WIST

Tomorrow, every Fault is to be amended;
but that Tomorrow never comes.

Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) American statesman, scientist, philosopher
Poor Richard’s Almanack (Jul 1756)

How shall we avert the dire calamities with which we are threatened? The answer comes from the graves of our fathers: By the frequent election of new men. Other help or hope for the salvation of free government there is none under heaven. If history does not teach this, we have read it all wrong.

Jeremiah S. Black (1810-1883) American statesman, jurist, lawyer
“The Third Term: Reasons Against It,” The North American Review (Mar 1880)

Popularity is a crime from the moment it is sought; it is only a virtue where men have it whether they will or no.

George Savile, Marquis of Halifax (1633-1695) English politician and essayist
“Of Ambition,” Political, Moral, and Miscellaneous Reflections (1750)

Writers take words seriously — perhaps the last professional class that does — and they struggle to steer their own through the crosswinds of meddling editors and careless typesetters and obtuse and malevolent reviewers into the lap of the ideal reader.

John Updike (1932-2009) American writer
“Writers on Themselves,” New York Times (17 Aug 1986)

If you are rich and are worth your salt, you will teach your sons that though they may have leisure, it is not to be spent in idleness; for wisely used leisure merely means that those who possess it, being free from the necessity of working for their livelihood, are all the more bound to carry on some kind of non-remunerative work in science, in letters, in art, in exploration, in historical research-work of the type we most need in this country, the successful carrying out of which reflects most honor upon the nation.

Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) US President (1901-1909)
“The Strenuous Life,” speech, Hamilton Club, Chicago (10 Apr 1899)
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A classic is a book that doesn’t have to be written again.

Carl Van Doren (1885-1950) American writer
(Attributed)
    (Source)

Quoted by Clifton Fadiman, in James Thurber, "Ave Atque Vale," Bermudian (Nov 1950)

He who loves is not ashamed before men of what he does for God, neither does he hide it through shame though the whole world should condemn it.

St. John of the Cross (1542-1591) Spanish theologian, mystic [b. Juan de Yepes]
Canticle of The Soul and The Bridegroom, Note to Stanza 29, part 4

Power corresponds to the human ability not just to act but to act in concert. Power is never the property of an individual; it belongs to a group and remains in existence only so long as the group keeps together.

Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) German-American philosopher, political theorist
On Violence, ch. 2 (1970)

If thare iz enny human being that i thoroughly loath, it iz the one who haz nothing tew boast ov but hiz money — a mere pimp tew hiz welth.

[If there is any human being that I thoroughly loathe, it is the one who has nothing to boast of but his money -- a mere pimp to his wealth.]

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

That public men publish falsehoods
Is nothing new. That America must accept
Like the historical republics corruption and empire
Has been known for years.
Be angry at the sun for setting
If these things anger you.

Robinson Jeffers (1887-1962) American poet
“Be Angry at the Sun” (1941)

From this day forward, I no longer shall tinker with the machinery of death. For more than 20 years, I have endeavored — indeed, I have struggled — along with a majority of this Court, to develop procedural and substantive rules that would lend more than the mere appearance of fairness to the death penalty endeavor. Rather than continue to coddle the Court’s delusion that the desired level of fairness has been achieved and the need for regulation eviscerated, I feel morally and intellectually obligated simply to concede that the death penalty experiment has failed.

Harry Blackmun (1908-1999) US Supreme Court Associate Justice (1970-1994) [Harold Andrew Blackmun]
Callins v. James, 510 U.S. 1141 (1994) [dissent from denial of certiori]

The most frightful idea that has ever corroded human nature — the idea of eternal punishment.

John, Viscount Morley (1838-1923) English politician and writer
Vauvenargues (1905)

The great issues of the day are not decided through speeches and majority resolutions — that was the great error of 1848 and 1849 — but through blood and iron.

[Nicht durch Reden und Majoritätsbeschlüsse werden die großen Fragen der Zeit entschieden -- das ist der große Fehler von 1848 und 1849 gewesen -- sondern durch Eisen und Blut.]

