WIST

For us there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.

T. S. Eliot (1888-1965) American-British poet, critic, playwright [Thomas Stearns Eliot]
“East Coker” (5), Four Quartets (1943)

I know of nothing grander, better exercise, better digestion, more positive proof of the past, the triumphant result of faith in human kind, than a well-contested American national election.

Walt Whitman (1819-1892) American poet
“Democratic Vistas” (1871)

Conversashun should be enlivened with wit, not compozed ov it.

Josh Billings (1818-1885) American humorist [pseud. of Henry Wheeler Shaw]
Josh Billing’s Encyclopedia, “Sollum Thoughts” (1874)

We think that powerful and lifeful movement is impossible without differences — “true conformity” is possible only in the cemetery.

Josef Stalin (1879-1953) Soviet political leader
“Our purposes,” Pravda (first issue) (22 January 1912)

But often, in the world’s most crowded streets,
But often, in the din of strife,
There rises an unspeakable desire
After the knowledge of our buried life;
A thirst to spend our fire and restless force
In tracking out our true, original course;
A longing to inquire
Into the mystery of this heart which beats
So wild, so deep in us, to know
Whence our lives come and where they go.

Matthew Arnold (1822-1888) English poet and critic
“The Buried Life,” st. 6 (1852)
Full text.

Ninety percent of our lives is governed by emotion. Our brains merely register and act upon what is telegraphed to them by our bodily experience. Intellect is to emotion as our clothes are to our bodies; we could not very well have civilized life without clothes, but we would be in a poor way if we had only clothes without bodies.

Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947) English mathematician and philosopher
(10 Jun 1943), Dialogues of Alfred North Whitehead [rec. L. Price (1954)]

An empire founded by war has to maintain itself by war.

Charles-Lewis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu (1689-1755) French political philosopher
Considerations sur les causes de la grandeur des Romaines et de leur decadence, ch. 8 (1734)

You are eloquent enough if truth speaks through you.

Publilius Syrus (d. 42 BC) Assyrian slave, writer, philosopher
Moral Sayings, #861 [tr. D. Lyman Jr (1862)]

It is the rule in war, if ten times the enemy’s strength, surround them; if five times, attack them; if double, engage them; if equal, be able to divide them; if fewer, be able to evade them; if weaker, be able to avoid them.

Sun-Tzu (fl. 6th C. AD) Chinese general and philosopher [a.k.a. Sun Wu]
The Art of War, ch. 3

It would be absurd if we did not understand both angels and devils, since we invented them.

John Steinbeck (1902-1968) American writer
East of Eden (1952)

More men have been elected between Sundown and Sunup than were ever elected between Sunup and Sundown.

Will Rogers (1879-1935) American humorist
“Mr. Ford and Other Political Self-Starters,” The Illiterate Digest (1924)

Empires have no interest in operating within an international system; they aspire to be the international system.

Henry Kissinger (b. 1923) German-American diplomat
Diplomacy, ch. 1 (1994)

He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper.

Edmund Burke (1729-1797) British statesman and orator
Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)
Full text.

Everybody wrings their hands about Fox News. You know, “fair and balanced? Why, that’s snide!” Yeah, okay, maybe they’re not fair and balanced, but CNN used to have the slogan “You Can Depend on CNN”. Guess what? I watch it, no you can’t. So what’s the difference?

Jon Stewart (b. 1962) American satirist, comedian, and television host. [b. Jonathan Stuart Leibowitz]
Interview, C-SPAN (14 Oct 2004)

We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master.

Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) American writer
In New York Journal-American (11 July 1961)

I would define true courage to be a perfect sensibility of the measure of danger, and a mental willingness to incur it.

William Tecumseh Sherman (1820-1891) American military leader and author
Memoirs of Gen. W. T. Sherman, ch. 25 (1875)

Those who make their dress a principal part of themselves, will, in general, become of no more value than their dress.

William Hazlitt (1778-1830) English writer
“On the Clerical Character” (January/February 1818), Political Essays (1819)

It is now no more that toleration is spoken of as if it were the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights, for, happily, the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.

President George Washington (1732-1799) US President, military leader
“Letter to the Hebrew Congregation at Newport,” Rhode Island (17 Aug 1790)
Full text.

Satisfaction lies in the effort, not in the attainment. Full effort is full victory.

Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948) Indian philosopher and nationalist [b. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi]
In Young India (9 Mar 1992)

The worst egoist is the person to whom the thought has never occurred that he might be one.

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) Austrian psychoanalyst and neurologist
“Notebook of Aphorisms” (1871)

Every man is to be respected as an absolute end in himself; and it is a crime against the dignity that belongs to him to use him as a mere means to some external purpose.

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) German philosopher
Eternal Peace (1795)

Do not undertake anything beyond your capacity and at the same time do not harbor the wish to do less than you can. One who takes up tasks beyond his powers is proud and attached. On the other hand, one who does less than he can is a thief.

Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948) Indian philosopher and nationalist [b. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi]
Letter to Narandas Gandhi (10 Jul 1932)

Education should be constructed on two bases: morality and prudence. Morality, in order to assist virtue, and prudence in order to defend you against the vices of others. In tipping the scales toward morality, you merely produce dupes and martyrs. In tipping it the other way, you produce egotistical schemers.

Nicolas Chambort (1741-1794) French writer, epigrammist (b. Nicolas-Sébastien Roch)
Maxims and Thoughts, ch. 5 (1796) [tr. W. Merwin (1984)]

All Religions are equal and good, if only the people that practice them are honest people; and if Turks and heathens came and wanted to live here in this country, we would build them mosques and churches.

[Alle Religionen sind gleich und gut, wenn nur die Leute, die sie praktizeren, ehrliche Leute sind; und wenn Türken und Heiden kämen und wollten das Lande pöpulieren, so wollen wir ihnen Moscheen und Kirchen bauen.] 

Frederick II (1712-1786) King of Prussia (a.k.a. Frederick the Great)
Note (1740)
On the question of whether a Catholic should be allowed to be a citizen of a Prussian city.

I have learned that in quiet places reason abounds, that in quiet people there is vision and purpose, that many things are revealed to the humble that are hidden from the great.

Adlai Ewing Stevenson (1900-1965) American politician
(Attributed)
Quoted in Elizabeth Stevenson Ives and H. Dolson, My Brother Adlai (1956).

Yet the Gross National Product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country; it measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. And it can tell us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans.

Robert Francis Kennedy (1925-1968) American politician
Speech, U. of Kansas, Lawrence (18 Mar 1968)

To trust altogether in the justice of our cause, without our own utmost exertions, would be tempting Providence.

President George Washington (1732-1799) US President, military leader
Letter to Jonathan Trumbull (7 Aug 1776)

Th’ only way t’ entertain some folks is t’ listen t’ em.

Kin Hubbard (1868-1930) American caricaturist and humorist [Frank McKinney Hubbard]
Abe Martin: Hoss Sense and Nonsense (1926)

To govern is not to write resolutions and distribute directives, to govern is to control the implementation of the directives.

Josef Stalin (1879-1953) Soviet political leader
(Attributed)
Quoted in Neil McInes, The Communist Parties of Western Europe, ch. 3 (1975)

With aching hands and bleeding feet
We dig and heap, lay stone on stone;
We bear the burden and the heat
Of the long day and wish’t were done.
Not till the hours of light return
All we have built do we discern.

Matthew Arnold (1822-1888) English poet and critic
“Morality,” ll. 7-12 (1852)

Full text.

Man is most nearly himself when he achieves the seriousness of a child at play.

Heraclitus (c.540-c.480 BC) Greek philosopher [also Heracleitus]
Fragment

An economist is an expert who will know tomorrow why the things he predicted yesterday didn’t happen today.

Lawrence J. Peter (1919-1990) American educator, management theorist
(Attributed)

Play every game … as if your job depended on it. It just might.

Casey Stengel (1890-1975) American athlete, coach, manager [Charles Dillon Stengel]
The Gospel According to C*A*S*E*Y, ch. 7 [ed. Berkow and Kaplan] (1992)

We have only one story. All novels, all poetry, are built on the never-ending contest in ourselves of good and evil. And it occurs to me that evil must constantly respawn, while good, while virtue, is immortal. Vice has always a new fresh young face, while virtue is venerable as nothing else in the world is.

John Steinbeck (1902-1968) American writer
East of Eden (1952)

The whole history of science has been the gradual realization that events do not happen in an arbitrary manner, but that they reflect a certain underlying order, which may or may not be divinely inspired.

