WIST

The first problem for all of us, men and women, is not to learn, but to unlearn. We are filled with the popular wisdom of several centuries just past, and we are terrified to give it up. Patriotism means obedience, age means wisdom, woman means submission, black means inferior: these are preconceptions embedded so deeply in our thinking that we honestly may not know that they are there.

Gloria Steinem (b. 1934) American feminist, journalist, activist
“The First Problem for All of Us, Men and Women, Is to Unlearn,” New York Times (26 Aug 1971)

Let us remember that all reforms are interdependent, and that whatever is done to establish one principle on a solid basis, strengthens all. Reformers who are always compromising, have not yet grasped the idea that truth is the only safe ground to stand upon.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902) American social activist, abolitionist, woman's suffragist
The Woman’s Bible, Part 1, Introduction (1895)

How would it be possible, if salvation were ready to our hand, and could without great labour be found, that it should be by almost all men neglected? But all things excellent are as difficult as they are rare.

Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) Dutch philosopher
Ethics, Part 5 “Of the Power of the Understanding, or of Human Freedom”, Prop. 42, note (1677)
    (Source)

Believe in fate, but lean forward where fate can see you.

Quentin Crisp (1908-1999) English writer and gay activist
(Attributed)

The most successful politician is he who says what everybody else is thinking most often and in the loudest voice.

Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) US President (1901-1909)
(Attributed)
Often attributed, but rarely sourced. It appears to be first quoted as a personal anecdote by Alfred George Gardiner, The Pillars of Society (1927)

The man who is admired for the ingenuity of his larceny is almost always rediscovering some earlier form of fraud. The basic forms are all known, have all been practiced. The manners of capitalism improve. The morals may not.

John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-2006) Canadian-American economist, diplomat, author
The Age of Uncertainty, ch. 2 (1977)

Communism reduces men to a cog in the wheel of the state. The communist may object, saying that in Marxian theory the state is an “interim reality” that will “wither away” when the classless society emerges. True — in theory; but it is also true that, while the state lasts, it is an end in itself. Man is a means to that end. He has no inalienable rights. His only rights are derived from, and conferred by, the state. Under such a system the fountain of freedom runs dry.

Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman and reformer
“Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?” ch. 3 (1967)
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A Wounded Deer — leaps highest –

Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) American poet
Complete Poems, Part 1 “Life,” #8 (1924)
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Answers are a luxury enjoyed only every now and then. So early on, learn to love the questions themselves.

Neil deGrasse Tyson (b. 1958) American astrophysicist and science communicator
Comment on “I am Neil deGrasse Tyson — Ask Me Anything” (1 Mar 2012)
    (Source)

Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did, and it never will.

Frederick Douglass (1817-1895) American abolitionist and writer
Letter to Gerrit Smith (30 Mar 1849)

I don’t beleave in fighting; i am solemly aginst it; but if a man gits teu fighting, i am also solemly aginst hiz gitting licked. After a fight iz once opened, all the virtew thare iz in it iz tew lick the other party.

[I don't believe in fighting; I am solemnly against it; but if a man gets to fighting, I am also solemnly against his getting licked. After a fight is once opened, all the virtue there is in it is to lick the other party.]

Josh Billings (1818-1885) American humorist [pseud. of Henry Wheeler Shaw]
Josh Billings: His Works, Complete (1873)

The only obligation to which in advance we may hold a novel without incurring the accusation of being arbitrary, is that it be interesting.

Henry James (1843-1916) American writer
“The Art of Fiction,” Longman’s Magazine (4 Sep 1884)
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My experience in life is that it is not divided up into genres; it’s a horrifying, romantic, tragic, comical, science-fiction cowboy detective novel. You know, with a bit of pornography if you’re lucky.

Alan Moore (b. 1953) British writer
Interview, Mustard #4 (Jan 2005)
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There isn’t a bit of philanthropy in it. Anything that won’t sell, I don’t want to invent, because anything that won’t sell hasn’t reached the acme of success. Its sale is proof of utility, and utility is success.

Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931) American inventor
Interview, New York World (1888)
    (Source)

A politician should have three hats: one for throwing in the ring, one for talking through, and one for pulling rabbits out of if elected.

Carl Sandburg (1878-1967) American poet, biographer
(Attributed)

Few things are so immutable as the addiction of political groups to the ideas by which they have once won office.

