Western Quotes

500+ Sourced quotes

The tender Evenlode that makes
Her meadows hush to hear the sound
Of waters mingling in the brakes,
And binds my heart to English ground. A lovely river, all alone,
She lingers in the hills and holds
A hundred little towns of stone,
Forgotten in the western wolds.

The rites at this Western Wall are revolting. This lighting of candles, the notes...It is a farce that they go up there and blow shofars. The greatest dramatist of all, Shakespeare, understood the trick. In the most horrifying and dramatic moments of his works - in Hamlet, King Lear, Macbeth, the buffoon appears. Apparently in the most dramatic moment in the history of the Jewish people, the buffoon must also enter, blowing the shofar and making these tasteless and demeaning gestures.

Yeshayahu Leibowitz

Coca-Cola and fries, the wafer and wine of the Western religion of commerce.

Western classical music, to be sure, is not part of traditional Iranian culture, and yes it's elitist. But the fact that the Tehran symphony Orchestra and the Roudaki Hall have survived the vagaries of these past three decades is yet another evidence that the forces of darkness, the cult of death, martyrdom and superstition has not conquered the spirit of our nation.

No doubt Western civilization has in the past been full of wars and revolutions, and the national elements in our culture, even when they were ignored, always provided an unconscious driving force of passion and aggressive self-assertion

Christopher Dawson

Western values, freedom of speech, democracy and rights for women are incompatible with Islam, which is a cancer eating away at our freedoms and our democracy and rights for our women and something needs to be done about it.

A soggy little island huffing and puffing to keep up with Western Europe.

Of England

The deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends, 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite The sounding furrows, for my purpose holds To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down;
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

The seditious rebels claim that we are the rulers of Manchuria and only later penetrated central China to become its rulers. Their prejudices concerning the division of their and our country have caused many vitriolic falsehoods. What these rebels have not understood is the fact that Manchuria is for the Manchus the same as the birthplace is for the people of the central plain. Shun belonged to the Eastern Yi, and King Wen to the Western Yi. Does this fact diminish their virtues?

Yongzheng Emperor

I never violate an inner rhythm. I loathe to force anything. I don't know if the inner rhythm is Eastern or Western. I know it is essential for me. I listen to it and I stay with it. I have always been this way. I have regards for the inner voice.

Far in a western brookland
That bred me long ago
The poplars stand and tremble
By pools I used to know.

I love Bach, I listened to him for 25 years, all my life, so I never get tired of Bach. And to learn Bach and play it is such a joy, even if no one ever hears it, just to play it sitting alone at home it makes you feel good, it's like a form of meditation. You can play it over and over and never get tired of it, it's a miracle. Bach I think is the greatest of all western musicians. Probably most people come to that conclusion. (laughs)

The truth seems to be that monogamous marriage, mitigated in certain countries by divorce and in certain other by tolerance of infidelity, persists in our Western civilization as the solution which entails the least suffering for the greatest number of people.

Acting in collaboration with the National Research Council, the Western Electric Company had for three years been engaged upon an attempt to assess the effect of illumination upon the worker and his work.

You start with an idea, and then you let it grow. I think at the moment, there is a tendency to want to see political change occur in the developing world very rapidly, and I think this notion of consultation and democracy is all excellent, but I simply don't believe that Western forms of democracy are necessarily replicable throughout the developing world that I know, and indeed I would go so far as to say that, at the moment, one of our risks is to see democracies fail. … I think you have to be patient, careful, analytical, thoughtful, prudent, and build step-by-step. I don't think it can be done like mixing a glass of Nescafé.

Those who decry the rule of law as a Western principle or an imported construct, misunderstand the concept. It is about abiding by a set of standards for the well-being of society as a whole.

Joni Madraiwiwi

The majority of therapists work under the influence of destructive interpretations culled from both Western and Oriental religions, which preach forgiveness to the once-mistreated child. Thereby, they create a new vicious circle for people who, from their earliest years, have been caught in the vicious circle of pedagogy. For forgiveness does not resolve latent hatred and self-hatred but rather covers them up in a very dangerous way.

While modern changes were intrinsic to Western historical development, they were largely seen by Muslims as alien and enforced.

Suha Taji-Farouki

Go to the western gate, Luke Havergal,
There where the vines cling crimson on the wall,
And in the twilight wait for what will come.

Edwin Arlington Robinson

Now let me be clear; millions of women around the world nurse their children beautifully for years without giving anybody else a hard time about it. Teat Nazis are a solely western upper-middle-class phenomenon occurring when highly ambitious women experience deprivation from outside modes of achievement.

In contemplating the pecuniary resources needed for the removal of such a number to so great a distance [freed slaves to Africa], my thoughts and hopes have long been turned to the rich fund presented in the western lands of the nation...

Our soul, our true self, is the most mysterious, essential, and magical dimension of our being. In fact, it is not a separate reality, as traditional Western thought views it, but the cohesive force that unites our body, heart, and mind. It is not a ghost trapped somehow in the physical machinery of our body but the very essence of our being.

The butchering may continue as it will, it shall remain the historical guilt of the Western powers that they did not promptly provide the sharpest preventative measures against the continued attack-politics Germany undertook. Possibilities existed for this, but no measures were seized upon.

Friedrich Kellner

When I look at western civilization, it's so messed up. They want to overcomplicate everything, and I think they do it through intellectualizations or apathies, or whatever, but they want to overcomplicate everything and sometimes I think they've been conditioned to want to overcomplicate everything so that, therefore, they don't have to act.... And perception... what does it take? It takes for us to tell ourselves the truth. It takes for us to tell ourselves the truth. That's what it takes. Not to lie to ourselves.

The crisis of the Western world exists to the degree in which it is indifferent to God.

Whittaker Chambers