The actions of those who hold great power, and pass their lives in a lofty station, are known to all the world. So it comes to pass that in the highest position there is the least freedom of action.
Julius Caesar (100-44 BC) Roman general and statesman [Gaius Julius Caesar]
Speech, Roman Senate
In Sallust, The War with Catiline, 51.12 [tr. Rolfe (1921)]
Something of the hermit’s temper is an essential element in many forms of excellence, since it enables a man to resist the lure of popularity, to pursue important work in spite of general indifference or hostility, and arrive at opinions which are opposed to prevalent errors.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Power: A New Social Analysis, ch. 2 (1938)
The religious experience which we are studying is that which lives itself out within the private breast. First-hand individual experience of this kind has always appeared as a heretical sort of innovation to those who witnessed its birth. Naked comes it into the world and lonely; and it has always, for a time at least, driven him who had it into the wilderness …
William James (1842-1910) American psychologist and philosopher
The Varieties of Religious Experience, Lectures 14-15 “The Value of Saintliness” (1902)
(Source)
We are a great and strong country — perhaps the greatest and strongest in the history of the world. But greatness and strength are not our natural right. They are not gifts which are automatically ours forever. It took toil and courage and determination to build this country — and it will take those same qualities if we are to maintain it. For, although a country may stand still, history never stands still. Thus, if we do not soon begin to move forward again, we will inevitably be left behind. And I know that Americans today are tired of standing still — and that we do not intend to be left behind. But effort and courage are not enough without purpose and direction. For, as Socrates told us, “If a man does not know to what port he is sailing, no wind is favorable.”
John F. Kennedy (1917-1963) US President (1961-63)
Speech, Raleigh NC (17 Sep 1960)
(Source)
Actually quoting Seneca the Younger.
I know you’ve heard it a thousand times before. But it’s true — hard work pays off. If you want to be good, you have to practice, practice, practice. If you don’t love something, then don’t do it.
Ray Bradbury (1920-2012) American writer, futurist, fabulist
(Attributed)
Everyone is in favor of free speech. Hardly a day passes without its being extolled, but some people’s idea of it is that they are free to say what they like, but if anyone says anything back, that is an outrage.
Winston Churchill (1874-1965) British statesman and author
Debate, House of Commons (13 Oct 1943)
(Source)
More discussion of this quotation: If Anyone Says Anything Back, That Is an Outrage – Quote Investigator.
I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it.
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) British playwright and critic
(Attributed)
You are perfectly right, Sire. A wise and courageous prince, with money, troops, and laws, can perfectly well govern men without the aid of religion, which was made only to deceive them; but the stupid people would soon make one for themselves, and as long as there are fools and rascals there will be religions.
Voltaire (1694-1778) French writer [pseud. of Francois-Marie Arouet]
Letter to Frederick II (5 Jan 1767)
“I quite agree with you,” said the Duchess; “and the moral of that is — ‘Be what you would seem to be’ — or, if you’d like it put more simply — ‘Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise.'”
Lewis Carroll (1832-1898) English writer and mathematician [pseud. of Rev. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson]
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, “The Mock Turtle’s Story” (1865)
To hear complaints with patience, even when complaints are vain, is one of the duties of friendship.
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) English writer, lexicographer, critic
The Rambler, #59 (9 Oct 1750)
(Source)
I’m not crazy about reality, but it’s still the only place to get a decent meal.
Groucho Marx (1890-1977) American comedian [b. Julius Henry Marx]
(Attributed)
Writing is the only thing that passes the three tests of metier. first, when I’m doing it, I don’t feel that I should be doing something else; second, it produces a sense of accomplishment and, once in a while, pride; and third, it’s frightening.
Gloria Steinem (b. 1934) American feminist, journalist, activist
“What’s in It for Me?”, Harper’s (Nov 1965)
A slave is one who waits for someone else to free him.
Ezra Pound (1885-1972) American expatriate poet, critic, intellectual
“Gists,” Impact: Essays on Ignorance and the Decline of American Civilization, ed. Noel Stock (1960)
The death of dogma is the birth of morality.
