“I believe that Gandhi’s views were the most enlightened of all the political men in our time. We should strive to do things in his spirit: not to use violence in fighting for our cause, but by non-participation in anything you believe is evil.”
– Albert Einstein (and you can listen to him say it and there is more on Einstein’s views and correspondence with Gandhi here)
“True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.”
– Martin Luther King
“Disgraced today throughout the four corners of the globe, America would in a single leap resume its lost grace, its capacity to inspire the imagination, that combination of myth and reality that makes it the country of all possibilities – the democracy par excellence that has such power of seduction and likeability, despite all of its gaping flaws.”
From an editorial of the French newspaper Libération (and via Ablogistan)
“I’m very concerned because I think the Jews want to drive the elephants to extinction because the trunk of an elephant reminds them of an uncircumcised penis… I’m absolutely serious about that.”
American chess-great Bobby Fischer, who died today.
“I’m not convinced that Paul is just “halting and uncomfortable on gay issues, like a lot of 72-year-old conservatives, but not hateful.” His denunciation of the Lawrence decision (a denunciation that is emphatically at odds with basic libertarian principles) as well as his rather extreme opposition to gay marriage suggest (though they do not prove) much more than mere discomfort on his part.”