Stephen Hawking (b. 1942) English physicist, author
A Brief History of Time (1988)

Caesar had his Brutus, Charles the First his Cromwell; and George the Third — ["Treason!" cried the Speaker] — may profit by their example. If this be treason, make the most of it.

Patrick Henry (1736-1799) American revolutionary and orator
Speech on the Stamp Act, Virginia House of Burgesses (29 May 1765)

Education is learning what you didn’t even know you didn’t know.

Daniel J. Boorstin (b. 1914) American historian, educator, writer
“A Case of Hypochondria,” Newsweek (6 Jul 1970)

Perhaps an editor might begin a reformation in some such way as this. Divide his paper into 4 chapters, heading the 1st, Truths. 2d, Probabilities. 3d, Possibilities. 4th, Lies.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Letter to John Norvell (14 Jun 1807)

Nineteen people flew into the towers. It seems hard for me to imagine that we could go to war enough to make the world safe enough that nineteen people wouldn’t want to do harm to us. So it seems like we have to rethink a strategy that is less military-based.

Jon Stewart (b. 1962) American satirist, comedian, and television host. [b. Jonathan Stuart Leibowitz]
Interview with Tony Blair, The Daily Show (18 Sep 2008)
Full video.

There are events which are so great that if a writer has participated in them his obligation is to write truly rather than assume the presumption of altering them with invention.

Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) American writer
Preface to Gustav Regler, The Great Crusade (1940)

The experience of being disastrously wrong is salutary; no economist should be denied it, and not many are.

John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-2006) Canadian-American economist, diplomat, author
A Life in Our Times: Memoirs, ch. 11 (1981)

Most editors are failed writers — but so are most writers.

T. S. Eliot (1888-1965) American-British poet, critic, playwright [Thomas Stearns Eliot]
(Attributed) (1946)

Quoted by Robert Geroux, "A Personal Memoir," in Tate, Allen, ed. T. S. Eliot: The Man and his Work (1967) (orig. printed in the Sewanee Review, vol. 74 (1966)): 

I first met T. S. Eliot in 1946, when I was an editor at Harcourt, Brace, under Frank Morley. I was just past thirty, and Eliot was in his late fifties. [...] agreed with the definition that most editors are failed writers, and he replied: `Perhaps, but so are most writers.'

Sometimes given as "Some editors ..." and prefixed with "I suppose most ..." and "I suppose some ..."

But every man is more than just himself; he also represents the unique, the very special and always significant and remarkable point at which the world’s phenomena intersect, only once in this way and never again. That is why every man’s story is important, eternal, sacred; that is why every man, as long as he lives and fulfills the will of nature, is wondrous, and worthy of every consideration.

Herman Hesse (1877-1962)
Demian (1919)

Courage: to bear unflinchingly what heaven sends.

Euripides (485?-406? BC) Greek tragic dramatist
Heracles, l. 1225 [tr. W. Arrowsmith (1956)]

Without the aid of prejudice and custom, I should not be able to find my way across the room; nor know how to conduct myself in any circumstances, nor what to feel in any relation of life.

William Hazlitt (1778-1830) English writer
Men and Manners, “On Prejudice” (1852)

The best authors are always the severist critics of their own works.

Lord Chesterfield (1694-1773) English statesman, wit [Philip Dormer Stanhope]
Letter to his son (6 May 1751)

MERCUTIO: A plague o’ both your houses!

William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Romeo and Juliet, III.i.111 (1594)

Too much and for too long, we seem to have surrendered personal excellence and community value in the mere accumulation of material things. Our Gross National Product, now, is over eight hundred billion dollars a year, but that GNP — if we judge the United States of America by that — that GNP counts air pollution and cigarette advertising and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for the people who break them. It counts the destruction of the redwoods and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and it counts nuclear warheads, and armored cars for the police to fight the riots in our cities. It counts Whitman’s rifle and Speck’s knife, and the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children.

Robert Francis Kennedy (1925-1968) American politician
Speech, U. of Kansas, Lawrence (18 Mar 1968)

My people and I have come to an agreement which satisfies both. They are to say what they please, and I am to do what I please.

Frederick II (1712-1786) King of Prussia (a.k.a. Frederick the Great)
(Attributed)

In matters of national security emotion is no substitute for intelligence, nor rigidity for prudence. To act coolly, intelligently and prudently in perilous circumstances is the test of a man — and also a nation.

Adlai Ewing Stevenson (1900-1965) American politician
Radio address (11 Apr 1955)