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) German philosopher
(Attributed)
Sometimes (apparently) misquoted as "The death of dogma is the birth of reality."
Don’t complicate matters by assuming for me a cupidity and corruption beyond the limits I have set for myself. You’re suffering from an occupational disease. When an international financier is confronted by a holdup man with a gun, he automatically hands over not only his money and jewelry but also his shirt and pants, because it doesn’t occur to him that a robber might draw the line somewhere.
Rex Stout (1886-1975) American writer
Over My Dead Body, ch. 10 [Wolfe] (1940)
Oh, well. All good things seize their bearings eventually.
Chris Bunch (1943-2005) American novelist, television writer
Fleet of the Damned (1988) [with Allan Cole]
United we stand, divided we fall.
Aesop (620?-560? BC) Legendary Greek storyteller
Fables [Aesopica], “The Four Oxen and the Lion” (6th C BC) [tr. Jacobs (1894)]
(Source)
Boys are the cash of war. Whoever said
We’re not free-spenders doesn’t know our likes.John Ciardi (1916-1986) American poet, writer, critic
“New Year’s Eve,” This Strangest Everything (1966)
Most people are like a falling leaf that drifts and turns in the air, flutters, and falls to the ground. But a few others are like stars which travel one defined path: no wind reaches them, they have within themselves their guide and path.
Herman Hesse (1877-1962) German-born Swiss poet, novelist, painter
Siddhartha, ch 2 “Amongst the People” (1922) [tr. Rosner (1951)]
True love ennobles and dignifies the material labors of life; and homely services rendered for love’s sake have in them a poetry that is immortal.
Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896) American author
Household Papers and Stories, Part 2, ch. 4 (1864)
I didn’t think it was possible to not care about something less than I did about football, but clothes were it. Most guys really don’t give a damn. Clothes were the things that, if you were a guy, you wore to keep warm, and that a girl wore so that you wouldn’t see her naked, and what guy is in favor of that?
Peter David (b. 1956) American writer
Pulling Up Stakes (2013)
The greatest strength and wealth is self-control.
Pythagoras (c.570 BC - c.495 BC) Greek mathematician and philosopher
(Attributed)
(Source)
Quoted in Hobart Huson, Pythagoras (1947).
I am, and have always been, and shall now always be, a revolutionary writer, because our laws make law impossible; our liberties destroy all freedom; our property is organized robbery; our morality is an impudent hypocrisy; our wisdom is administered by inexperienced or mal-experienced dupes; our power is wielded by cowards and weaklings; and our honor false in all its points. I am an enemy of the existing order for good reasons.
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) British playwright and critic
Major Barbara, “Sane Conclusions” (preface) (1905)
What is the point of having free will if one cannot occasionally spit in the eye of destiny?
Jim Butcher (b. 1971) American author
White Night (2008)
If you can’t read and write you can’t think. Your thoughts are dispersed if you don’t know how to read and write. You’ve got to be able to look at your thoughts on paper and discover what a fool you were.
Ray Bradbury (1920-2012) American writer, futurist, fabulist
“Ray Bradbury is on fire!”, interview with James Hibberd, Salon.com (29 Aug 2001)
(Source)
New technologies create new customs, new laws, new ethics, new crimes.
Larry Niven (b. 1938) American writer
The Long Arm of Gil Hamilton (1976)
Man seems to be made neither to live alone nor with others.
Fulke Greville (1554-1628) 1st Baron Brooke; Elizabethan poet, dramatist, and statesman
Maxims, Characters, and Reflections (1756)
Emotion is inseparable from being filled with the spirit, which is above all a state of being moved.
Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907-1972) Polish-American rabbi, theologian, philosopher
The Prophets, ch. 18 (1962)
In a world of danger and trial, peace is our deepest aspiration, and when peace comes we will gladly convert not our swords into plowshares, but our bombs into peaceful reactors, and our planes into space vessels. “Pursue peace,” the Bible tells us, and we shall pursue it with every effort and every energy that we possess. But it is an unfortunate fact that we can secure peace only by preparing for war.
