WIST

Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.  After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.

Other Authors and Sources
Zen saying

It is a fool’s prerogative to utter truths that no one else will speak.

Neil Gaiman (b. 1960) British fabulist
The Sandman, Vol. 3, Dream Country, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” [Dream] (#19) (1990)
Perhaps because the story includes William Shakespeare as a character and is named after Shakespeare's play (which is performed in the story), this line has been misattributed to Shakespeare himself.

‘Tis Education forms the common mind,
Just as the Twig is bent, the Tree’s inclin’d.

Alexander Pope (1688-1744) English poet
Moral Essays, 1.101 (1732-35)

Dogs, would you live forever?

[Kerls, wollt ihr ewig leben?]

Frederick II (1712-1786) King of Prussia (a.k.a. Frederick the Great)
(Attributed) (18 Jun 1757)
Rallying call to retreating Prussian troops at the Battle of Kolin.

Variants:

• Rogues, would you live forever? [Ihr Racke, wollen sie ewig leben?]
• Rascals, do you want to live forever? [Kerls, wollt ihr denn ewig leben?]

The phrase has been attributed to various commanders since.

In the tragic days of Mussolini, the trains in Italy ran on time as never before and I am told in their way, their horrible way, that the Nazi concentration-camp system in Germany was a model of horrible efficiency. The really basic thing in government is policy. Bad administration, to be sure, can destroy good policy, but good administration can never save bad policy.

Adlai Ewing Stevenson (1900-1965) American politician
Speech to the Los Angeles Town Club, California (11 Sep 1952)

Isn’t egomania always the precondition of all creative work?  I have found little to dispel that notion.

Tennessee Williams (1911-1983) American playwright
Memoirs, ch. 9 (1975)

An error is the more dangerous in proportion to the degree of truth which it contains.

Henri-Frédéric Amiel (1821-1881) Swiss philosopher, poet, critic
Journal (26 Dec 1852) [tr. Mrs. H. Ward (1885)]

Whoever lives for the sake of combating an enemy has an interest in the enemy’s staying alive.

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) German philosopher and poet
Human, All Too Human, 531 (1878) [tr. M. Faber (1984)]

She’s a Democrat. She must prove she loves America. As opposed to Republicans, who everyone knows love America — they just hate half the people living in it.

Jon Stewart (b. 1962) American satirist, comedian, and television host. [b. Jonathan Stuart Leibowitz]
“Michelle Obama’s Patriotism,” The Daily Show (26 Aug 2008)
Video.

People are entirely too disbelieving of coincidence. They are far too ready to dismiss it and to build arcane structures of extremely rickety substance in order to avoid it. I, on the other hand, see coincidence everywhere as an inevitable consequence of the laws of probability, according to which having no unusual coincidence is far more unusual than any coincidence could possibly be.

Isaac Asimov (1920-1992) Russian-American writer
“The Planet that Wasn’t,” The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (May 1975)
Full text.

There are two kinds of egotists: Those who admit it and the rest of us.

Lawrence J. Peter (1919-1990) American educator, management theorist
Peter’s Quotations: Ideas for Our Time (1977)

All Empires have been cemented in blood.

Edmund Burke (1729-1797) Anglo-Irish statesman, orator, philosopher
A Vindication of Natural Society (1756)

Cowardice is the unpardonable sin in a man.

Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) US President (1901-1909)
Fear God and Take Your Own Part, ch. 6 (1916)
Full text.

We find many things to which the prohibition of them constitutes the only temptation.

William Hazlitt (1778-1830) English writer
Characteristics, # 140 (1823)

To do good is difficult. One who does good first does something hard to do. I have done many good deeds, and, if my sons, grandsons and their descendants up to the end of the world act in like manner, they too will do much good. But whoever amongst them neglects this, they will do evil. Truly, it is easy to do evil.

Asoka (c. 269-232 BC) Indian Buddhist emperor [Ashoka, Piyadasi]
Edicts, Kalsi version (256 BC)

We try often, though we fall back often. A brave delight, fit for freedom’s athletes, fills these arenas, and fully satisfies, out of the action in them irrespective of success. Whatever we do not attain, we at any rate attain the experiences of the fight, the hardening of the strong campaign, and throb with currents of attempt at least. Time is ample. Let the victors come after us.

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

One might say that a nation is politically stable when nothing of radical consequence is determined by its elections.

Walter Lippmann (1889-1974) American journalist and author
The Phantom Public, 12.1 (1930)

There is no end to education.  We are all in the Kindergarten of God.

Elbert Green Hubbard (1856-1915) American writer, printer, businessman
The Notebook of Elbert Hubbard [ed. E. Hubbard II] (1927)

When I find any officer that answers me with firmness, intelligence, and clearness, I set him down in my list for making of his service on proper occasions.

Frederick II (1712-1786) King of Prussia (a.k.a. Frederick the Great)
“Morning the Fourth: On Private Politics” The Confessions of Frederick the Great [ed. D. Sladen (1915)]
Full text.

The tragedy of our day is the climate of fear in which we live, and fear breeds repression. Too often sinister threats to the Bill of Rights, to freedom of the mind, are concealed under the patriotic cloak of anti-communism.

Adlai Ewing Stevenson (1900-1965) American politician
Speech, American Legion convention, New York City (27 Aug 1952)

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) Anglo-Irish statesman, orator, philosopher
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.