Quotes of the week

“The past month of July will be remembered as one of the most striking months of blood in recent years. We see the carnage caused by rockets, especially among civilians. But we also have to remember that each of these rockets, on whatever side and in whichever conflict, was designed and built. It was sold for profit and bought; it was supplied to respond, often to interests of people far away from where the carnage occurs. The industrialisation and commercialisation of war continues.” Diarmuid Martin, Archbishop of Dublin. “Europe has to take its responsibility to act, along with the UN. We cannot simply invoke a cult of memory... How can we stay neutral when a people, not far from Europe, is fighting for its rights and territorial integrity? How to stay neutral when a civilian aircraft can be shot out of the sky? When there are civilian populations being massacred in Iraq, minorities being persecuted in Syria? When in Gaza a murderous conflict has been going on for over a month.” Francois Hollande, French President, at a First World War memorial ceremony. “Sinn Fein and the IRA should have used the Home Rule Act as a peaceful stepping stone to dominion status and full independence in the same way as the Treaty of 1921 was so used, but only after so much blood had been shed. Ireland could have achieved better results, for all the people of the island, if it had continued to follow the successful nonviolent parliamentary Home Rule path.” John Bruton, ex-Taoiseach. “If Britain had the commitment to democracy that John Bruton claims it had, why, in 1918, when the Irish people clearly voted in a democratic election organised by the British themselves, didn’t they just say they would accede to the wishes of the people?” Eamon O Cuiv, FF TD. “I pretty much knew from the Sunday Independent the previous Sunday. I take myself as being fired from the date of the Sunday Independent. I regard myself as being fired through the Sunday Independent.” Pat Rabbitte, former Minister for Communications. “He has now lashed out at Alex White, Alan Kelly and Ged Nash, who have only been in the Dáil since 2011, but are already sitting at the top table. He claims to be amused by their unwillingness to serve an apprenticeship, but his bitter tone suggests anything but laughter... Rabbitte’s self-pity would be easier to stomach if he accepted his own responsibility for Labour’s unpopularity... Pat Rabbitte is yesterday’s man.” Andrew Lynch, Evening Herald political writer. “For the first time in human history we are finally on the verge of being able to search for signs of life beyond our Solar System around the nearest hundreds of stars. Our own galaxy has a hundred billion stars and our universe has upwards of 100 billion galaxies, making the chances for life elsewhere seem inevitable based on pure probability.” Dr Sara Seager, US planetary scientist. “I’ve read articles in papers about taxi drivers. About how we smell, our cars are filthy, we talk too much about everything. If they were written about any other section of society the Equality Act would be used against them.” David McGuinness, chairman of Tiomani Tacsai, a taxi drivers’ representative group, on the rise in attacks on drivers. “If most people have a family tree, we have a family tumbleweed, it just keeps rolling along picking up dirt and debris, nobody knows how they are related to anyone else, we just know not to f*** each other, because we’re not Mormon.” Jennifer Cleese, comedienne, on the many wives of her father, John Cleese