Otto von Bismark (1815-1898) Prussian statesman
Speech, Budget Commission of the Prussian Diet (30 Sep 1862)

Alternate translations :

• "It is not by speeches and majority vote that the great questions of our time will be decided — as that was error of 1848 and 1849 — but rather by iron and blood."
• "The great questions of the time are not decided by speeches and majority decisions — that was the error of 1848 and 1849 — but by iron and blood."
• "The great issues of the day are not decided through speeches and majority resolutions — that was the great error of 1848 and 1849 — but through blood and iron."
• "The great issues of the day are not decided through speeches and majority resolutions — that was the great error of 1848 and 1849 — but through blood and iron."
• "The great questions of the day will not be decided by speeches and the resolutions of majorities — that was the great mistake from 1848 to 1849 — but by blood and iron."
• "The great questions of the day will not be settled by means of speeches and majority decisions ... but by iron and blood."

 

I react to what is necessary. I would like to eschew any formula. There are some things where the government is absolutely inevitable, which we cannot get along without comprehensive state action. But there are many things — producing consumer goods, producing a wide range of entertainment, producing a wide level of cultural activity — where the market system, which independent activity is also important, so I react pragmatically. Where the market works, I’m for that. Where the government is necessary, I’m for that. I’m deeply suspicious of somebody who says, “I’m in favor of privatization,” or, “I’m deeply in favor of public ownership.” I’m in favor of whatever works in the particular case.

John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-2006) Canadian-American economist, diplomat, author
Interview with Brian Lamb, Booknotes, C-SPAN (13 Nov 1994)
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A nation that continues year after year to spend more on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom.

Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman and reformer
The Trumpet of Conscience (1968)

Patriotism is a lively sense of collective responsibility. Nationalism is a silly cock crowing on its own dunghill.

Richard Aldington (1892-1962) English writer and poet [b. Edward Godfree Aldington]
The Colonel’s Daughter, 1.6 (1931)

The test of intelligence [is] not how much we know how to do, but how we behave when we don’t know what to do. Similarly, any situation, any activity, that puts before us real problems, that we have to solve for ourselves, problems for which there are no answers in any book, sharpens our intelligence.

John Holt (1923-1985) American author and educator
How Children Learn, “Art, Math, and Other Things” (1967)

What higher obligation does a President have than to explain his intentions to the people and persuade them that the direction he wishes to go is right? Politics in a democracy, is at the end, an educational process.

Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. (1917-2007) Historian, author, social critic
“A Clinton Card, So Far,” New York Times (11 Apr 1993)

Whereas, Almighty God hath created the mind free; That all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burthens, or by civil incapacitations tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and therefore are a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, who being Lord, both of body and mind yet chose not to propagate it by coercions on either, as was in his Almighty power to do ….

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom (1786)

Love of money is the mother-city (metropolis) of all evils.

Bion of Borysthenes (c. 325-c. 250 BC) Greek philosopher, cynic, wit
In Stobaeus, Anthology, Book 3, 10.37 (c. 5th C)
See Bible, 1 Timothy 6:10

Beating up “intellectuals” is the last refuge of demagogues.

Anthony Lewis (b. 1927) American journalist, political critic, writer
“The Czar’s New Clothes,” New York Times (14 Dec 1989)

Analysts and policy makers alike tend to interpret information to support their own viewpoints.

Dean Rusk (1909-1994) American politician and diplomat
As I Saw It, ch. 35 (1990)

The poorest people in our country today, on the whole, are working every day. But they are earning wages so low that they cannot begin to function in the mainstream of the economic life of our nation. … We have thousands and thousands of people working on full-time jobs, with part-time incomes.

Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman and reformer
“Why We Must Go to Washington” (15 Jan 1968)

Beliefs are what divide people. Doubt unites them.

Peter Ustinov (1921-2004) English actor, author, director
(Attributed)

The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.

William James (1842-1910) American psychologist and philosopher
Principles of Psychology, ch. 22 (1890)
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The wise man belongs to all countries, for the home of a great soul is the whole world.

Democritus (c. 460 BC - c. 370 BC) Greek philosopher
(Attributed)

As was said at the outset of this chapter, the vice in being too sure for our purposes is the deposition to impose your beliefs and your forms of religious conduct on others. That attitude is the enemy of religious freedom. It is the remembered and hated form of oppression against which the First Amendment was drawn.

Marvin E. Frankel (1920-2002) American lawyer, judge, legal scholar
Faith and Freedom: Religious Liberty in America (1994)

Popularity? It is glory’s small change.

