Everything Quotes

Society exists for the benefit of its members, not the members for the benefit of society.

We do not commonly see in a tax a diminution of freedom, and yet it clearly is one.

The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly, is to fill the world with fools.

The wise man must remember that while he is a descendant of the past, he is a parent of the future.

A jury is composed of twelve men of average ignorance.

Hero-worship is strongest where there is least regard for human freedom.

People are beginning to see that the first requisite to success in life is to be a good animal.

Marriage: A word which should be pronounced 'mirage'.

No one can be perfectly free till all are free; no one can be perfectly moral till all are moral; no one can be perfectly happy till all are happy.

The fact disclosed by a survey of the past that majorities have been wrong must not blind us to the complementary fact that majorities have usually not been entirely wrong.

The more specific idea of Evolution now reached is - a change from an indefinite, incoherent homogeneity to a definite, coherent heterogeneity, accompanying the dissipation of motion and integration of matter.

The Republican form of government is the highest form of government: but because of this it requires the highest type of human nature, a type nowhere at present existing.

Who indeed, after pulling off the coloured glasses of prejudice and thrusting out of sight his pet projects, can help seeing the folly of these endeavours to protect men against themselves? A sad population of imbeciles would our schemers fill the world with, could their plans last.

Old forms of government finally grow so oppressive that they must be thrown off even at the risk of reigns of terror.

Objects we ardently pursue bring little happiness when gained; most of our pleasures come from unexpected sources.

A living thing is distinguished from a dead thing by the multiplicity of the changes at any moment taking place in it.

Be bold, be bold, and everywhere be bold.

Life is the continuous adjustment of internal relations to external relations.

When a man's knowledge is not in order, the more of it he has the greater will be his confusion.

All socialism involves slavery.

The preservation of health is a duty. Few seem conscious that there is such a thing as physical morality.

Volumes might be written upon the impiety of the pious.

Divine right of kings means the divine right of anyone who can get uppermost.

Civilization is a progress from an indefinite, incoherent homogeneity toward a definite, coherent heterogeneity.

We all decry prejudice, yet are all prejudiced.

Music must take rank as the highest of the fine arts - as the one which, more than any other, ministers to the human spirit.

Marriage: a ceremony in which rings are put on the finger of the lady and through the nose of the gentleman.

The behavior of men to the lower animals, and their behavior to each other, bear a constant relationship.

In science the important thing is to modify and change one's ideas as science advances.

Those who have never entered upon scientific pursuits know not a tithe of the poetry by which they are surrounded.

I am determined to offer an apology with my death.

It goes without saying that when survival is threatened, struggles erupt between peoples, and unfortunate wars between nations result.

The reason was the failure of both Japan and China to understand each other and the inability of America and the European powers to sympathize, without prejudice, with the peoples of East Asia.

From the point of the view of the nation's power, it was obvious that while we were fighting the Sino-Japanese war, every effort was to be made to avoid adding to our enemies and opening additional fronts.

During this period, Japan's peaceful commercial relations were successively obstructed, primarily by the American rupture of commercial relations, and this was a grave threat to the survival of Japan.

Throughout that period, Japan had made honest efforts to keep the destruction of war from spreading and, based on the belief that all nations of the world should find their places, had followed a policy designed to restore an expeditious peace between Japan and China.

The causes of the China Incident were the exclusion and insult of Japan throughout China, the exclusion of Japanese goods, the persecution of Japanese residents in China, and the illegal violation of Japanese rights.

I would point out that Japan's proposal at the Versailles Peace Conference on the principle of racial equality was rejected by delegates such as those from Britain and the United States.

When reflecting upon it today, that the Pearl Harbor attack should have succeeded in achieving surprise seems a blessing from Heaven. It was clear that a great American fleet had been concentrated in Pearl Harbor, and we supposed that the state of alert would be very high.

To advocate a New Order was to seek freedom and respect for peoples without prejudice, and to seek a stable basis for the existence all peoples, equally, and free of threats.

Despite Japan's desires and efforts, unfortunate differences in the ways that Japan, England, the United States, and China understood circumstances, together with misunderstandings of attitudes, made it impossible for the parties to agree.

On October 18, 1941, I suddenly received a mandate from His Majesty to form a new cabinet. This was completely unexpected, and when I was summoned to the Imperial Palace I thought I would be questioned on the army's point of view.

At the Imperial Conference on December 1, it was decided to make war against England and the United States.

Thus, it was to seek true civilization and true justice for all the peoples of the world, and to view this as the destruction of personal freedom and respect is to be assailed by the hatred and emotion of war, and to make hasty judgments.

Even military ministers have no more than a certain amount of control. It is customary that they have the right and the power to participate, from a political and military point of view, in the planning of actual operations.

The Japanese government has accepted the notion that Japan is the loser, and it appears to be going to accept unconditional surrender. Such a position frustrates the officers and soldiers of the imperial armed forces.

In dealing with the China problem, the British and American side, which had particularly strong interests in China, should have based its judgments about the origins of the problem on direct observation of the actual circumstances at the time.

Justice has nothing to do with victor nations and vanquished nations, but must be a moral standard that all the world's peoples can agree to. To seek this and to achieve it - that is true civilization.

With options thus foreclosed, in order to protect and defend the nation and clear the obstacles that stood in its path, a decisive appeal to arms was made.

I would point out that the cultural advance of these people has been suppressed in the past and continues to be suppressed in the present by policies designed to keep them in ignorance.