You get to say the world is flat because we live in a country that guarantees your free speech, but it’s not a country that guarantees that anything you say is correct.
Neil deGrasse Tyson (b. 1958) American astrophysicist, author, orator
Interview, “The Colbert Report, (10 Mar 2014)
(Source)
Passionate expression and vehement assertion are no arguments, unless it be of the weakness of the cause that is defended by them, or of the man that defends it.
William Chillingworth (1602-1644) English churchman and theologian
(Attributed)
(Source)
Quoted in The Parliamentary History of England, Vol. 15, 29 George II, "Debate on a Motion for a Vote of Censor on the Treaties with Russia and Hesse Cassel (1755)" (1813)
Science and religion … are two sides of the same glass, through which we see darkly until these two, focusing together, reveal the truth.
Pearl S. Buck (1892-1973) American writer
A Bridge for Passing, ch. 3 (1962)
The devil’s most devilish when respectable.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861) English poet
“Aurora Leigh” (1857)
Depend upon it if a man talks of his misfortunes there is something in them that is not disagreeable to him; for where there is nothing but pure misery there never is any recourse to the mention of it.
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) English writer, lexicographer, critic
Comment (1780)
(Source)
In Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson, ch. 51 "1780" (1791)
There is no social evil, no form of injustice, whether of the feudal or capitalist order, which has not been sanctified in some way or another by religious sentiment and thereby rendered more impervious to change.
Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971) American theologian and clergyman
Christian Realism and Political Problems (1953)
I am naturally anti-slavery. If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong.
Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) American lawyer, politician, US President (1861-65)
Letter to Albert G. Hodges (4 Apr 1864)
Have patience awhile; slanders are not long-lived. Truth is the child of time; ere long she shall appear to vindicate thee.
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) German philosopher
(Attributed)
I wouldn’t use physical violence even if I could, because one of my romantic ideas is that physical violence is beneath the dignity of a man, and that whatever you get by physical aggression costs more than it is worth.
Rex Stout (1886-1975) American writer
Too Many Cooks, ch. 30 [Wolfe] (1938)
Almost every wise saying has an opposite one, no less wise, to balance it.
George Santayana (1863-1952) Spanish-American poet and philosopher [Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruíz de Santayana y Borrás]
The Life of Reason or The Phases of Human Progress, Vol. 5 “Reason in Science,” ch. 8 “Prerational Morality” (1905)
(Source)
Any man who attains a high place among you, from the President downwards, may date his downfall from that moment; for any printed lie that any notorious villain pens, although it militate directly against the character and conduct of a life, appeals at once to your distrust, and is believed. You will strain at a gnat in the way of trustfulness and confidence, however fairly won and well deserved; but you will swallow a whole caravan of camels, if they be laden with unworthy doubts and mean suspicions. Is this well, think you, or likely to elevate the character of the governors or the governed among you?
If any question why we died,
Tell them, because our fathers lied.Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) English writer
“Common Form,” The Years Between (1919)
Every man takes care that his neighbor shall not cheat him. But a day comes when he begins to care that he do not cheat his neighbor. Then all goes well. He has changed his market cart for a chariot of the sun.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
“Worship,” The Conduct of Life, ch. 6 (1860)
(Source)
In lecturing on cookery, as on housebuilding, I divide the subject into, not four, but five grand elements: first, Bread; second, Butter; third, Meat; fourth, Vegetables; and fifth, Tea — by which I mean, generically, all sorts of warm, comfortable drinks served out in teacups, whether they be called tea, coffee, chocolate, broma, or what not. I affirm that, if these five departments are all perfect, the great ends of domestic cookery are answered, so far as the comfort and well-being of life are concerned.
Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896) American author
Household Papers and Stories, ch. 10 (1864)
The deep-rooted selfishness, which forms the general character of the existing state of society, is so deeply rooted only because the whole course of existing institutions tends to foster it.