Victor Hugo (1802-1885) French writer
Ruy Blas, 3.5 (1838)

Customs and convictions change; respectable people are the last to know, or to admit, the change, and the ones most offended by fresh reflections of the facts in the mirror of art.

John Updike (1932-2009) American writer
The New Yorker (30 Jul 1990)

In the last analysis a healthy state can exist only when the men and women who make it up lead clean, vigorous, healthy lives; when the children are so trained that they shall endeavor, not to shirk difficulties, but to overcome them; not to seek ease, but to know how to wrest triumph from toil and risk.

Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) US President (1901-1909)
“The Strenuous Life,” speech, Hamilton Club, Chicago (10 Apr 1899)
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All things bright and beautiful,
All creatures great and small,
All things wise and wonderful,
The Lord God made them all.

Cecil Frances Alexander (1818-1895) Irish hymn-writer and poet [nee Humphreys]
“All Things Bright and Beautiful”, l. 1-4

To know when to retreat; and to dare to do it.

Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington (1769-1852) Anglo-Irish soldier and statesman
(Attributed)
When asked the best attribute of a great general. Quoted in Sir William Fraser, Words on Wellington (1889).

All persons possessing any portion of power ought to be strongly and awfully impressed with an idea that they act in trust.

Edmund Burke (1729-1797) Anglo-Irish statesman, orator, philosopher
Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)

If we would all ov us take kare ov our own souls, and let our nabors alone, thare would be less time lost, and more souls saved.

[If we would all of us take care of our own souls, and let our neighbors alone, there would be less time lost and more souls saved.]

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

I sadly smiling remember that the flower fades to make fruit, the fruit rots to make earth.

Robinson Jeffers (1887-1962) American poet
“Shine, Perishing Republic” (1939)

An upright minister asks, what recommends a man; a corrupt minister, who.

Charles Caleb Colton (1780-1832) English clergyman, writer
Lacon, 1.9 (1823)
Referring to government ministers.

Without an unfettered press, without liberty of speech, all the outward forms and structures of free institutions are a sham, a pretense — the sheerest mockery. If the press is not free; if speech is not independent and untrammelled; if the mind is shackled or made impotent through fear, it makes no difference under what form of government you live: you are a subject and not a citizen. Republics are not in and of themselves better than other forms of government except in so far as they carry with them and guarantee to the citizen that liberty of thought and action for which they were established.

William Edgar Borah (1865-1940) American attorney and politician
Speech, US Senate (19 Apr 1917)

People are always willing to follow advice when it accords with their own wishes.

Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington (1789-1849) Irish novelist [Lady Blessington, b. Margaret Power]
The Confessions of an Elderly Lady (1838)

The privileged have regularly invited their own destruction with their greed.

John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-2006) Canadian-American economist, diplomat, author
The Age of Uncertainty, ch. 10 (1977)

It is not enough to say ‘We must not wage war.’ It is necessary to love peace and sacrifice for it.

Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman and reformer
“Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?” ch. 6 (1967)
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The Senator from Wisconsin cannot frighten me by exclaiming, “My country, right or wrong.” In one sense I say so too. My country; and my country is the great American Republic. My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right.

Carl Schurz (1829-1906) German-American revolutionary, soldier, statesman, reformer
Speech, US Senate (29 Feb 1872)
Schurz expanded on the theme in a speech delivered to the Anti-Imperialistic Conference, Chicago (17 Oct 1899): "I confidently trust that the American people will prove themselves [...] too wise not to detect the false pride or the dangerous ambitions or the selfish schemes which so often hide themselves under that deceptive cry of mock patriotism: 'Our country, right or wrong!' They will not fail to recognize that our dignity, our free institutions and the peace and welfare of this and coming generations of Americans will be secure only as we cling to the watchword of true patriotism: 'Our country -- when right to be kept right; when wrong to be put right.'"

The subject of power is not a simple matter of which majority sits on which minority at any given time. Looking around the world today and back through history, we see the horrors to which interreligious conflicts can lead — Muslims versus Hindus, Orthodox Eastern Serbs and Croatian Roman Catholics against Bosnian Muslims, Catholics versus Protestants in much of Europe after the sixteenth century, not to omit our own lesser, but horrible, history of persecutions in colonial America and the martyrdom of Joseph Smith as well as a number of his Mormon followers. We see, too, the fragility of the lessons these oceans of blood should have taught. The powerless call out for tolerance. Achieving power, they may soon forget. The descendants of Rome’s Christian martyrs remember too well the role of the torturers rather than the agonies of their own ancestors.

