Western Quotes
More Western Quotes
The order and harmony of the western world, its most famous achievement, and a laboratory in which structures of a complexity as yet unknown are being fashioned, demand the elimination of a prodigious mass of noxious by-products which now contaminate the globe. The first thing we see as we travel round the world is our own filth, thrown into the face of mankind.
claude lévi-strauss— Tristes Tropiques, Chapter 4: The Quest for Power (1955, p. 38)
Of the twenty or so civilizations known to modern western historians, all except our own appear to be dead or moribund, and, when we diagnose each case, in extremis or post mortem, we invariably find that the cause of death has been either War or Class or some combination of the two. To date, these two plagues have been deadly enough, in partnership, to kill off nineteen out of twenty representatives of this recently evolved species of human society; but, up to now, the deadliness of these scourges has had a saving limit.
Arnold Joseph Toynbee— Civilization on Trial (1948), chapter 2, p. 23.
If the estimate of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs is correct, then Russia has lost the cold war in western Europe.
walter lippmann— The Miami Herald (December 18, 1947), p. 6A.
Strange as it may seem to our western egoism , the prospect of sharing in the general, impersonal immortality of the human soul kindles in the Sufi an enthusiasm as deep and triumphant as that of the most ardent believer in a personal life continuing beyond the grave. Jalaluddin, after describing the evolution of man in the material world and anticipating his further growth in the spiritual universe , utters a heartfelt prayer for what? for self-annihilation in the ocean of the Godhead .
— Reynold Alleyne Nicholson, in The Mystics of Islam (1914) edited by Reynold Alleyne Nicholson, p. 124
While [European] national cultures were concocted to distinguish one economic unit of capital from another, civilizational thinking was invented to unify these cultures against their colonial consequences. Islamic, Indian, or African civilizations were invented contrapuntally by Orientalism …in order to match, balance and thus authenticate ‘western Civilization’.
hamid dabashi— For the Last Time Civilization.
The Muslim world, with its history and cultures, and indeed its different interpretations of Islam, is still little known in the West… The two worlds, Muslim and non-Muslim, Eastern and western, must, as a matter of urgency, make a real effort to get to know one another, for I fear that what we have is not a clash of civilisations, but a clash of ignorance on both sides.
aga khan iv— Closing Address by His Highness the Aga Khan at the "Musée-Musées" Round Table Louvre Museum, October 17, 2007 (AKDN)
Ahmedabad reputed as the 'Manchester' of western India, is a busy industrial city situated in a cotton-growing hinterland north of the Gulf of Cambay...
— Ahmedabad, in Ahmadabad, Archaeological Survey of India, 1980, p.1
His interpretations of the Bhagavad Gita and other scriptures testify to the depth of Sri Yukteswarji's command of the philosophy, both Eastern and western, and remain as an eye-opener for the unity between Orient and Occident. As he believed in the unity of all religious faiths, Sri Yukteswar Maharaj established Sadhu Sabha (Society of Saints) with the cooperation of leaders of various sects and faiths, for the inculcation of a scientific spirit in religion.
paramahansa yogananda— Ch. 42 - Last Days With My Guru
... it is not men that most women worry about when they rise to the defense of the status quo. Their apparent endorsement of male supremacy is, rather, a pathetic striving for self-respect, self-justification, and self-pardon. After fifteen hundred years of subjection to men, western woman finds it almost unbearable to face the fact that she has been hoodwinked and enslaved by her inferiors that the master is lesser than the slave.
elizabeth gould davis— The First Sex, ch. 21 - The Prejudice Lingers On (1971).
A complete theory of evolution must acknowledge a balance between “external” forces of environment imposing selection for local adaptation and “internal” forces representing constraints of inheritance and development. Vavilov placed too much emphasis on internal constraints and downgraded the power of selection. But western Darwinians have erred equally in practically ignoring (while acknowledging in theory) the limits placed on selection by structure and development what Vavilov and the older biologists would have called “laws of form.”
stephen jay gould— "A Hearing for Vavilov", p. 144
Those who decry the rule of law as a western principle or an imported construct, misunderstand the concept. It is about abiding by a set of standards for the well-being of society as a whole.
ratu joni madraiwiwi— Speech to the Fiji Law Society, 2 July 2005
There are different kinds of justice. Retributive justice is largely western. The African understanding is far more restorative - not so much to punish as to redress or restore a balance that has been knocked askew.
desmond tutu— As quoted in "Recovering from Apartheid" at The New Yorker (18 November 1996)
At its zenith in the middle of the 15th Century Timbuktu was known all over the world as a repository for all sorts of knowledge, including Arabic Islamic writing, science, maths and history. What is so important about Timbuktu's literary patrimony is that it is a challenge to western ideas that Africa is a land of song and dance and oral tradition. It reveals a continent with an immensely rich literary and scientific heritage.