John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) English philosopher and economist
Autobiography, ch. 7 (1873)
The moment a revolution becomes a government, it necessarily sets to work to exterminate revolutionists. … I certainly laughed at the Soviet for setting up a museum in Moscow to glorify revolution. For when the revolution triumphs, revolution becomes counter-revolution.
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) British playwright and critic
“Touring in Russia,” Nash’s Magazine (Jan-Feb 1932)
I don’t care about whose DNA has recombined with whose. When everything goes to hell, the people who stand by you without flinching — they are your family.
Jim Butcher (b. 1971) American author
Proven Guilty (2006)
Achilles exists only through Homer. Take away the art of writing from this world, and you will probably take away its glory.
François-René de Chateaubriand (1768-1848) French writer, politican, diplomat
Les Natchez (1826)
The difference between a satirist and a humorist is that the satirist shoots to kill while the humorist brings his prey back alive.
Peter De Vries (1910-1993) American editor, novelist, satirist
Interview (May 1964) in Roy Newquist, Counterpoint (1964)
Those who retire from the world on akount ov its sin and peskyness must not forgit that they hav got tew keep kompany with a person who wants just as much watching as ennyboddy else.
[Those who retire from the world on account of its sin and peskiness must not forget that they have got to keep company with a person who wants just as much watching as anybody else.]
Josh Billings (1818-1885) American humorist, aphorist [pseud. of Henry Wheeler Shaw]
On Ice: and Other Things, 60 (1868)
I was told that the Chinese said they would bury me by the Western Lake and build a shrine to my memory. I have some slight regret that this did not happen, as I might have become a god, which would have been very chic for an atheist.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Autobiography, Vol 2: 1914-1944, ch. 3 “China” (1969)
(Source)
Russell visited China, and lectured there, in late 1920; his bout with pneumonia (which led to the above) happened in Spring 1921.
For without belittling the courage with which men have died, we should not forget those acts of courage with which men — such as the subjects of this book — have lived. The courage of life is often a less dramatic spectacle than the courage of a final moment; but it is no less a magnificent mixture of triumph and tragedy. A man does what he must — in spite of personal consequences, in spite of obstacles and dangers, and pressures — and that is the basis of all human morality.
John F. Kennedy (1917-1963) US President (1961-63)
Profiles in Courage, Part 4, ch. 11 “The Meaning of Courage”(1956) [with Ted Sorenson and Jules Davids]
(Source)
We are the miracle of force and matter making itself over into imagination and will. Incredible. The Life Force experimenting with forms. You for one. Me for another. The Universe has shouted itself alive. We are one of the shouts.
Ray Bradbury (1920-2012) American writer, futurist, fabulist
“G. B. S. — Mark V”, I Sing the Body Electric: And Other Stories (1998)
Making money is easy, knowing what to do with it becomes a problem.
Ring Lardner (1885-1933) American sports columnist and writer [Ringgold Wilmer Lardner]
(Attributed)
‘Twas blow for blow, disputing inch by inch,
For one would not retreat, nor t’other flinch.
RELIGION, n. A daughter of Hope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable.
Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914?) American writer and journalist
The Devil’s Dictionary (1911)
Appearances are deceptive.
Aesop (620?-560? BC) Legendary Greek storyteller
Fables [Aesopica], “The Wolf in Sheep Clothing” (6th C BC) [tr. Jacobs (1894)]
(Source)
Alternately, "Appearances often are deceiving." Versified by Gaius Julius Phaedrus, Fables bk. 4, as "Things are not always what they seem."
Note that there are two fables by this name. In this one, a wolf prospers by wearing a sheepskin he finds and drawing other sheep away to be eaten. In other versions, the wolf sneaks into the sheepfold wearing the skin, and then is killed and eaten by the farmer who wants sheep for dinner.
A lawyer has no business with the justice or injustice of the cause which he undertakes, unless his client asks his opinion, and then he is bound to give it honestly. The justice or injustice of the cause is to be decided by the judge.
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) English writer, lexicographer, critic
Comment (15 Aug 1773)
In James Boswell, Tour to the Hebrides (1786)
Nature has given us two ears, two eyes and but one tongue, to the end that we should hear and see more than we speak.