John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-2006) Canadian-American economist, diplomat, author
The Affluent Society, 13.4 (1958)

We must honestly admit that capitalism has often left a gulf between superfluous wealth and abject poverty, has created conditions permitting necessities to be taken from the many to give luxuries to the few, and has encouraged smallhearted men to become cold and conscienceless so that, like Dives before Lazarus, they are unmoved by suffering, poverty-stricken humanity. The profit motive, when it is the sole basis of an economic system, encourages cutthroat competiotion and selfish ambition that inspire men to be more I-centered than thou-centered.

Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman and reformer
“Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?” ch. 3 (1967)
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You have to accept whatever comes and the only important thing is that you meet it with courage and with the best you have to give.

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962) First Lady of the US (1933-45) [Anna Eleanor Roosevelt]
(Attributed)

For me, I am driven by two main philosophies, know more today about the world than I knew yesterday. And along the way, lessen the suffering of others. You’d be surprised how far that gets you.

Neil deGrasse Tyson (b. 1958) American astrophysicist and science communicator
Comment on “I am Neil deGrasse Tyson — Ask Me Anything” (1 Mar 2012)
    (Source)

Often shortened as "I am driven by two main philosophies: know more about the world than I knew yesterday, and lessen the suffering of others. You'd be surprised how far that gets you."

Being president is like running a cemetery; you’ve got a lot of people under you and nobody’s listening.

William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton (b. 1946) American politician, US President (1993-2001)
Speech, Galesburg, Illinois (Jan 1995)

If ever you find yourself environed with difficulties and perplexing circumstances out of which you are at a loss how to extricate yourself, do what is right, and be assured that that will extricate you the best out of the worst situations. Though you cannot see when you take one step what will be the next, yet follow truth, justice and plain dealing, and never fear their leading you out of the labyrinth in the easiest manner possible. The knot which you thought a Gordian one will untie itself before you. Nothing is so mistaken as the supposition that a person is to extricate himself from a difficulty by intrigue, by chicanery, by dissimulation, by trimming, by an untruth, by an injustice. This increases the difficulties tenfold; and those who pursue these methods get themselves so involved at length that they can turn no way but their infamy becomes more exposed.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Letter to Peter Carr (1785)

Our losses should frequently be put on the credit side.

Elizabeth Bibesco (1897-1945) Rumanian-English writer
Haven (1951)

He that is valiant and dares fight, though drubbed, can lose no honor by ‘t.

Samuel Butler (1612-1680) English poet, satirist, painter, philosopher [Hudibras Butler]
“Hudibras,” Part 1, canto 3
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What gets measured, gets managed.

Peter F. Drucker (1909-2005) Austrian-American business consultant
(Attributed)
Frequently cited, but not sourced. Cf. Lord Kelvin.

The value of an idea has nothing whatever to do with the sincerity of the man who expresses it.

Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) Irish poet, wit, dramatist
“Oscariana” (1909)

I think “taste” is a social concept and not an artistic one. I’m willing to show good taste, if I can, in somebody else’s living room, but our reading life is too short for a writer to be in any way polite. Since his words enter into another’s brain in silence and intimacy, he should be as honest and explicit as we are with ourselves.

John Updike (1932-2009) American writer
Interview, New York Times Book Review (10 Apr 1977)

No man should receive a dollar unless that dollar has been fairly earned. Every dollar received should represent a dollar’s worth of service rendered — not gambling in stocks, but service rendered. The really big fortune, the swollen fortune, by the mere fact of its size acquires qualities which differentiate it in kind as well as in degree from what is possessed by men of relatively small means. Therefore, I believe in a graduated income tax on big fortunes, and in another tax which is far more easily collected and far more effective — a graduated inheritance tax on big fortunes, properly safeguarded against evasion and increasing rapidly in amount with the size of the estate.

Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) US President (1901-1909)
“The New Nationalism,” speech, Osawatomie, Kansas (31 Aug 1910)
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I do not think there is any thrill that can go through the human heart like that felt by the inventor as he sees some creation of the brain unfolding to success … Such emotions make a man forget food, sleep, friends, love, everything.

