Elie Wiesel, writer, Nobel laureate

Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. -Elie Wiesel, writer, Nobel laureate (b. 1928)

I believe that this is true, when it is clear that one party in a dispute is an oppressor and the other a victim. Then it is morally reprehensible, though often very tempting, to be silent. But sometimes it isn't quite clear who is the oppressor. Then it seems to me that the course of wisdom is to remain neutral until it is clear. Depending on the gravity of such a conflict, it may be morally necessary to intervene in some way to determine exactly the nature of the conflict.

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Horace, poet and satirist

He who postpones the hour of living is like the rustic who waits for the river to run out before he crosses. -Horace, poet and satirist (65-8 BCE)

One hesitates before wading into a stream out fear of being swept away by the current. In a similar way one might hold back from engaging fully in life out of fear of losing control of one's life. Indeed, there is some danger in life; one cannot know beforehand everything that may happen. But there are safeguards one can employ when engaging in life, as in fording a stream. A sturdy faith can prevent disaster, like a sturdy rope across the stream. Trusty companions are the best.

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Alice Walker, author

I find it difficult to feel responsible for the suffering of others. That's why I find war so hard to bear. It's the same with animals: I feel the less harm I do, the lighter my heart. I love a light heart. And when I know I'm causing suffering, I feel the heaviness of it. It's a physical pain. So it's self-interest that I don't want to cause harm. -Alice Walker, author (b. 1944)

The first sentence of this quote is ambiguous. At first I thought she meant that she is emotionally handicapped in some way so that she lacks empathy, but by the end it is clear that her problem is just the opposite: she empathizes so much that it hurts physically.

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Martin Luther King Jr.

"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere" – Martin Luther King Jr.

This sounds good, but I wonder in what sense it is true.

Take for example injustice in Zambia. How does that threaten justice in the U. S.? Taking a purely materialistic point of view, that is, leaving out any consideration of spiritual forces, it would seem that the only way injustice in Zambia could affect the U. S. is by knowledge of injustice there encouraging forces of injustice here and/or discouraging those seeking justice here.

On the level of spiritual warfare, on the other hand, I think that there is really only one battle in the world, and Zambia is one flank. If the forces of good fail there, it may well affect us all.

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Bill Gates

Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one. -- Bill Gate

I wonder if Bill was being really clever here? The implication is that the nerds will rise toward the top of the organization chart so the chances are that everyone will end up working for one. So far it hasn't happened to me.

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Abba Agathon, monk

I have never gone to sleep with a grievance against anyone. And, as far as I could, I have never let anyone go to sleep with a grievance against me.-Abba Agathon, monk (4th/5th century) [from the Sayings of the Desert Fathers]

Good advice from a holy man. He was acting on the words of the New Testament: Eph 4:26 and, especially, Mt 5:23-26.

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Aldous Huxley, novelist

The propagandist's purpose is to make one set of people forget that certain other sets of people are human. -Aldous Huxley, novelist (1894-1963)

Perhaps the original context of this statement made it clear that Huxley was talking about particular propagandists, but standing alone, this isn't true because it is too sweeping. Often propagandists have other purposes, sometimes even noble.

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Denis Diderot, writer, editor, philosopher

"There is no moral precept that does not have something inconvenient about it." -- Denis Diderot, writer, editor, philosopher

Inconvenient? Indeed! Trust this prominent exponent of the French Enlightenment to cast the supreme battle of mankind in such terms. The fate of the world and of each individual man is decided by the response to moral precepts.

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Buddha

It is not life and wealth and power that enslave men, but the cleaving to life and wealth and power. -Buddha (c. 563-483 BC)

This is true. The question them becomes, how shall we achieve the state of not clinging to life and wealth and power? Buddha's answer, as I understand it, is a continuous striving against the world and against oneself. Jesus' answer, by contrast, is life in relationship to Him, a life of surrender to Love and the working of the Holy Spirit.
Luke 17:33 "Whoever seeks to gain his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will preserve it."
Galatians 2:20-21 "I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me;and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not nullify the grace of God; for if justification were through the law, Christ died for no purpose."

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Robert Louis Stevenson, novelist, essayist, and poet

If your morals make you dreary, depend on it, they are wrong. -Robert Louis Stevenson, novelist, essayist, and poet (1850-1894)

Or at least partly wrong. It is true that leading a fully moral life leads to full happiness, but it is also true that an unhappy person may nevertheless have some correct morals. So just because someone has a dreary life, it doesn't mean that there is no area in which they can be honored or emulated.

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Pablo Picasso

"There are painters who transform the sun to a yellow spot, but there are others who with the help of their art and their intelligence transform a yellow spot into the sun."-- Pablo Picasso

This is a wonderful characterization of the work of the artist. It can be applied as well to the writer.

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Jean Toomer, poet and novelist

Thank everyone who calls out your faults, your anger, your impatience, your egotism; do this consciously, voluntarily. -Jean Toomer, poet and novelist (1894-1967)

Excellent advice! We tend to be blind to our own faults, but our friends and neighbors, and especially our spouses, often see them clearly. If they tell us, we can work on correcting them, and if we thank them for telling us, they will likely continue to do so, and probably will be more generous and forgiving toward us as well.

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Piet Hein, poet and scientist

Knowing what
Thou knowest not
Is in a sense
Omniscience.
Piet Hein, poet and scientist (1905-1996)

Interesting! It is true that the realm of things that we know we are ignorant about is very large, but in truth the full scope of knowledge Hein means includes not only what we know we don't know, but also what we don't even know is knowable. There are logically four realms of knowledge: what we know we know, what we think we know but don't really, what we know we don't know, and what we don't know we don't know. A look at the history of science gives us a hint of how large that last category may be.

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Albert Einstein

I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own -- a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty. -Albert Einstein, physicist, Nobel laureate (1879-1955)

Einstein was a great physicist, but not much of a theologian. This comment reveals that he had not looked very deeply into the the work of many theologians and saints who spent many years grappling with the issues he treats so lightly.

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Alice Walker, author

What the mind doesn't understand, it worships or fears. -Alice Walker, author (b. 1944)

Ms Walker seems to have a very limited exposure to the variety of human nature. My own experience tells me that people may have a number of other reactions to something that they don't understand, such as wonder or curiosity.

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Annie Dillard, author

I learn that ten percent of all the world's species are parasitic insects. It is hard to believe. What if you were an inventor, and you made ten percent of your inventions in such a way that they could only work by harnessing, disfiguring or totally destroying the other ninety percent? -Annie Dillard, author (b. 1945)

Ms Dillard exhibits here some very fuzzy thinking. It is hard to imagine that there are any inventions that don't harness other inventions, and the purpose of many inventions is to disfigure, in the sense of alter in some way (for example a lathe), andfor many others the function is to destroy other things (e.g., a trash compactor).

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Edward Abbey, naturalist and author (1927-1989)

Society is like a stew. If you don't keep it stirred up you get a lot of scum on the top. -Edward Abbey, naturalist and author (1927-1989)

History shows that there is a lot of truth to this. The trick for a good society is to devise a form of government that allows for stirring the pot on a regular basis. Violent revolution obviously has serious drawbacks, but comes about when the scum can't be removed by peaceful methods.

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