Socrates (c.470-399 BC) Greek philosopher
(Attributed)
In Robert Christy, Proverbs, Maxims and Phrases of All Ages (1887). Unable to find an actual citation; closest is Plutarch, Essays, "On Listening", 39B [tr. Waterfield (1992)], quoting Zeno of Citium: "And it is said that Nature gave each of us two ears, but one tongue, because we should listen more than we speak."
Writing well means never having to say, “I guess you had to be there.”
Jef Mallett (b. 1962) American comic strip writer, artist
(Attributed)
Although volume upon volume is written to prove slavery a very good thing, we never hear of the man who wishes to take the good of it, by being a slave himself.
Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) American lawyer, politician, US President (1861-65)
“Fragments on Government,” 1854?, Abraham Lincoln: Speeches and Writings, 1832-1858 (1989)
One cannot suppress a certain indignation when one sees men’s actions on the great world-stage and finds, beside the wisdom that appears here and there among individuals, everything in the large woven together from folly, childish vanity, even from childish malice and destructiveness. In the end, one does not know what to think of the human race, so conceited in its gifts.
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) German philosopher
“Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose [Idee zu einer allgemeinen Geschichte in weltbürgerlicher Absicht]” (1784) [tr. Beck (1963)]
(Source)
Nothing is simpler than to kill a man; the difficulties arise in attempting to avoid the consequences.
Rex Stout (1886-1975) American writer
Too Many Cooks, ch. 3 [Wolfe] (1938)
Fast is fine, but accuracy is everything.
Wyatt Earp (1848-1929) American law officer, gambler, saloon keeper
(Attributed)
It is an essential part of every national character to pique itself mightily upon its faults, and to deduce tokens of its virtue or its wisdom from their very exaggeration. One great blemish in the popular mind of America, and the prolific parent of an innumerable brood of evils, is Universal Distrust. Yet the American citizen plumes himself upon this spirit, even when he is sufficiently dispassionate to perceive the ruin it works; and will often adduce it, in spite of his own reason, as an instance of the great sagacity and acuteness of the people, and their superior shrewdness and independence.
Here dead lie we because we did not choose
To live and shame the land from which we sprung.
Life, to be sure, is nothing much to lose;
But young men think it is, and we were young.A. E. Housman (1859-1936) English scholar and poet [Alfred Edward Housman]
More Poems, #36 (1936)
(Source)
Sail forth! steer for the deep waters only!
Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me;
For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,
And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.
We hear often of the distress of the negro servants, on the loss of a kind master; and with good reason, for no creature on God’s earth is left more utterly unprotected and desolate than the slave in these circumstances. The child who has lost a father has still the protection of friends, and of the law; he is something, and can do something, — has acknowledged rights and position; the slave has none. The law regards him, in every respect, as devoid of rights as a bale of merchandise. The only possible acknowledgment of any of the longings and wants of a human and immortal creature, which are given to him, comes to him through the sovereign and irresponsible will of his master; and when that master is stricken down, nothing remains.
Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896) American author
Uncle Tom’s Cabin, ch. 29 “The Unprotected” (1862)
Don’t think there are no crocodiles because the water is calm.
(Other Authors and Sources)
Malayan proverb
We are all selfish and I no more trust myself than others with a good motive.
George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788-1824) English poet
Letter to Lady Melbourne (28 Sep 1813)
Rebels and dissidents challenge the complacent belief in a just world, and, as the theory would predict, they are usually denigrated for their efforts. While they are alive, they may be called “cantankerous,” “crazy,” “hysterical,” “uppity,” or “duped.” Dead, some of them become saints and heroes, the sterling characters of history. It’s a matter of proportion. One angry rebel is crazy, three is a conspiracy, fifty is a movement.
Carol Tavris (b. 1944) American social psychologist and author
“Anger in an Unjust World,” Anger: The Misunderstood Emotion (1982)
There is the world that should be and the world that is. We live in one and must create the other.
