William Shakespeare Quotes
Merciful heaven, Thou rather with thy sharp and sulphurous bolt Splits the unwedgeable and gnarled oak Than the soft myrtle; but man, proud man, Dressed in a little brief authority, Most ignorant of what he's most assured His glassy essence--like an angry ape Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven As makes the angels weep; who, with our spleens, would all themselves laugh mortal.
Shakespeare, William. Measure for Measure. Edited by Barbara A. Mowat and Paul Werstine, Washington Square Press, 1997, act 2, sc. 2.
On May 26, 1887 President Grover Cleveland, himself a Union Army Civil War veteran, issued an Executive Order providing that the captured Confederate regimental flags held as trophies by the War Department be returned to the States of the regiments from which they were captured. Union veterans were outraged:. Within three weeks the president rescinded the order, caving in to pressure from the major veterans organization of the day, The Grand Army of the Republic. Many years later President Theodore Roosevelt ordered the flags returned to the former Confederate states.
A massive earthquake struck Japan, destroying most of Tokyo and Yokohama. The deaths were so extensive that no official count was ever made. At the time, Japanese politics was polarized by two factions: One urged Japan to become democratic and modern like the West; the other, urged Japanese right wing militarism and expansionism. The shock of the Japanese population of such an enormous natural disaster, were seem by most Japanese as a punishment from God as Yasubumi and many other Japanese leaders stated. The reason for the punishment claimed by most was the recent adoption of Western ideas, lifestyles and particularly the trend away from traditional Japanese authoritarian government and toward Democracy. Japan then rejected democratic ideas and followed a militaristic, expansionistic, aggression leading directly to WWII.
During the American Revolution many patriot clerics argued against the monarchy by claiming that God has given Kings to the Ancient Jews—who had a type of Republic—as a punishment. Therefore monarchy is to be avoided.
Yazid ibn al-Walid ibn 'Abd al-Malik. This is an Islamic doctrine that operates to this day together with the stricture that a bad ruler must be endured and not revolted against UNLESS he does not follow his Islamic religious obligations. This is why many Islamic rulers curry favor with the clerics. As long as they do not claim he is violating the word of God, his rule is safe from revolution. However, if the clerics turn on him, he is in deep trouble. Thus Saudi Arabia endures a monarchy and the ruling family pays the Wahhabi enormous sums to avoid their religious condemnation.
He was reacting to the fact that the Supreme Court had ruled that a State could not criminalize adult, consensual, homosexual behavior.
As a slave holder himself, this was a dramatic statement. Slavery was immoral, God’s justice will not be on the white slave owners side, a slave revolt or other event could occur and change things radically. One great puzzlement of American history has been why Jefferson, who wrote so eloquently against slavery and predicted the disaster that would come. would himself keep his slaves and never free them as George Washington did. Some argue that he was so broke financially, that he could not afford to free them.
William Shakespeare was an English playwright, poet, and actor, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's greatest dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon" (or simply "the Bard"). His extant works, including collaborations, consist of some 39 plays, 154 sonnets, three long narrative poems, and a few other verses, some of uncertain authorship. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. They also continue to be studied and reinterpreted.