Melvin Frank (1913-1988) American screenwriter, director
Faith and Freedom: Religious Liberty in America (1994)

My movements to the chair of Government will be accompanied by feelings not unlike those of a culprit, who is going to the place of his execution: so unwilling am I, in the evening of a life nearly consumed in public cares, to quit a peaceful abode for an Ocean of difficulties, without that competency of political skill, abilities, and inclination, which is necessary to manage the helm.

George Washington (1732-1799) US President, military leader
Letter to Henry Knox (1 Apr 1789)
To the Acting Secretary of War, just prior to Washington's assuming the Presidency.

A fair and honest narrative of the bad is a voucher for the truth of the good.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Letter to Matthew Carr (1813)

Death is part of this life and not of the next.

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

Males do not represent two discrete populations, heterosexual and homosexual. The world is not to be divided into sheeps and goats. Not all things are black nor all things white. It is a fundamental of taxonomy that nature rarely deals with discrete categories. Only the human mind invents categories and tries to force facts into separated pigeon-holes. The living world is a continuum in each and every one of its aspects. The sooner we learn this concerning human sexual behavior, the sooner we shall reach a sound understanding of the realities of sex.

Alfred Kinsey (1894-1956) American biologist, entomologist, zoologist, sex researcher
Sexual Behaviour in the Human Male (1948)

The public good is in nothing more essentially interested, than in the protection of every individual’s private rights.

William Blackstone (1723-1780) British jurist, judge, politician
Commentaries on the Laws of England, 9th ed., book 1, ch. 1, sec. 3, (1783)

Woe to you, when all men speak well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets.

The Bible (14th C BC - 2nd C AD) Christian sacred scripture
Luke 6:26

I secretly understood: the primitive appeal of the hearth. Television is — its irresistible charm — a fire.

John Updike (1932-2009) American writer
Roger’s Version (1986)
On a child doing homework in front of the TV set.

There are many kinds of success in life worth having. It is exceedingly interesting and attractive to be a successful business man, or railroad man, or farmer, or a successful lawyer or doctor; or a writer, or a President, or a ranchman, or the colonel of a fighting regiment, or to kill grizzly bears and lions. But for unflagging interest and enjoyment, a household of children, if things go reasonably well, certainly makes all other forms of success and achievement lose their importance by comparison.

Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) US President (1901-1909)
An Autobiography, ch. 9 “Outdoors and Indoors” (1913)

People do not always argue because they misunderstand one another; they argue because they hold different goals.

William Hollingsworth "Holly" Whyte, Jr. (1917-1999) American sociologist, journalist, and civic planner
“Groupthink,” Fortune (Mar 1952)

A good many people find it comfortable for now, and sufficient, to extol, and propose to enforce, the values of what they call the Judeo-Christian tradition. Theirs is not a long view. Recall again the Islam is the fastest growing religion. It may or may not come to predominate. We can be nearly certain, however, that the current state of affairs will not endure. Today’s Protestant minority in the United States may thank its ancestors who fashioned decent places for minorities when they were the majority. Today’s power structure should be preserving that tradition. It is the essence of the Bill of Rights.

Marvin E. Frankel (1920-2002) American lawyer, judge, legal scholar
Faith and Freedom: Religious Liberty in America (1994)

There is but one just use of power, and it is to serve people.

George H. W. Bush (b. 1924) US President (1989-93)
Inaugural Address (20 Jan 1989)

If we giv up our minds tew little things we never shall be fit for big ones. I knew a man once who could ketch more flies with one swoop ov his hand than enny boddy else could, and he want good at ennything else.

[If we give up our minds to little things we never shall be fit for big ones. I knew a man once who could catch more flies with one swoop of his hand than anybody else could, and he wasn't good at anything else.]

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

O that our souls could scale a height like this,
A mighty mountain swept o’er by the bleak
Keen winds of heaven; and, standing on that peak
Above the blinding clouds of prejudice,
Would we could see all truly as it is;
The calm eternal truth would keep us meek.