— Lydia Syson, an expert on Mali, quoted on BBC News, "Mali: Timbuktu heritage may be threatened, Unesco says", April 3, 2012.
Today in many western countries, nobody dares question the Holocaust whose nature is questionable. According to the reports I have received, in America if people decide to write something against homosexuality on the basis of psychological and sociological principles, they will be prevented from publishing their work. How is it that these people feel obligated to respect freedom of expression?
ali khamenei— September 17, 2012 comments made during a graduation ceremony at Imam Khomeini Naval Academy in Noshahr
I was familiar with that and “Rio Bravo.” “Rio Bravo” was what John Carpenter did, that brilliant move of taking a western and turning it into an urban flick. And from there you got, you know, all the cop genre movies of the time.
john leguizamo— John Leguizamo Talks About "Assault on Precinct 13", January 16, 2005.[3]
Opera, next to Gothic architecture, is one of the strangest inventions of western man. It could not have been foreseen by any logical process.
kenneth clark— Ch. 9: The Pursuit of Happiness
You may have noticed that Senator Obama's supporters have been saying some pretty nasty things about western Pennsylvania lately. And you know, I couldn't agree with them more.
john mccain— Said in a speech near Kansas City, Missouri, October 20, 2008.[45]
Everything great in western culture has come from the quarrel with nature.
camille paglia— p. 28 (Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson (1990))
Swiftly walk over the western wave, Spirit of Night!
Percy Bysshe Shelley— Percy Bysshe Shelley, To Night.
Furthermore, all the western politicians, intellectuals and journalists are obliged to pay homage and bow to the monument that commemorates those allegedly killed in the Nazi concentration camps. In other words, all should acknowledge the veracity of something that has not been proven! This is also one of the propaganda means being applied by the Zionists to portray themselves as the victims of persecution!
ali khamenei— January 31, 2002 statements to the Islamic World Media conference held in Tehran
Beheld the duteous son, the sire decayed,The modest matron, and the blushing maid,Forc'd from their homes, a melancholy train,To traverse climes beyond the western main.
Oliver Goldsmith— Oliver Goldsmith, The Traveller (1764), line 407.
In western Europe people perish from the congestion and stifling closeness, but with us it is from the spaciousness.... The expanses are so great that the little man hasn’t the resources to orient himself.... This is what I think about Russian suicides.
Anton Chekhov— Letter to D.V. Grigorovich (February 5, 1888)
[Somali maritime violence] is a response to greedy western nations, who invade and exploit Somalia's water resources illegally. It is not a piracy, it is self defence. It is defending the Somalia children's food.
muammar gaddafi— Remarks at African Union headquarters, quoted in Daily Nation (5 February 2009) "Gaddafi defends Somali pirates" by Argaw Ahine
The fact is Burke is smarter than two thirds of the western Australian Labor Party rolled together
paul keating— Referring to disgraced former Western Australia Premier Brian Burke, ABC Radio interview, March 5, 2007.
Growing terrorism, permissive societies, democracy collapsing through lack of law and order. If things continue on their present track, the disintegration of western societies will occur much sooner than you think under the hammer blows of fascism and communism. Freedom is not something that does not have a breaking point, and your enemies would like you to reach that point.
muhammad reza pahlavi— As quoted in Jimmy Carter (1995), Keeping faith: memoirs of a president, page 444
Beheld the duteous son, the sire decayed, The modest matron, and the blushing maid, Forc'd from their homes, a melancholy train, To traverse climes beyond the western main.
Oliver Goldsmith— Oliver Goldsmith, The Traveller (1764), line 407.
As western nations became more prosperous, leisure, which had been put off for several centuries in favor of the pursuit of property, the means to leisure, finally began to be of primary concern. But, in the meantime, any notion of the serious life of leisure, as well as men’s taste and capacity to live it, had disappeared.
Allan Bloom— Allan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind (New York: 1988), p. 77
During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, however, the fort changed its form from a residential town into a modern garden or empty space where only the palace and temple remained...This spatial transformation of the ort was a crucial part of a city improvement project in Mysore, which tried to beautify the capital at the same time as endeavuoring to meet modern demands of sanitation and hygiene…In this process, the modern western idea of improvement and the traditional kingly role as a protector of dharma were somehow reconciled ad mutually strengthened.
— Aya Ikegame, in "Princely India Re-imagined: A Historical Anthropology of Mysore from 1799 to ...", P.120
