds." But I wound up knowing a lot more than when I started. I learned that Darwinism is being overhyped, and that it doesn't really convey what's going on. Sometimes if you follow a "truth" far enough, it becomes a lie.

 * And there hasn't been much progress in Darwinism since [the life of Darwin].

 * Well, the first cause is not...it's lightning striking a mud puddle. See, and this is what the evolutionists say. And by the way, they may be right -- you know, I'm not a scientist, they could be right.

 * But when I talk to people who are Darwinists or evolutionists and say, 'Well, how did life begin' -- they're...they don't have an answer. I mean, they have an answer, but it's a BS answer. It's an answer that wouldn't make sense to a small child.

 * Yes, [I spent] two long years, traveling all over the United States, all over Europe, interviewing many, many, many people who had been thrown out of their academic jobs because they taught that there was a possibility of life coming from something other than Darwinism, who thought that possibly random selection and mutations didn't account for the universe, didn't account for gravity, didn't account for why nobody had ever seen an individual species evolve -- no one's ever seen an individual species evolve!"

 * The scientific community says that if you even mention God as causes of anything scientific, you're gone.

 * You can only say Darwinian causes -- random mutation, natural selection -- even gravity is supposed to be done by that! And I would say to these people, well, how did life begin? We don't know, but it had to be by Darwinian means. Well, how did gravity begin? We don't know, but it had to be by Darwinian means. Why did it have to be that way? Why couldn't there have been an intelligent designer?

 * Love of God and compassion and empathy leads you to a very glorious place- science leads you to killing people.

 * When we just saw that man, I think it was Mr. Myers, talking about how great scientists were, I was thinking to myself the last time any of my relatives saw scientists telling them what to do they were telling them to go to the showers to get gassed … that was horrifying beyond words, and that’s where science — in my opinion, this is just an opinion — that’s where science leads you.

 * There's no evidence whatsoever that Darwin had anything useful to say or anything to say period about how life began or how the universe began or how gravity began or how physics began or fluid motion or how thermodynamics began. He had nothing to say about that whatsoever.
 * On his points of making Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed

 * God bless the devout Christians of this country. They are Israel's best friends on the earth.
 * "A Long Memorial Day" American Spectator (1 June 2010)

 * In life, events tend to follow patterns. People who commit crimes tend to be criminals, for example. Can anyone tell me any economists who have been convicted of violent sex crimes? Can anyone tell me of any heads of nonprofit international economic entities who have ever been charged and convicted of violent sexual crimes? Is it likely that just by chance this hotel maid found the only one in this category?
 * The prosecutors say that Mr. Strauss-Kahn "forced" the complainant to have oral and other sex with him. How? Did he have a gun? Did he have a knife? He's a short fat old man.
 * , quoted in
 * regarding the May 2011 arrest of IMF director Dominique Strauss-Kahn for attempted rape of a hotel housekeeper

title: Ben Stein


text:
David Douglass

David Douglass (born 1932) is an American physicist with interests in Condensed Matter Physics and climate change.

Letter to the Wall Street Journal

 * "Have the climate models been successful in predicting anything? They, of course, predict substantial global warming. This is not surprising given the expressed belief of some of the model builders in the global warming hypothesis and the many parameters in the model that need to be introduced. However, the models also predict unambiguously that the atmosphere is warming faster than the surface of the earth; but all the available observational data unambiguously shows the opposite! Truth in science is always determined from observational facts. One finds the truth by making a hypothesis and comparing observations with the hypothesis. It is absolutely essential that one should be neutral and not fall in love with the hypothesis. If the facts are contrary to any predictions, then the hypothesis is wrong no matter how appealing. "Truth by Assertion" is not science."

title: David Douglass


text:
Gravity's Rainbow

Gravity's Rainbow is an epic postmodern novel written by Thomas Pynchon and first published on February 28, 1973. It is widely regarded as Pynchon's magnum opus.

The narrative is set primarily in Europe at the end of World War II and centers around the design, production and dispatch of V-2 rockets by the German military, and, in particular, the quest undertaken by several of the characters to uncover the secret of a mysterious device named the "Schwarzgerät," (“black device”) or "00000."

The novel was nominated for the 1973 Nebula Award for Best Novel, and won the National Book Award in 1974. Since its publication, Gravity's Rainbow has spawned an enormous amount of literary criticism and commentary, including two reader's guides and several online concordances.

Quotes

 * A screaming comes across the sky. It has happened before, but there is nothing to compare it to now.

 * In the static space of the architect, he might've used a double integral now and then, early in his career, to find volumes under surfaces whose equations are known — masses, moments, centers of gravity. But it has been years since he's had to do with anything that basic...in the dynamic space of the living Rocket, the double integral has a different meaning. To integrate here is to operate on a rate of change so that time falls away: change is stilled....'Meters per second' will integrate to 'meters'. The moving vehicle is frozen, in space, to become architecture, and timeless. It was never launched. It will never fall.

 * It means this War was never political at all, the politics was all theatre, all just to keep the people distracted...secretly, it was being dictated instead by the needs of technology...by a conspiracy between human beings and techniques, by something that needed the energy-burst of war.

