A Quote by Woodrow Wilson

There is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, that they had better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it.
Since I entered politics, I have chiefly had men's views confided to me privately. Some of the biggest men in the United States, in the field of commerce and manufacture, are afraid of somebody, are afraid of something. They know that there is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, that they had better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it.
This all-pervading power is the power of divine love. It thinks. It organizes. It plans. It loves. It is the one which is the subtle of the ether, you can call it. It is the subtle of the matter. It is the subtle of your emotions. It is the subtle of your mental power. It is the subtle of your evolutionary power, but all integrated and coordinated in complete synchronization.
We queers of Revelation hill...died of the greed of power, because we were expendable. If you mean to visit any of us, it had better be to make you strong to fight that power. Take your languor and easy tears somewhere else. Above all, don't pretty us up. Tell yourself: None of this ever had to happen. And then go make it stop, with whatever breath you have left. Grief is a sword, or it is nothing.
How any human being ever has had the impudence to speak against the right to speak, is beyond the power of my imagination. Here is a man who speaks-who exercises a right that he, by his speech, denies. Can liberty go further than that? Is there any toleration possible beyond the liberty to speak against liberty-the real believer in free speech allowing others to speak against the right to speak?
True story - I had index cards; I would write things on them and post them on the mirror in the bathroom. And I would speak it. Because you have to speak life. You have to speak what you want. You have to watch what you say because it's power in your tongue.
Was it all put into words, or did both understand that they had the same thing at heart and in their minds, so that there was no need to speak of it aloud, and better not to speak of it?
Speak the truth. Speak it loud and often, calmly but insistently, and speak it, as the Quakers say, to power. Material accumulation is not the purpose of human existence. All growth is not good. The environment is a necessity, not a luxury. There is such a thing as enough.
Be slow to speak, and only after having first listened quietly, so that you may understand the meaning, leanings, and wishes of those who do speak. Thus you will better know when to speak and when to be silent.
When you speak universally, it means that you speak from the Moon, you speak from the Sun, from the stars; you speak by being in every corner of the universe!
Elegance of language may not be in the power of all of us; but simplicity and straight forwardness are. Write much as you would speak; speak as you think. If with your inferior, speak no coarser than usual; if with your superiors, no finer.
I speak English, obviously, Afrikaans, which is a derivative of Dutch that we have in South Africa. And then I speak African languages. So I speak Zulu. I speak Xhosa. I speak Tswana. And I speak Tsonga. And like - so those are my languages of the core. And then I don't claim German, but I can have a conversation in it. So I'm trying to make that officially my seventh language. And then, hopefully, I can learn Spanish.
Ideas rose in clouds; I felt them collide until pairs interlocked, so to speak, making a stable combination.
The tears of the world are a constant quantity. For each one who begins to weep somewhere else another stops. The same is true of the laugh. Let us not then speak ill of our generation, it is not any unhappier than its predecessors. Let us not speak well of it either. Let us not speak of it at all. It is true the population has increased.
A Latin phrase says: De mortuis nil nisi bonum, Speak no ill of the dead. But it is better to say this way: Speak the truth of the living and speak the truth of the dead!
If you go on condemning, your condemnation shows that somewhere there is a wound, and you are feeling jealous - because without jealousy there can be no condemnation. You condemn people because somehow, somewhere, unconsciously you feel they are enjoying themselves and you have missed.
Intellectuals may like to think of themselves as people who "speak truth to power" but too often they are people who speak lies to gain power.
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