Letter to Dionigi di Borgo San Sepolcro (26 April 1336), as translated by James Harvey Robinson (1898)
Contexto: I rejoiced in my progress, mourned my weaknesses, and commiserated the universal instability of human conduct. I had well-nigh forgotten where I was and our object in coming; but at last I dismissed my anxieties, which were better suited to other surroundings, and resolved to look about me and see what we had come to see. The sinking sun and the lengthening shadows of the mountain were already warning us that the time was near at hand when we must go. As if suddenly wakened from sleep, I turned about and gazed toward the west. I was unable to discern the summits of the Pyrenees, which form the barrier between France and Spain; not because of any intervening obstacle that I know of but owing simply to the insufficiency of our mortal vision.
— Nikos Kazantzakis, libro The Saviors of God
The Saviors of God (1923)
— Dan Simmons, libro El ascenso de Endymion
Fuente: The Rise of Endymion (1997), Chapter 21 (p. 422)
— Albert Einstein German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity 1879 - 1955
1930s, Wisehart interview (1930)
Contexto: I do not believe in a God who maliciously or arbitrarily interferes in the personal affairs of mankind. My religion consists of an humble admiration for the vast power which manifests itself in that small part of the universe which our poor, weak minds can grasp!
— Michael Shermer, libro The Science of Good and Evil
[Shermer, The Science of Good and Evil: Why People Cheat, Share, Gossip, and Follow the Golden Rule, 1st edition, 2004, Times Books, New York, ISBN 0805075208, 18]
— Donald Miller, libro Blue Like Jazz: nonreligious thoughts on Christian spirituality
Blue Like Jazz (2003, Nelson Books)
— Edwin Grant Conklin American biologist and zoologist 1863 - 1952
Edwin Grant Conklin, in: p. 74 Thirteen Americans: their spiritual autobiographies https://archive.org/stream/religionandcivil000911mbp#page/n91/mode/2up Louis Finkelstein (ed.), 1953, p. 74
— Barack Obama 44th President of the United States of America 1961
2018, Nelson Mandela Annual Lecture (2018)
Contexto: It was in service of this long walk towards freedom and justice and equal opportunity that Nelson Mandela devoted his life. At the outset, his struggle was particular to this place, to his homeland – a fight to end apartheid, a fight to ensure lasting political and social and economic equality for its disenfranchised non-white citizens. But through his sacrifice and unwavering leadership and, perhaps most of all, through his moral example, Mandela and the movement he led would come to signify something larger. He came to embody the universal aspirations of dispossessed people all around the world, their hopes for a better life, the possibility of a moral transformation in the conduct of human affairs.
Madiba’s light shone so brightly, even from that narrow Robben Island cell, that in the late ‘70s he could inspire a young college student on the other side of the world to reexamine his own priorities, could make me consider the small role I might play in bending the arc of the world towards justice. And when later, as a law student, I witnessed Madiba emerge from prison, just a few months, you’ll recall, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, I felt the same wave of hope that washed through hearts all around the world.
Do you remember that feeling? It seemed as if the forces of progress were on the march, that they were inexorable. Each step he took, you felt this is the moment when the old structures of violence and repression and ancient hatreds that had so long stunted people’s lives and confined the human spirit – that all that was crumbling before our eyes. And then, as Madiba guided this nation through negotiation painstakingly, reconciliation, its first fair and free elections; as we all witnessed the grace and the generosity with which he embraced former enemies, the wisdom for him to step away from power once he felt his job was complete, we understood that – we understood it was not just the subjugated, the oppressed who were being freed from the shackles of the past. The subjugator was being offered a gift, being given a chance to see in a new way, being given a chance to participate in the work of building a better world.
— Hermann Cohen German philosopher 1842 - 1918
An dem Armen geht mir der Mensch auf. Daher kann ich den Menschen nicht denken ohne das Mitleid mit ihm, ohne die Liebe zu ihm. Nicht das Universum, aber das sittliche Universum, das soziale Dasein der Menschen muß ich denken und lieben, wenn mein Denken Gottes: Liebe heißen darf.
Fuente: The Concept of Religion in the System of Philosophy (1915), p. 81 http://books.google.com/books?id=rZ9RAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA81
— Ansel Adams American photographer and environmentalist 1902 - 1984
— Angela Carter, libro The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman
Fuente: The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman
— Douglas Adams, libro El restaurante del fin del mundo
Fuente: The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
— Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel German poet, critic and scholar 1772 - 1829
Die romantische Poesie ist eine progressive Universalpoesie.
Progressive Universalpoesie (1798); in the German language, particularly in the Romantic schools, "Poesie" means both poetry as genre and faculty and the source of creativity to form poetry.
— Albert Einstein German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity 1879 - 1955
— Fernando Pessoa, libro Libro del desasosiego
Ibid.
The Book of Disquiet
Original: Eu, porém, não tenho nobreza estilística. Dói-me a cabeça porque me dói a cabeça. Dói-me o universo porque me dói a cabeça.
— Nikos Kazantzakis, libro The Saviors of God
The Saviors of God (1923)
— Albert Einstein German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity 1879 - 1955
— Bill Cosby American actor, comedian, author, producer, musician, activist 1937
The Hollywood Reporter, Bill Cosby Resigns From Temple University Board of Trustees, THR Staff, December 1, 2014, December 1, 2014, December 1, 2014, https://web.archive.org/web/20141201220716/http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/bill-cosby-resigns-temple-university-753043 http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/bill-cosby-resigns-temple-university-753043,