Robinson Jeffers (1887-1962) American poet
“A Hill-Top View” (1904)

When in doubt, win the trick.

Edmond Hoyle (1672-1769) Writer, esp. of card game rules and play.
“Twenty-four Rules for Learners,” Rule 12

The Free Exercise Clause at the very least was designed to guarantee freedom of conscience by prohibiting any degree of compulsion in matters of belief. It was offended by a burden on one’s religion. The Establishment Clause can be understood as designed in part to ensure that the advancement of religion comes only from the voluntary efforts of its proponents and not from support by the state. Religious groups are to prosper or perish on the intrinsic merit and attraction of their beliefs and practices.

Harry Blackmun (1908-1999) US Supreme Court Associate Justice (1970-1994) [Harold Andrew Blackmun]
Speech, National Archives, Washington, DC (23 Jun 1987)

In a virtuous community men of sense and principle will always be placed at the head of affairs. In a declining state of public morals men will be so blinded to their true interests as to put the incapable and unworthy at the helm. It is therefore vain to complain of the follies or crimes of a government. We must lay the hands on our own hearts and say, Here is the sin that makes the public sin.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist and poet
“The Individual and the State,” sermon, Second Church of Boston (8 Apr 1830)

A nuclear war does not defend a country and it does not defend a system. I’ve put it the same way many times; not even the most accomplished ideologue will be able to tell the difference between the ashes of capitalism and the ashes of communism.

John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-2006) Canadian-American economist, diplomat, author
“The Ashes of Capitalism and the Ashes of Communism,” interview (undated) with John M. Whiteley in Quest for Peace: an Introduction (1986)

With Selma and the voting rights bill one era of our struggle came to a close and a new era came into being. Now our struggle is for genuine equality, which means economic equality. For we know that it isn’t enough to integrate lunch counters. What does it profit a man to be able to eat at an integrated lunch counter if he doesn’t earn enough money to buy a hamburger and a coup of coffee?

Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman and reformer
Speech to Striking Sanitation Workers, Memphis, Tennessee (18 Mar 1968)

King appears to have used the phrase on a number of occasions (I found references to a Birmingham sit-in and to 1965), but the above is the one case, a few weeks before his death, that I was able to pin down.

Other (earlier) versions one finds quoted and paraphrased:

• "It does no good to be able to eat at a lunch counter if you can't afford to buy a hamburger."
• "It doesn't do much good when you can sit at a lunch couner but you can't afford to buy a hamburger."
• "What good does it do to be able to eat at a lunch counter if you can't buy a hamburger?"

 

You might as well praise a man for not robbing a bank.

Robert Tyre "Bobby" Jones, Jr. (1902-1971) American amateur golfer, lawyer
(Attributed)
On penalizing himself a stroke in a national championship golf match. Jones had driven his ball into the woods where, out of sight of the others, he'd accidently moved it while setting up his next shot. He lost the match by that stroke.

The manifest object of the men who framed the institutions of this country, was to have a State without religion, and a Church without politics — that is to say, they meant that one should never be used as an engine for any purpose of the other, and that no man’s rights in one should be tested by his opinions about the other. As the Church takes no note of men’s political differences, so the State looks with equal eye on all the modes of religious faith. … Our fathers seem to have been perfectly sincere in their belief that the members of the Church would be more patriotic, and the citizens of the State more religious, by keeping their respective functions entirely separate.

Jeremiah S. Black (1810-1883) American statesman, jurist, lawyer
Speech (1856)

Especially in an age as corrupt and ignorant as this, the good opinion of the people is a dishonor.

Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) French essayist
“Of Repentance,” Essays (1588) [tr. Frame (1958)]

A leader is one who, out of madness or goodness, volunteers to take upon himself the woe of the people. There are few men so foolish, hence the erratic quality of leadership in the world.

John Updike (1932-2009) American writer
The Coup (1978)

A gossip is one who talks to you about others; a bore is one who talks to you about himself; and a brilliant conversationalist is one who talks to you about yourself.

Lisa Kirk (1925-1990) American actress and singer
New York Journal American (9 Mar 1954)

I am tolerant of all creeds. Yet if any sect suffered itself to be used for political objects I would meet it by political opposition. In my view church and state should be separate, not only in form, but fact. Religion and politics should not be mingled.