Nikola Tesla (1856-1943) Serbian-American inventor, physicist, engineer, futurist
In Cleveland Moffitt, “A Talk With Tesla,” Atlanta Constitution (7 Jun 1896)

In every country and in every age the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Letter to Horatio Gates Spafford (17 Mar 1814)

Here is the secret: A man is a very small thing whilst he works by and for himself but an immense and omnipotent worker as soon as he puts himself right with the law of nature. … It is as when you come to a conflagration with your fire engine — no matter how good the machine, you will make but a feeble spray, whilst you draw from your own tub. But once you get your hose … dipped in the river, or in the harbor, and you can ump as long as the sea holds out.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist and poet
“Notebook WO Liberty” (1855)

“Familiarity breeds kontempt.” This only applies tew men, not tew hot bukwheat slapkakes, well buttered and sugared.

["Familiarity breeds contempt." This only applies to men, not to hot buckwheat slapcakes, well buttered and sugared.]

Josh Billings (1818-1885) American humorist [pseud. of Henry Wheeler Shaw]
Josh Billings: His Works, Complete (1873)

It is art that makes life, makes interest, makes importance, for our consideration and application of these things, and I know of no substitute whatever for the force and beauty of its process.

Henry James (1843-1916) American writer
Letter to H.G. Wells (10 July 1915)

One of the things I pride myself on with WIST is doing my Googley best to provide citations for all my quotations. Often, when I have to research the sources of a quote, I end up with an online copy of the original, primary text.That’s useful information, both to “prove” the quotation is real, and to provide context to it. (Not to mention providing fodder for future research for good quote.)

In the past, I’ve simply added a note at the bottom of the quotation (in the “more” text in WordPress, for those interested in the technicalities) saying something like “Full text“, with text being a hyperlink to that source material — a web page, a news article, a Gutenberg archive, or, increasingly often, a Google Book.

I’ve now added  custom field in WIST (using a WordPress custom field, for those technically interested) to store the “source” hyperlink info. This will tuck up right under the citation, showing as “(Source)”, which should improve some of the formatting and take up a scosh less space on the page.  It will only show up if I have a source / context hyperlink to put in, and, in general, will only point to primary materials.

Obviously I have some thousands of the “Full text” notes in WIST, and I won’t be methodically going in and changing them over.  But over time, as I update quote, review/update authors, etc., I’ll convert them to the new style.

Let me know what you think, if you have a strong impression one way or another.

Forgive me for noting that conservatives seem to believe that the rich will work harder if we give them more, and the poor will work harder if we give them less.

E. J. Dionne, Jr. (b. 1952) American journalist and political commentator [Eugene Joseph Dionne, Jr.]
“Can this campaign be constructive?” Washington Post (3 Jun 2012)
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I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind; it may be the beginning of knowledge, but you have scarcely, in your thoughts, advanced to the stage of science, whatever the matter may be.

William Thomson, Lord Kelvin (1824-1907) Scottish physicist
“Electrical Units of Measurement,” lecture (3 May 1883)

Being in politics is like being a football coach. You have to be smart enough to understand the game and dumb enough to think it’s important.

Eugene McCarthy (b. 1916) American politician, educator
Comment (1968)

People of privilege will always risk their complete destruction rather than surrender any material part of their advantage. Intellectual myopia, often called stupidity, is no doubt a reason.

John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-2006) Canadian-American economist, diplomat, author
The Age of Uncertainty, Chapter 1, (1977)

We are called to play the good Samaritan on life’s roadside; but that will be only an initial act. One day the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be beaten and robbed as they make their journey through life. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it understands that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.

Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman and reformer
“Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?” ch. 3 (1967)
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In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly,
But westward, look, the land is bright.

Arthur Hugh Clough (1819-1861) English poet
“Say Not the Struggle”

Stupidity is not my strong suit.

Paul Valéry (1871-1945) French poet, critic, author, polymath
Monsieur Teste (1919)

Within the first few months I discovered that being a President is like riding a tiger. A man has to keep riding or be swallowed. The fantastically crowded nine months of 1945 taught me that a President either is constantly on top of events or, if he hesitates, events will soon be on top of him. I never felt I could let up for a single moment.

Harry S Truman (1884-1972) US President (1945-1953)
Memoirs: Years of Trial and Hope, Opening Words (1956)

I may have erred at times — no doubt I have erred; this is the law of human nature. For honest errors, however, indulgence may be hoped.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Letter to Thomas Lomax (1801)

We are bound to those we love by their imperfections — their perfections help us to explain them to others.