 * There must be cubicles like this all over the ETO: only the three dingy scuffed-cream fiberboard walls and no ceiling of its own. Tantivy shares it with an American colleague, Lt. Tyrone Slothrop. Their desks are at right angles, so there’s no eye contact but by squeaking around some 90 degrees. Tantivy’s desk is neat, Slothrop’s is a godawful mess. It hasn’t been cleaned down to the original wood surface since 1942. Things have fallen roughly into layers, over a base of bureaucratic smegma that sifts steadily to the bottom, made up of millions of tiny red and brown curls of rubber eraser, pencil shavings, dried tea or coffee stains, traces of sugar and Household Milk, much cigarette ash, very fine black debris picked and flung from typewriter ribbons, decomposing library paste, broken aspirins ground to powder. Then comes a scatter of paperclips, Zippo flints, rubber bands, staples, cigarette butts and crumpled packs, stray matches, pins, nubs of pens, stubs of pencils of all colors including the hard-to-get heliotrope and raw umber, wooden coffee spoons, Thayer’s Slippery Elm Throat Lozenges sent by Slothrop’s mother, Nalline, all the way from Massachusetts, bits of tape, string, chalk… above that a layer of forgotten memoranda, empty buff ration books, phone numbers, unanswered letters, tattered sheets of carbon paper, the scribbled ukelele chords to a dozen songs including “Johnny Doughboy Found a Rose is Ireland” (“He does have some rather snappy arrangements,” Tantivy reports, “he’s a sort of American George Formby, if you can imagine such a thing,” but Bloat’s decided he’d rather not), an empty Kreml hair tonic bottle, lost pieces to different jigsaw puzzles showing parts of the amber left eye of a Weimaraner, the green velvet folds of a gown, slate-blue veining in a distant cloud, the orange nimbus of an explosion (perhaps a sunset), rivets in the skin of a Flying Fortress, the pink inner thigh of a pouting pin-up girl… a few old Weekly Intelligence Summaries from G-2, a busted corkscrewing ukelele string, boxes of gummed paper stars in many colors, pieces of a flashlight, top to a Nugget shoe polish can in which Slothrop now and then studies his blurry brass reflection, any number of reference books out of the ACHTUNG library back down the hall -- a dictionary of technical German, an F.O. Special Handbook or Town Plan -- and usually, unless it’s been pinched or thrown away, a News of the World somewhere too -- Slothrop’s a faithful reader.

 * They are in Love. Fuck the War.

 * But why are we taught to feel reflexive shame whenever the subject comes up? Why will the Structure allow every other kind of sexual behavior but that one? Because submission and dominance are resources it needs for its very survival. They cannot be wasted in private sex. In any kind of sex. It needs our submission so that it may remain in power. It needs our lusts after dominance so that it can co-opt us into its own power game. There is no joy in it, only power. I tell you, if S and M could be established universally, at the family level, the State would wither away.

 * You think you’d rather hear about what you call ‘life’: the growing, organic Kartell. But it’s only another illusion. A very clever robot. The more dynamic it seems to you, the more deep and dead, in reality, it grows. Look at the smokestacks, how they proliferate, fanning the wastes of original waste over greater and greater masses of city. Structurally, they are strongest in compression. A smokestack can survive any explosion -- even the shock wave from one of the new cosmic bombs... as you all must know. The persistence, then, of structures favouring death. Death converted into more death. Perfecting its reign, just as the buried coal grows denser, and overlaid with more strata -- epoch on top of epoch, city on top of ruined city.

 * Death has come in the pantry door: stands watching them, iron and patient, with a look that says try to tickle me.

 * Tap my head and mic my brain / stick that needle in my vein

 * pronouncing asshole with a certain sphinctering of the lips so it comes out ehisshehwle.

 * read old agonies inside poor Dumpster, who'd tried suicide last semester: the differential equations that would not weave for him into any elegance.

 * Don’t forget the real business of the War is buying and selling. The murdering and the violence are self-policing, and can be entrusted to non-professionals. The mass nature of wartime death is useful in many ways. It serves as spectacle, as diversion from the real movements of the War. It provides raw material to be recorded into History, so that children may be taught History as sequences of violence, battle after battle, and be more prepared for the adult world. Best of all, mass death’s a stimulus to just ordinary folks, little fellows, to try ‘n’ grab a piece of that Pie while they’re still here to gobble it up. The true war is a celebration of markets. Organic markets, carefully styled “black” by the professionals, spring up everywhere. Scrip, Sterling, Reichsmarks continue to move, severe as classical ballet, inside their antiseptic marble chambers. But out here, down here among the people, the truer currencies come into being. So, Jews are negotiable. Every bit as negotiable as cigarettes, cunt, or Hershey bars.

 * If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about the answers.