Millard Fillmore (1800-1874) US President (1850-1853)
Speech (1856)

There is nothing new about poverty. What is new is that we now have the techniques and the resources to get rid of poverty. The real question is whether we have the will.

Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman and reformer
Sermon, Passion Sunday, National Cathedral, Washington (31 Mar 1968)

There is no question but that if Jesus Christ, or a great prophet from another religion, were to come back today, he would find it virtually impossible to convince anyone of his credentials despite the fact that the vast evangelical machine on American television is predicated on His imminent return among us sinners.

Peter Ustinov (1921-2004) English actor, author, director
In The Independent (25 Feb 1989)

Genius, in truth, means little more than the faculty of perceiving in an unhabitual way.

William James (1842-1910) American psychologist and philosopher
Principles of Psychology, ch. 19 (1890)

Friendship arises out of mere Companionship when two or more of the companions discover that they have in common some insight or interest or even taste which the others do not share and which, till that moment, each believed to be his own unique treasure (or burden). The typical expression of opening Friendship would be something like, “What? You too? I thought I was the only one.”

C.S. Lewis (1898-1963) English writer and scholar [Clive Staples Lewis]
The Four Loves, ch. 3 “Friendship” (1960)

You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.

Plato (c.428-347 BC) Greek philosopher
(Attributed)

Power multiplies flatterers, and flatterers multiply our delusions by hiding us from ourselves.

Charles Caleb Colton (1780-1832) English clergyman, writer
Lacon, 2.25 (1824)

It iz a darned sight eazier tew find six men who kan tell exactly how a thing ought tew be did than tew find one who will do it.

[It is a darned sight easier to find six men who can tell exactly how a thing ought to be done than to find one who will do it.]

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

What is character but the determination of incident? What is incident but the illustration of character?

Henry James (1843-1916) American writer
“The Art of Fiction,” Longman’s Magazine (4 Sep 1884)
    (Source)

Great men are but life-sized. Most of them, indeed, are rather short.

Max Beerbohm (1872-1956) English parodist, caricaturist, wit, writer [Sir Henry Maximilian Beerbohm]
“A Point To Be Remembered by Very Eminent Men” (1918)
    (Source)

The fact is that the work which improves the condition of mankind, the work which extends knowledge and increases power and enriches literature, and elevates thought, is not done to secure a living. It is not the work of slaves, driven to their task either by the lash of a master or by animal necessities. It is the work of men who perform it for their own sake, and not that they may get more to eat or drink, or wear, or display. In a state of society where want is abolished, work of this sort could be enormously increased.

Henry George (1839-1897) American economist
Progress and Poverty (1879)

He knows nothing, and he thinks he knows everything. That points clearly to a political career.

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) British playwright and critic
Major Barbara, ch. 3 (1905)

The myth that holds that the great corporation is the puppet of the market, the powerless servant of the consumer, is, in fact one of the devices by which its power is perpetuated.

John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-2006) Canadian-American economist, diplomat, author
The Age of Uncertainty, ch. 9 (1977)

The curse of poverty has no justification in our age. It is socially as cruel and blind as the practice of cannibalism at the dawn of civilization, when men ate each other because they had not yet learned to take food from the soil or to consume the abundant animal life around them. The time has come for us to civilize ourselves by the total, direct and immediate abolition of poverty.

Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman and reformer
Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?, “Where We Are Going” (1967)

Write drunk, edit sober.

Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) American writer
(Attributed)

The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain.

Dolly Parton (b. 1946) American singer
(Attributed)

The presidency is always too strong when we dislike the incumbent. Its limitations are bemoaned, however, when we believe the incumbent is striving valiantly to serve the public interest as we define it.

Thomas E. Cronin (b. 1940) American political scientist
The State of the Presidency, 2nd ed., ch. 1 (1980)

After the satisfaction of doing what is right, the greatest is that of having what we do approved by those whose opinions deserve esteem.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) US President (1801-09)
Letter to William Phillips (1779)

To regret your sins of commission as much as your sins of omission is to prove yourself a most unworthy sinner.

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

I believe the road to hell is paved with adverbs, and I will shout it from the rooftops. To put it another way, they’re like dandelions. If you have one on your lawn, it looks pretty and unique. If you fail to root it out, however, you find five the next day … fifty the day after that … and then, my brothers and sisters, your lawn is totally, completely, and profligately covered with dandelions. By then you see them for the weeds they really are, but by then it’s — GASP!! — too late.