Elizabeth Bibesco (1897-1945) Rumanian-English writer
Haven (1951)

As to ecclesiastical parties; we may observe, that, in all ages of the world, priests have been enemies to liberty; and it is certain, that this steady conduct of theirs must have been founded on fixed reasons of interest and ambition. Liberty of thinking, and of expressing our thoughts, is always fatal to priestly power, and to those pious frauds, on which it is commonly founded; and, by an infallible connexion, which prevails among all kinds of liberty, this privilege can never be enjoyed, at least has never yet been enjoyed, but in a free government.

David Hume (1711-1776) Scottish philosopher, economist, historian, empiricist
“Of the Parties of Great Britain,” Essays, Political and Moral, vol. 1 (1741)
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Si l’Etat est fort, il nous ecrase, s’il est faible, nous perissons.

[If the state is strong, it crushes us. If it is weak, we perish.]

Paul Valéry (1871-1945) French poet, critic, author, polymath
Reflections on the World Today [Regards sur le monde actuel], “Fluctuations sur la liberté” (1931)

Alt trans.:

• "If power is too strong, it overwhelms us, if it is too weak, we perish."
• "If the state is strong, we are annihilated; if it is weak, we perish."
• "When the state is strong it will crush us, when it is weak, we perish."

This administration today, here and now, declares unconditional war on poverty.

Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908-1973) US President (1963-69)
State of the Union address (8 Jan 1964)

COSMO: There’s a war out there, old friend. A world war. And it’s not about who’s got the most bullets. It’s about who controls the information. What we see and hear, how we work, what we think — it’s all about the information!

Phil Alden Robinson (b. 1950) American screenwriter, director, producer
Sneakers (1992) [with Lawrence Lasker, Walter Parkes]

Habit is thus the enormous fly-wheel of society, its most precious conservative agent. It alone is what keeps us all within the bounds of ordinance, and saves the children of fortune from the envious uprisings of the poor.

William James (1842-1910) American psychologist and philosopher
Principles of Psychology, ch. 4 (1890)
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Once we had wooden chalices and golden priests, now we have golden chalices and wooden priests.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist and poet
“The Preacher,” Lectures and Biographical Sketches (1883)

As to the presidency, the two happiest days of my life were those of my entrance upon the office and my surrender of it.

Martin Van Buren (1782-1862) US President, 1837-41
(Attributed)

We use ideas merely to justify our evil, and speech merely to conceal our ideas.

Voltaire (1694-1778) French writer [pseud. of Francois-Marie Arouet]
Le Chapon et al Poularde, ch. 14 (1766)

The refusal to rest content, the willingness to risk excess on behalf of one’s obsessions, is what distinguishes artists from entertainers, and what makes some artists adventurers on behalf of us all.

John Updike (1932-2009) American writer
In Studies in J. D. Salinger : Reviews, Essays, and Critiques of The Catcher in the Rye and other Fiction, ed. M. Laser and N. Fruman (1963)
On J. D. Saliger, from a review of Salinger's Franny and Zooey.

In our complex industrial civilization of today the peace of righteousness and justice, the only kind of peace worth having, is at least as necessary in the industrial world as it is among nations. There is at least as much need to curb the cruel greed and arrogance of part of the world of capital, to curb the cruel greed and violence of part of the world of labor, as to check a cruel and unhealthy militarism in international relationships.

Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) US President (1901-1909)
Nobel Peace Prize Lecture, Oslo (5 May 1910)
    (Source)

HOLMES: I’m not a psychopath, Anderson, I’m a high-functioning sociopath, do your research.

Steven Moffat (b. 1961) Scottish television writer, producer
Sherlock, “A Study in Pink” (2010) [with Mark Gatiss]

The painter should not paint what he sees, but what will be seen.

Paul Valéry (1871-1945) French poet, critic, author, polymath
Mauvaises Pensées et Autres (1941)

The lust for power is not rooted in strength but in weakness.

Erich Fromm (1900-1980) American psychoanalyst and social philosopher
Escape from Freedom, 5.1 (1941)

Dangers are sum like a kold bath, very dangerous while you stand stripped on the bank, but often not only harmless, but invigorating, if you pitch into them.

[Dangers are some like a cold bath ....]

