Laz people

“ But the purpose of science is only to explain how things have unfolded themselves; and only that is the idea which has ruled throughout this my work. Hut of course there are always people unable to separate science and politics.
One remark in conclusion! This Lassalle movement, and with it also the German type of social agitation, bears the stamp not only of historic-national interest, as I have attempted to show to you, but also much of purely personal characteristics; as is proved by the mysticism, the cult of a person and the creation of a sect, to which the movement has deteriorated. ”

“ But he grew serious when I talked about my Socialism.
"You blooming Socialists," he said, with a dry laugh, "are the most cocky people I have yet struck. You think you are the salt of the earth and that all the others are fatheads."
"Quite right, Lawson," I said with a laugh. And I added seriously: "You see, my boy, that if you have a theory, you've simply got to think the other fellow an idiot. I believe in Socialism—the Guild Socialism of The New Age, and naturally I think that Lloyd George and Bonar Law and the Cecils, and all that lot are hopelessly wrong." ”

“ Lasette threw open her parlors for the gathering together of the best thinkers and workers of the race, who choose to avail themselves of the privilege of meeting to discuss any question of vital importance to the welfare of the colored people of the nation. Knowing the entail of ignorance which slavery had left them, she could not be content by shutting up herself to mere social enjoyments within the shadow of her home. ”

“ The first was the Countess von Hatzfeldt, who, as we have seen, occupied—or rather wasted—nine of the best years of his life. Then came that profound and thrilling passion which ended the career of a man who at thirty-nine had only just begun to be famous.
Lassalle had joined his intellectual forces with those of Heine and Marx. He had obtained so great an influence over the masses of the people as to alarm many a monarch, and at the same time to attract many a statesman. ”

“ She did so, and they hurried on.
"That's the democracy," said Lashmar. "Those are the people for whom we are told that the world exists. They get money, and it gives them power. Meanwhile, the true leaders of mankind, as often as not, struggle through their lives in poverty and neglect."
Iris's voice sounded timidly.
"You would feel it of no use to have just enough for independence?"
"For the present," he replied, "it would be all I ask. But I might just as well ask for ten thousand a year."
The rain was beating upon them. During the ascent to Sunrise Terrace, neither spoke a word. ”

“ At this hour certain men revealed extraordinary strength of character, especially among the secondary actors of the movement. They felt that all was lost, that they were about to die, perhaps even at the hands of their own people, for the fever of suspicion had reached its utmost degree of paroxysm ”

“ I should add, also, that the general mass of the people are left in complete ignorance of all the tricks and intrigues that are concocted and extensively carried on in the higher circles. With guileless innocence the ordinary people swallow all the fabulous tales that are circulated about the alleged evidences fabricated for establishing the re-incarnation of Lamas. Those only who are acquainted with what is going on behind the scenes at Lhasa and Shigatze treat those ‘evidences’ with scorn, and denounce the re-incarnation affair as downright imposture and a mischievous farce. ”

“ I gather that he sometimes smokes cigarettes, a vice entirely unknown in refined undergraduate circles.
Also Mr. Laski is described to me in a hundred or so sketches, verses and witticisms. He is “the great indoor agitator”; he is “a member of the firm of Lenin, Trotski and Laski.” This evil young man, you must understand, holds the idea that the people of Russia should be permitted to work out their own revolution in their own way, and that American troops should not be sent in to attack them in Archangel and Siberia without a declaration of war. This makes him a “Bolshevik” ”

“ When harmony no longer prevailed throughout the six kinships, filial sons found their manifestation; when the states and clans fell into disorder, loyal ministers appeared.
19 If we could renounce our sageness and discard our wisdom, it would be better for the people a hundredfold. If we could renounce our benevolence and discard our righteousness, the people would again become filial and kindly. If we could renounce our artful contrivances and discard our (scheming for) gain, there would be no thieves nor robbers. ”

“ The Lascelles were very public-spirited people, who were interested in everything that was going on in the city and anxious to lend a hand in all schemes for the general good. They sewed national costumes for the Serbians, rolled bandages at the War Supply Depot, distributed dinners at the municipal kitchens, taught gymnastic classes at girls' clubs, visited crippled children, got up concerts for wounded soldiers, and organized Christmas parties for slum babies. They seemed to be occupied nearly every minute of the day, and they soon swept Avelyn into the whirl of the war activities. ”

“ The animosities inflamed by a four years' war, and its distressing incidents, cannot be easily overcome. But they extend beyond the limits of the army, to the people of the north. I have read in southern papers bitter complaints about the unfriendly spirit exhibited by the northern people—complaints not unfrequently flavored with an admixture of vigorous vituperation. But, as far as my experience goes, the "unfriendly spirit" exhibited in the north is all mildness and affection compared with the popular temper which in the south vents itself in a variety of ways and on all possible occasions. ”

“ All the devotees are poor and ragged, and many blind. It seems that the people of Lhasa do not begin to think of the next incarnation until they have nothing left in this. [Pg 267]
When one leaves the broad avenues between the walls of the groves and pleasure-gardens, and enters the city, one's senses are offended by everything that is unsightly and unclean. Pigs and pariah dogs are nosing about in black oozy mud. The houses are solid but dirty. It is hard to believe that they are whitewashed every year. ”

“ And then there were thousands of lazzaroni, creatures born in the streets, living in the streets, and dying in the streets, whose daily bread was the imperial dole, whose whole business in life was to watch the criminals being scourged, blinded, deprived of tongue, hand, nose, or foot, beheaded, and hanged ”