Stephen King (b. 1947) American author
On Writing, “Toolbox” (2000)
    (Source)

Literally and truly, one cannot get on well in the world without money. To be in want of it, is to pass through life with little credit or pleasure; it is to live out of the world, or to be despised if you come into it …; it is to be scrutinized by strangers, and neglected by friends; it is to be a thrall to circumstances, an exile in one’s own country.

William Hazlitt (1778-1830) English writer
Table Talk, “On the Want of Money” (1822)

Politicians only get to the top because they have no qualifications to detain them at the bottom.

Peter Ustinov (1921-2004) English actor, author, director
(Attributed)

Ustinov apparently used the phrase several times, with slight variations.

• As quoted above, in International Celebrity Register (1959) [ed. Cleveland Amory]
• Also appears in Ustinov's article, "Politics and the Arts", The Atlantic, Vol. 218 (1966)
• "People who reach the top of the tree are only those who haven't got the qualifications to detain them at the bottom." -- Interview with David Frost (1969)
• "I believe those who rise to the top of the political tree just didn’t have the qualifications to detain them at the bottom." (Source)

 

COSMO: I cannot kill my friend. [To his henchmen] Kill my friend.

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

An act has no ethical quality whatever unless it be chosen out of several all equally possible.

William James (1842-1910) American psychologist and philosopher
Principles of Psychology, ch. 9 (1890)
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The end of Man is an Action and not a Thought, though it were the noblest.

Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) Scottish essayist and historian
Sartor Resartus, Book 2, ch. 6 (1836)

Easy reading is damn hard writing.

Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) American writer
(Attributed)
Also attributed to others, including Ernest Hemingway. Per Wikiquote, the earliest use of the phrase found as such is by Maya Angelou, in Conversations With Maya Angelou (1989) [ed. Jeffrey M. Elliot]

I think it's Alexander Pope who says, "Easy writing is damn hard reading," and vice versa, easy reading is damn hard writing.

Which may refer in turn not to Pope but Richard Brinsley, Clio's Protest, or the Picture Varnished (1771, pub. 1819):

You write with ease, to show your breeding, But easy writing's curst hard reading.

And what is this smile of the world, to win which we are bidden to sacrifice our moral manhood; this frown of the world, whose terrors are more awful than the withering up of truth and the slow going out of light within the souls of us?

John, Viscount Morley (1838-1923) English politician and writer
On Compromise, ch. 4 (1877)

That a marriage ends is less than ideal; but all things end under heaven, and if temporality is held to be invalidating, then nothing real succeeds.

John Updike (1932-2009) American writer
Too Far To Go, foreword (1979)

Practical equality of opportunity for all citizens, when we achieve it, will have two great results. First, every man will have a fair chance to make of himself all that in him lies; to reach the highest point to which his capacities, unassisted by special privilege of his own and unhampered by the special privilege of others, can carry him, and to get for himself and his family substantially what he has earned. Second, equality of opportunity means that the commonwealth will get from every citizen the highest service of which he is capable. No man who carries the burden of the special privileges of another can give to the commonwealth that service to which it is fairly entitled.

Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) US President (1901-1909)
“The New Nationalism,” speech, Osawatomie, Kansas (31 Aug 1910)

We succeed in enterprises which demand the positive qualities we possess, but we excel in those which can also make use of our defects.

Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) French writer and politician
Democracy in America (1835)

Substitute “damn” every time you’re inclined to write “very”; your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.

Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
(Attributed)

Was there ever any domination which did not appear natural to those who possessed it?

John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) English philosopher and economist
The Subjection of Women, ch. 1 (1869)

I don’t kno az i want tew bet enny money, and giv odds, on the man, who iz alwus anxious tew pray out loud, every chance he kan git.

[I don't know as I want to bet any money, and give odds, on the man, who is always anxious to pray out loud, every chance he can get.]

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

The advantage, the luxury, as well as the torment and responsibility of the novelist, is that there is no limit to what he may attempt as an executant — no limit to his possible experiments, efforts, discoveries, successes.

Henry James (1843-1916) American writer
“The Art of Fiction,” Longman’s Magazine (4 Sep 1884)
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