Josh Billings (1818-1885) American humorist [pseud. of Henry Wheeler Shaw]
Josh Billings: His Works, Complete (1873)

People talk about the conscience, but it seems to me one must just bring it up to a certain point and leave it there. You can let your conscience alone if you’re nice to the second housemaid.

Henry James (1843-1916) American writer
The Awkward Age, Book 6, ch. 3 [Mrs. Brookenham] (1899)
    (Source)

Pizza is like a lady’s breasts. There’s good pizza. And there’s great pizza. But there isn’t bad pizza.

Richard Jeni (1957-2007) American comedian
(Attributed)

Brothers and sisters, do not slander one another. Anyone who speaks against a brother or sister or judges them speaks against the law and judges it. When you judge the law, you are not keeping it, but sitting in judgment on it. There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the one who is able to save and destroy. But you—who are you to judge your neighbor?

The Bible (14th C BC - 2nd C AD) Christian sacred scripture
James 4:11-12 (NIV)
Alt. trans. (KJV): "Speak not evil one of another, brethren. He that speaketh evil of his brother, and judgeth his brother, speaketh evil of the law, and judgeth the law: but if thou judge the law, thou art not a doer of the law, but a judge. There is one lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy: who art thou that judgest another? "

If you want to succeed in politics, you must keep your conscience well under control.

David Lloyd George (1863-1945) British Prime Minister (1916-22)
Comment to Lord Riddell
Frequently attributed, but not cited. Also sometimes attributed to William Gladstone.

The study of money, above all other fields in economics, is the one in which complexity is used to disguise truth or to evade truth, not to reveal it.

John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-2006) Canadian-American economist, diplomat, author
Money: Whence It Came, Where It Went, ch. 1 (1975)

Truth is found neither in traditional capitalism nor in classical communism. Each represents a partial truth. Capitalism fails to see the truth in collectivism. Communism fails to see the truth in individualism. Capitalism fails to realize that life is social. Communism fails to realize that life is personal.

Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman and reformer
Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? ch. 3 (1967)
    (Source)

The only difference between the saint and the sinner is that every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future.

Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) Irish poet, wit, dramatist
A Woman of No Importance, Act 3 [Lord Illingworth]
Full text. See also this.

You have enemies? Good. That means you stood up for something, sometime in your life.

Winston Churchill (1874-1965) British statesman and author
(Attributed)

You have heard the story, haven’t you, about the man who was tarred and feathered and carried out of town on a rail? A man in the crowd asked him how he liked it. His reply was that if it was not for the honor of the thing, he would much rather walk.

President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) US President (1861-65)
(Attributed (1861))
When asked by a friend how he liked being President.

Only aim to do your duty and mankind will give you credit where you fail.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Rights of British America (1774)

We learn nothing by being right.

Elizabeth Bibesco (1897-1945) Rumanian-English writer
Haven (1951)

Would the boy you were be proud of the man you are?

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

The poor man’s conscience is clear; yet he is ashamed. … He feels himself out of the sight of others, groping in the dark. Mankind takes no notice of him: he rambles and wanders unheeded. In the midst of a crowd, at church, in the market … he is in as much obscurity as he would be in a garret or a cellar. He is not disapproved, censured, or reproached: he is only not seen. … To be wholly overlooked, and to know it, are intolerable.

John Adams (1735-1826) US President (1797-1801)
Discourses on Davila, ch. 5 (1790)

A bad fittin’ suit never wears out.

Kin Hubbard (1868-1930) American caricaturist and humorist [Frank McKinney Hubbard]
Abe Martin’s Almanac for 1909 (1908)
Full text.

COSMO: What’s wrong with this country Marty? Money. You taught me that. Evil defense contractors had it, noble causes did not. Politicians are bought and sold like so much chattel. Our problems multiplied. Pollution, crime, drugs, poverty, disease, hunger, despair; we throw gobs of money at them! The problems always get worse. Why is that? Because money’s most powerful ability is to allow bad people to continue doing bad things at the expense of those who don’t have it.

Phil Alden Robinson (b. 1950) American screenwriter, director, producer
Sneakers (1992) [with Lawrence Lasker, Walter Parkes]

Pretend what we may, the whole man within us is at work when we form our philosophical opinions. Intellect, will, taste, and passion co-operate just as they do in practical affairs; and lucky it is if the passion be not something as petty as a love of personal conquest over the philosopher across the way.