“ The next year, which was the fifth of his reign, and the first of the coming of Abuna Marcus, he again fought with the Agows, and beat the Denguis, Hancasha, and the Zeegam, and passed that winter in Gafat; nor was he ever unfortunate with the Agows or Galla. But a misfortune happened this year (the 6th of his reign) which very much affected the whole kingdom. The people of Lasta seemed to grow more inveterate after the defeat they had received under Melca Christos. In the stead of that prince slain in battle, they appointed his son, a young man of good hopes. ”

“ The people are kept by the lamas in spiritual slavery, and the lamas themselves are docile slaves to those tomes of narrow-minded dogmas which have been stereotyped for centuries, which may not be interfered with or criticised, for they are canonical, proclaim the absolute 384 truth, and stand in the way of all free and independent thought. ”

“ I have tried to meet certain objections; but I know that many more will be made, based on high grounds and low.
To the first class of objections belongs the remark that the Jews are not the only people in the world who are in a condition of distress. Here I would reply that we may as well begin by removing a little of this misery, even if it should at first be no more than our own.
It might further be said that we ought not to create new distinctions between people; we ought not to raise fresh barriers, we should rather make the old disappear. ”

“ In his Petersburg world all people were divided into utterly opposed classes. One, the lower class, vulgar, stupid, and, above all, ridiculous people, who believe that one husband ought to live with the one wife whom he has lawfully married; that a girl should be innocent, a woman modest, and a man manly, self-controlled, and strong; that one ought to bring up one’s children, earn one’s bread, and pay one’s debts; and various similar absurdities. This was the class of old-fashioned and ridiculous people. But there was another class of people, the real people. ”

“ Since he belonged, even at the age of six, to that great clan which cannot keep this feeling separate from that, but must let future prospects, with their joys and sorrows, cloud what is actually at hand, since to such people even in earliest childhood any turn in the wheel of sensation has the power to crystallise and transfix the moment upon which its gloom or radiance rests, James Ramsay, sitting on the floor cutting out pictures from the illustrated catalogue of the Army and Navy Stores, endowed the picture of a refrigerator, as his mother spoke, with heavenly bliss. ”

“ THE first man who, having enclosed a piece of ground, bethought himself of saying ‘This is mine,’ and found people simple enough to believe him, was the real founder of civil society. From how many crimes, wars, and murders, from how many horrors and misfortunes might not any one have saved mankind, by pulling up the stakes, or filling up the ditch, and crying to his fellows: ‘Beware of listening to this impostor; ”

“ Two keen eyes had watched every move of the party from the foliage of a nearby tree. Tarzan had seen the surprise caused by his notice, and while he could understand nothing of the spoken language of these strange people their gestures and facial expressions told him much. ”

“ "A commercial company enslaved a nation comprising two hundred millions. Tell this to a man free from superstition and he will fail to grasp what these words mean. What does it mean that thirty thousand people, not athletes, but rather weak and ordinary people, have enslaved two hundred millions of vigorous, clever, capable, freedom-loving people? ”

“ The beliefs appropriate to the impulse of aggression may be seen in Bernhardi, or in the early Mohammedan conquerors, or, in full perfection, in the Book of Joshua. There is first of all a conviction of the superior excellence of one's own group, a certainty that they are in some sense the chosen people. This justifies the feeling that only the good and evil of one's own group is of real importance, and that the rest of the world is to be regarded merely as material for the triumph or salvation of the higher race. In modern politics this attitude is embodied in imperialism. ”

“ The middle classes air their moral prejudices over their gross dinner-tables, and whisper about what they call the profligacies of their betters in order to try and pretend that they are in smart society and on intimate terms with the people they slander. ”

“ This saintly anarchist, who aroused the people of the abyss, the outcasts and “sinners,” the Chandala of Judaism, to rise in revolt against the established order of things—and in language which, if the Gospels are to be credited, would get him sent to Siberia today—this man was certainly a political criminal, at least in so far as it was possible to be one in so absurdly unpolitical a community. This is what brought him to the cross: the proof thereof is to be found in the inscription that was put upon the cross. ”

“ He was appalled at the awful intellectual chasm that yawned between him and his people. He could never cross it and explain to them his position,—the Nietzschean position, in regard to socialism. There were not words enough in the English language, nor in any language, to make his attitude and conduct intelligible to them. Their highest concept of right conduct, in his case, was to get a job. That was their first word and their last. It constituted their whole lexicon of ideas. Get a job! Go to work! Poor, stupid slaves, he thought, while his sister talked. ”

“ They ask themselves, what is suitable to my position? what is usually done by persons of my station and pecuniary circumstances? or (worse still) what is usually done by persons of a station and circumstances superior to mine? I do not mean that they choose what is customary, in preference to what suits their own inclination. It does not occur to them to have any inclination, except for what is customary. Thus the mind itself is bowed to the yoke: even in what people do for pleasure, conformity is the first thing thought of; they live in crowds; ”

“ Should it happen that a strong Government finds it may with impunity destroy a weak people, then the hour strikes for that weak people to appeal to the League of Nations to give its judgment in all freedom. God and history will remember your judgment. ”

“ because, in the first place, my Scipio, I build on your own admirable definition, that there can be no community, properly so called, unless it be regulated by a combination of rights. And, by this definition, it appears that a multitude of men may be just as tyrannical as a single despot; and it is so much the worse, since no monster can be more barbarous than the mob, which assumes the name and appearance of the people. ”

“ If you persist in your studies you will have to die. The eyes of Western men must not look upon the secrets of the priests of Lassa and live. Be warned, Dr. Tchigorsky, be warned in time. You are brave and clever, and as such command respect. If you know everything and proclaim it to the world——"
"Civilization will come as one man, and no stone in Lassa shall stand on another. Your priests will be butchered like wild beasts; an infernal plague spot will be wiped off the face of the outraged earth!" ”