Gandhi's last words

हे राम

(Roughly pronounced, "hey raam") Google Translate

Rama (Ram) was the seventh avatar of Vishnu, the sustainer.

Jane Austen on unintelligibility

Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey, vol. 2, ch. 1:

I cannot speak well enough to be unintelligible.

Rhetorical devices

Chiasmus - reversal of words with related meaning.  By day the frolic, and the dance by night. — Samuel Johnson

Antimetabole - a subtype of chiasmus. Reversal of same words. "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country."

Ciceronian irony - blame by praise and praise by blame.

Apophasis - the speaker or writer brings up a subject by either denying it, or denying that it should be brought up.

In the 1984 U.S. presidential campaign debates, Ronald Reagan used a humorous apophasis to deflect scrutiny of his own fitness at age 73 by replying, "I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent's youth and inexperience."

In Cicero's "Pro Caelio" speech, he says to a prosecutor, "Obliviscor iam iniurias tuas, Clodia, depono memoriam doloris mei" ("I now forget your wrongs, Clodia, I set aside the memory of my pain [that you caused].")

When apophasis is taken to its extreme, the speaker provides full details, stating or drawing attention to something in the very act of pretending to pass it over: "I will not stoop to mentioning the occasion last winter when our esteemed opponent was found asleep in an alleyway with an empty bottle of vodka still pressed to his lips."

Maureen Dowd's "evolving" view of how feminism was affected by Bill Clinton's sexual escapades

2003/10/05 - NY Times - Win One for the Groper

Certainly, the bodybuilder-turned-phenom has had moments of being, to use David Letterman's word, a lunkhead. But I find the selective outrage of feminists just as offensive.

Feminism died in 1998 when Hillary allowed henchlings and Democrats to demonize Monica as an unbalanced stalker, and when Gloria Steinem defended Mr. Clinton against Kathleen Willey and Paula Jones by saying he had merely made clumsy passes, then accepted rejection, so there was no sexual harassment involved. As to his dallying with an emotionally immature 21-year-old, Ms. Steinem noted, ''Welcome sexual behavior is about as relevant to sexual harassment as borrowing a car is to stealing one.''

Surely what's good for the Comeback Kid is good for the Terminator. 

2016/02/14 - NY Times - "When Hillary Clinton Killed Feminism"

The interesting thing about the spectacle of older women trying to shame younger ones on behalf of Hillary is that Hillary and Bill killed the integrity of institutional feminism back in the ’90s — with the help of Albright and Steinem. 

2016/10/03 - Daily Caller - "Feminism died a little bit when the feminists had to help Bill Clinton" (video, interviewed by Katie Couric)

“I do think that feminism died a little bit when the feminists had to help Bill Clinton when Monica was actually telling the truth,” Dowd continued. “They had to support Bill Clinton just because they wanted his progressive policies on women.”

Feminism: an exchange of yokes?

Professing Feminism: Education and Indoctrination in Women's Studies by Daphne Patai and Noretta Koertge, chapter 8, "Cults, Communes, and Clicks", p. 195: 

As the us-versus-them opposition is replicated within the original grouping, policing actions get under way. This is a form of behavior that, in addition to allowing some people to be censorious and aggressive toward others, reflects a presumption of rights and wrongs: We are right. You are wrong.

Many feminists have trouble swallowing this. As a political science professor from Texas (who has a bumper sticker on her pickup truck saying FEMINIST REDNECK wrote to us: "I have not thrown off the yoke of one master to have it replaced by another, even if its name is feminism." 

"Imbecile bourgeoisie"

From The Secret Agent, by Joseph Conrad, chapter 2. Verloc is an inept anarchist agent and Vladimir is his superior. It's interesting that, in the present day, the left wants to do what Vladimir accuses the ruling classes of that day of wanting.

Mr Vladimir bore the look of heavy inquiry with perfect serenity.

"What we want is to administer a tonic to the Conference in Milan," he said airily. "Its deliberations upon international action for the suppression of political crime don't seem to get anywhere. England lags. This country is absurd with its sentimental regard for individual liberty. It's intolerable to think that all your friends have got only to come over to - "

"In that way I have them all under my eye," Mr Verloc interrupted huskily.

"It would be much more to the point to have them all under lock and key. England must be brought into line. The imbecile bourgeoisie of this country make themselves the accomplices of the very people whose aim is to drive them out of their houses to starve in ditches. And they have the political power still, if they only had the sense to use it for their preservation. I suppose you agree that the middle classes are stupid?"

Mr Verloc agreed hoarsely.

"They are."

"They have no imagination. They are blinded by an idiotic vanity. What they want just now is a jolly good scare. This is the psychological moment to set your friends to work. I have had you called here to develop to you my idea."