In a life and death struggle, we cannot afford to leave our destinies in the hands of failures.
Clement AttleeRead
When we are returned to power we want to put in the statute book an act which will make our people citizens of the world before they are citizens of this country.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the importance of global citizenship over national identity.
Clement Attlee's quote reflects a vision of inclusivity and universality, suggesting that true citizenship should extend beyond national borders. He advocates for a legal framework that prioritizes the rights and identity of individuals as global citizens, rather than being confined by the limitations of national citizenship, thereby promoting a sense of belonging to the world as a whole.
In practice
In a speech about immigration reforms, this quote can highlight the importance of embracing a global perspective.
The priority of any addict is to anaesthetise the pain of living to ease the passage of day with some purchased relief.
Enlightenment is not something you achieve. It is the absence of something. All your life you have been going forward after something, pursuing some goal. Enlightenment is dropping all that.
We've got to deal with the fact that the church has been violently prejudiced against gay people. We've murdered them; we've burned them at the stake; we've run them out of town for something over which they have no control. And that's immoral.
One may say that in a state of science where fundamental concepts have to be changed, tradition is both the condition for progress and a hindrance. Hence, it usually takes a long time before the new concepts are generally accepted.
Penal law was not created by the common people, nor by the peasantry, nor by the proletariat, but entirely by the bourgeoisie as an important tactical weapon in this system of divisions which they wished to introduce.
But that night as I drove back to Montreal, I at least discovered this: that there is no simple explanation for anything important any of us do, and that the human tragedy, or the human irony, consists in the necessity of living with the consequences of actions performed under the pressure of compulsions so obscure we do not and cannot understand them.
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