السيد طه الغضبان

“Citizens, do you picture the future to yourselves? The streets of cities inundated with light, green branches on the thresholds, nations sisters, men just, old men blessing children, the past loving the present, thinkers entirely at liberty, believers on terms of full equality, for religion heaven, God the direct priest, human conscience become an altar, no more hatreds, the fraternity of the workshop and the school, for sole penalty and recompense fame, work for all, right for all, peace over all, no more bloodshed, no more wars, happy mothers! To conquer matter is the first step; to realize the ideal is the second. Reflect on what progress has already accomplished. Formerly, the first human races beheld with terror the hydra pass before their eyes, breathing on the waters, the dragon which vomited flame, the griffin who was the monster of the air, and who flew with the wings of an eagle and the talons of a tiger; fearful beasts which were above man. Man, nevertheless, spread his snares, consecrated by intelligence, and finally conquered these monsters. We have vanquished the hydra, and it is called the locomotive; we are on the point of vanquishing the griffin, we already grasp it, and it is called the balloon. On the day when this Promethean task shall be accomplished, and when man shall have definitely harnessed to his will the triple Chimæra of antiquity, the hydra, the dragon and the griffin, he will be the master of water, fire, and of air, and he will be for the rest of animated creation that which the ancient gods formerly were to him. Courage, and onward! Citizens, whither are we going? To science made government, to the force of things become the sole public force, to the natural law, having in itself its sanction and its penalty and promulgating itself by evidence, to a dawn of truth corresponding to a dawn of day. We are advancing to the union of peoples; we are advancing to the unity of man. No more fictions; no more parasites. The real governed by the true, that is the goal. Civilization will hold its assizes at the summit of Europe, and, later on, at the centre of continents, in a grand parliament of the intelligence. Something similar has already been seen. The amphictyons had two sittings a year, one at Delphos the seat of the gods, the other at Thermopylæ, the place of heroes. Europe will have her amphictyons; the globe will have its amphictyons. France bears this sublime future in her breast. This is the gestation of the nineteenth century. That which Greece sketched out is worthy of being finished by France. Listen to me, you, Feuilly, valiant artisan, man of the people. I revere you. Yes, you clearly behold the future, yes, you are right. You had neither father nor mother, Feuilly; you adopted humanity for your mother and right for your father. You are about to die, that is to say to triumph, here. Citizens, whatever happens to-day, through our defeat as well as through our victory, it is a revolution that we are about to create. As conflagrations light up a whole city, so revolutions illuminate the whole human race. And what is the revolution that we shall cause? I have just told you, the Revolution of the True. From a political point of view, there is but a single principle; the sovereignty of man over himself. This sovereignty of myself over myself is called Liberty. Where two or three of these sovereignties are combined, the state begins. But in that association there is no abdication. Each sovereignty concedes a certain quantity of itself, for the purpose of forming the common right. This quantity is the same for all of us. This identity of concession which each makes to all, is called Equality. Common right is nothing else than the protection of all beaming on the right of each. This protection of all over each is called Fraternity. The point of intersection of all these assembled sovereignties is called society.”
― Victor Hugo, Los miserables

“لا تستطيع تصوُّر هذا؟ … صدقت … إن النملة التي تسعى هنا في أرض حجرتك لا تستطيع هي الأخرى أن تتصور وجود مخلوقات أرقى في هذا البيت … كل ما تعلم هو أن هذا البيت لها وحدها … فهذه الجدران عندها هضاب وجبال طبيعية … وهذا الفتات من الخبز أو السكر الملقى على الأرض، موارد لها ومناجم، تغرف منها وتنقل إلى بيوتها ومدنها، بكد وجد لا يكلان … فإذا وطئت بلادها بنعلك؛ عن وعي أو غير وعي منك فأهلكت منها جموعًا، كان ذلك في نظرها كوارث اجتماعية تفسرها بشتى التفسيرات … ولكنها لن تتصور حدوثها من حذاء مخلوق أرقى هو أنت! … لأن عيونها الصغيرة لا يمكن أن تحيط بكل حجمك، ومداركها المحدودة لا يمكن أن تصل إلى فهمك …”
― توفيق الحكيم, بيت النمل: من وحي المعتقدات الشعبية

“I no longer understand anything literally. I cannot wait until I wake up, whereas earlier I could not wait to fall asleep. I have been made to speak. I have been sentenced to reality. - Do you hear it? (Silence.) Can you hear? (Silence.) Psst. (Silence.)”
― Peter Handke, Kaspar

“Let this be your lesson, Chagan. Nothing is less reliable than success”
― Theophylact Simocatta, The History of Theophylact Simocatta: An English Translation with Introduction