#w

Jacques Derrida is a very important thinker and philosopher who has made serious contributions to both philosophy and literary criticism. Roland Barthes is the one I feel most affinity for, and Michel Foucault, well, his writing influenced my novel, 'Middlesex.' ↗

— Jeffrey Eugenides

#both #contributions #criticism #feel #his

All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression. ↗

— Thomas Jefferson

#cases #equal #equal rights #law #majority

I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them but to inform their discretion. ↗

— Thomas Jefferson

#depository #discretion #enlightened #enough #exercise

Whenever a man has cast a longing eye on offices, a rottenness begins in his conduct. ↗

— Thomas Jefferson

#begins #cast #conduct #eye #his

The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time. ↗

— Thomas Jefferson

#god #liberty #life #same #time

Egypt has suffered more ordeals than the other countries to get where it is. ↗

— Tahar Ben Jelloun

#egypt #get #more #other #other countries

When I wrote The Virgin Suicides, I gave myself very strict rules about the narrative voice: the boys would only be able to report what they had seen or found or what had been told to them. ↗

— Jeffrey Eugenides

#about #been #found #gave #had

Peace and abstinence from European interferences are our objects, and so will continue while the present order of things in America remain uninterrupted. ↗

— Thomas Jefferson

#america #continue #european #interferences #objects

The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other. Our children see this, and learn to imitate it. ↗

— Thomas Jefferson

#boisterous #children #commerce #degrading #despotism

One question in my mind, which I hardly dare mention in public, is whether patriotism has, overall, been a force for good or evil in the world. Patriotism is rampant in war and there are some good things about it. Just as self-respect and pride bring out the best in an individual, pride in family, pride in teammates, pride in hometown bring out the best in groups of people. War brings out the kind of pride in country that encourages its citizens in the direction of excellence and it encourages them to be ready to die for it. At no time do people work so well together to achieve the same goal as they do in wartime. Maybe that's enough to make patriotism eligible to be considered a virtue. If only I could get out of my mind the most patriotic people who ever lived, the Nazi Germans. ↗

— Andy Rooney

#nazi #patriotism #pride #virtue #war