William James (1842-1910) American psychologist and philosopher
“The Sentiment of Rationality” (1882)

Hope is the power of being cheerful in circumstances which we know to be desperate.

Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936) English journalist and writer
Heretics, ch. 12 “Paganism and Mr. Lowes Dickenson” (1905)
Full text.

Important principles may, and must, be inflexible.

President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) US President (1861-65)
Speech, Washington, DC (11 Apr 1865).
His last public address.

Ideas won’t keep. Something must be done about them.

Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947) English mathematician and philosopher
Dialogues of Alfred North Whitehead, 28 Apr 1939 (1954)

Do not praise an undeserving man because of his riches.

Bias of Priene (fl. c. 650) Greek philosopher
In Diogenes Laërtius, The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers (c. 230) [tr. Yonge]

Our aim is to recognize what Lincoln pointed out: The fact that there are some respects in which men are obviously not equal; but also to insist that there should be an equality of self-respect and of mutual respect, an equality of rights before the law, and at least an approximate equality in the conditions under which each man obtains the chance to show the stuff that is in him when compared to his fellows.

Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) US President (1901-1909)
State of the Union address (3 Dec 1907)

Better be cheated in the price than in the quality of goods.

Baltasar Gracián y Morales (1601-1658) Spanish writer.
The Art of Worldly Wisdom, #157 (1647) [tr. Jacobs (1943)]

To have doubted one’s own first principles is the work of a civilized man.

Alfred Adler (1870-1937) Austrian psychologist
“Ideals and Doubts,” Illinois Law Review (May 1915)

Nothing discloses real character like the use of power. It is easy for the weak to be gentle. Most people can bear adversity. But if you wish to know what a man really is, give him power. This is the supreme test. It is the glory of Lincoln that, having almost absolute power, he never abused it, except upon the side of mercy.

Robert Green Ingersoll (1833-1899) American lawyer and orator
“Abraham Lincoln,” Lecture (1894)

Full text.

Ingersoll used the final phrase here frequently about Lincoln, e.g., in The Liberty of Man, Woman, and Child, an 1877 lecture, he wrote: "Abraham Lincoln was, in my judgment, in many respects, the grandest man ever president of the United States. Upon his monument these words should be written: 'Here sleeps the only man in the history of the world, who, having been clothed with almost absolute power, never abused it, exceupt on the side of mercy.'"

The phrase "But if you wish to know what a man really is, give him power" is often attributed, without citation, to Lincoln.

The lion and the lamb may, possibly, sumtime lay down in this world together for a fu minnits, but when the lion kums tew git up, the lamb will be missing.

[The lion and the lamb may, possibly, sometime lay own in this world together for a few minutes, but when the lion comes to get up, the lamb will be missing.]

Josh Billings (1818-1885) American humorist [pseud. of Henry Wheeler Shaw]
Affurisms: Slips of the Pen The Complete Works of Josh Billings (1876)
Full text.

A tradition is kept alive only by something being added to it.

Henry James (1843-1916) American writer
“Robert Louis Stevenson,” Century Magazine (April 1888)

The secret of happiness is not discovered in the absence of trials, but in the midst of them.

Ted Nace (b. 1956) American writer, publisher, environmentalist
(Attributed)

It is only a sentimental half-truth that the best things in life are free; while they may be, it is equally true that we need the money to buy the time to enjoy them.

Sydney J. Harris (1917-1986) Anglo-American columnist, journalist, author
Pieces of Eight, ch. 4 (1982)

A conservative Republican is one who doesn’t believe anything new should be tried for the first time. A liberal Republican is one who does believe something should be tried for the first time — but not now.

Mort Sahl (b. 1927) Canadian-American humorist
In The Milwaukee Sentinel, “Marilyn Dons Snappy Garters” (8 Apr 1958)
Full text.

Among all the world’s races, some obscure Bedouin tribes possibly apart, Americans are the most prone to misinformation. This is not the consequence of any special preference for mendacity, although at the higher levels of their public administration that tendency is impressive. It is rather that so much of what they themselves believe is wrong.

John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-2006) Canadian-American economist, diplomat, author
“The United States,” New York magazine (15 Nov 1971)

A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth.

Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman and reformer
“Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?” ch. 3 (1967)
Full text.