 * The odors of shit, death, sweat, sickness, mildew, piss, the breathing of Dora, wrapped him as he crept in staring at the naked corpses being carried out now that America was so close, to be stacked in front of the crematoriums, the men’s penises hanging, their toes clustering white and round as pearls... each face so perfect, so individual, the lips stretched back into death-grins, a whole silent audience caught at the punch line of the joke... and the living, stacked ten to a straw mattress, the weakly crying, coughing, losers... All his vacuums, his labyrinths, had been on the other side of this. While he lived, and drew marks on paper, this invisible kingdom had crept on, in the darkness outside... all this time.... Pokler vomited. He cried some. The walls did not dissolve -- no prison wall ever did, not from tears, not at this finding, on every pallet, in every cell, that the faces are ones he knows after all, and holds dear as himself, and cannot, then, let them return to that silence...

 * But it is a curve each of them feels, unmistakably. It is the parabola. They must have guessed, once or twice — guessed and refused to believe — that everything, always, collectively, had been moving toward that purified shape latent in the sky, that shape of no surprise, no second chance, no return. Yet they do move forever under it, reserved for its own black-and-white bad news certainly as if it were the rainbow, and they its children.

 * Well, there is the heart of it: the monumental yellow structure, out there in the slum-suburban night, the never-sleeping percolation of life and enterprise through its shell, Outside and Inside interpiercing one another too fast, too finely labyrinthine, for either category to have much hegemony any more. The nonstop revue crosses its stage, crowding and thinning, surprising and jerking tears in an endless ratchet...

 * Homosexuality in high places is just a carnal afterthought now, and the real and only fucking is done on paper....

 * Non-Masons stay pretty much in the dark about What Goes On, though now and then something jumps out, exposes itself, jumps giggling back again, leaving you with few details but a lot of Awful Suspicions.

 * Bland, still an apprentice, hadn’t yet shaken off his fondness for hallucinating. He knows where he is when he’s there, but when he comes back, he imagines that he has been journeying underneath history: that history is Earth’s mind, and that there are layers, set very deep, layers of history analogous to layers of coal and oil in Earth’s body... it’s hard to get over the wonder of finding that Earth is a living critter, after all these years of thinking about a big dumb rock to find a body and psyche, he feels like a child again, he knows that in theory he must not attach himself, but still he is in love with his sense of wonder, with having it found again, even this late, even knowing he must soon let it go.... To find that Gravity, taken so for granted, is really something eerie, Messianic, extrasensory in Earth’s mindbody... having hugged to its holy center the wastes of dead species, gathered, packed, transmuted, realigned, and rewoven molecules to be taken up again by the coal-tar Kabbalists of the other side, the ones Bland on his voyages has noted, taken, boiled off, teased apart, explicated to every last permutation of useful magic, centuries past exhaustion still finding new molecular species, combining and recombining into new synthetics... The rest of us, not chosen for enlightenment, left on the outside of Earth, at the mercy of a Gravity we have only begun to learn how to detect and measure, must go on blundering inside our front-brain faith in Kute Korrespondences, hoping that for each psi-synthetic taken from Earth’s soul there is a molecule, secular, more or less ordinary and named, over here - kicking endlessly among the plastic trivia, finding in each Deeper Significance and trying to string them all together like terms of a power series hoping to zero in on the tremendous and secret Function whose name, like the permuted names of God, cannot be spoken... plastic saxophone reed sounds of unnatural timbre, shampoo bottle ego-image, Cracker Jack prize one-shot amusement, home appliance casing fairing for winds of cognition, baby bottles tranquilization, meat packages disguise of slaughter, dry-cleaning bags infant strangulation, garden hoses feeding endlessly the desert... but to bring them together, in their slick persistence and our preterition... to make sense out of, to find the meanest sharp sliver of truth in so much replication, so much waste.... Lucky Bland, to be free of it.

 * No, as none of these, but instead a point in space, a point hung precise as the point where burning must end, never launched, never to fall. And what is the specific shape whose center of gravity is the Brennschluss Point? Don't jump at an infinite number of possible shapes. There's only one. It is most likely an interface between one order of things and another. There's a Brennschluss point for every firing site. They still hang up there, all of them, a constellation waiting to have a 13th sign of the Zodiac named for it...

 * It’s been a prevalent notion. Fallen sparks. Fragments of vessels broken at the Creation. And someday, somehow, before the end, a gathering back to home. A messenger from the Kingdom, arriving at the last moment. But I tell you there is no such message, no such home -- only the millions of last moments... no more. Our history is an aggregate of last moments.

 * Trees, now--Slothrop's intensely alert to trees, finally. When he comes in among trees he will spend time touching them, studying them, sitting very quietly near them and understanding that each tree is a creature, carrying on its individual life, aware of what's happening around it, not just some hunk of wood to be cut down. Slothrop's family actually made its money killing trees, amputating them from their roots, chopping them up, grinding them to pulp, bleaching that to paper and getting paid for this with more paper. "That's really insane." He shakes his head. "There's insanity in my family." He looks up. The trees are still. They know he's there. They probably also know what he's thinking. "I'm sorry," he tells them. "I can't do anything about those people, they're all out of my reach. What can I do?" A medium-size pine nearby nods its top and suggests, "Next time you come across a logging operation out here, find one of their tractors that isn't being guarded, and take its oil filter with you. That's what you can do."

title: Gravity's Rainbow