Jim Butcher (b. 1971) American author
Turn Coat (2009)
By liberty I mean the assurance that every man shall be protected in doing what he believes his duty against the influence of authority and majorities, custom and opinion. The State is competent to assign duties and draw the line between good and evil only in its immediate sphere. Beyond the limits of things necessary for its well-being, it can only give indirect help to fight the battle of life by promoting the influences which prevail against temptation, — religion, education, and the distribution of wealth.
John Dalberg, Lord Acton (1834-1902) British historian, politician, writer
Speech (1877-02-28), “The History of Freedom in Antiquity,” Bridgenorth Institute
(Source)
As the light changed from red to green to yellow and back to red again, I sat there thinking about life. Was it nothing more than a bunch of honking and yelling? Sometimes it seemed that way.
Jack Handey (b. 1949) American humorist
Deeper Thoughts (1993)
Solitude vivifies; isolation kills.
Joseph Roux (1834-1886) French Catholic priest
Meditations of a Parish Priest, 5.60 [tr. Hapgood (1886)]
I contend we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.
Stephen F. Roberts (b. c. 1969) American software developer
Usenet, alt.atheism, sig line (early 1995)
(Source)
See Roberts' "Brief History of the Quote" for more on its origins.
As he is not a prominent public figure, the quote is frequently attributed to others, usually of the same name. Possibly most famously, Sam Harris misattributed it to Australian historian Stephen Henry Roberts in his article "10 Myths -- and 10 Truths -- about Atheism," Los Angeles Times (2006-12-24) (since corrected by Harris).
The quotation is often given with an extra word: "I contend that we are both atheists ...." Roberts himself uses the shorter version.
For in a democracy, every citizen, regardless of his interest in politics, “holds office”; every one of us is in a position of responsibility; and, in the final analysis, the kind of government we get depends upon how we fulfill those responsibilities. We, the people, are the boss, and we will get the kind of political leadership, be it good or bad, that we demand and deserve.
John F. Kennedy (1917-1963) US President (1961-63)
Profiles in Courage (1956; 1964 ed.)
The gift of life is so precious that we should feel an obligation to pay back the universe for the gift of being alive.
Ray Bradbury (1920-2012) American writer, futurist, fabulist
Speech, Eureka College (1997)
Administrivia: WIST! Now, with Pictures!
As you may have noticed (if you’ve visited the WIST site this week), I am now posting author pictures here for the various quotations. It’s done on a category basis, so I’m tackling them from most-quoted author to least, as well as making sure they are present for the authors of quotes I add each day. It’s a bit more laborious than I’d prefer, but I think it adds a worthwhile bit of humanity to these interesting words, being able to see the person who actually said or wrote them. (It also points out the large preponderance of Old White Dead Guys, but that’s a different challenge.)
I’ve been toying with this idea for a while now. I’m using Michael Fields’ Taxonomy Images plug-in (since native WP doesn’t include category image support). The images are mostly from Wikicommons, or elsewhere on the Net; I’m making an effort to use public domain images, as well.
Given that I have a few thousand authors, it’s a task that will not be complete any time soon, if ever. But the same might be said of building a collection of quotations. At the very least, it will further help keeping me out of trouble.
Catching a fly ball is a pleasure, but knowing what to do with it is a business.
Tommy Henrich (1913-2009) American baseball player [a/k/a "The Clutch" and "Old Reliable"]
In Peter Golenbock, Dynasty: The New York Yankees, 1949-1964, “1949” (1975)
(Source)
The religion of one seems madnesse unto another.
Thomas Browne (1605-1682) English physician and author
Hydriotaphia, or Urne-Buriall, ch. 4 (1658)
(Source)
There is not in nature
A thing that makes a man so deform’d, so beastly,
As doth intemperate anger.John Webster (c.1580-c.1634) English Jacobean dramatist
The Duchess of Malfi (1612-13)
There is nothing more dreadful to an author than neglect, compared with which reproach, hatred, and opposition are names of happiness.
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) English writer, lexicographer, critic
The Rambler, #2 (24 Mar 1750)
(Source)
I think that if the beast who sleeps in man could be held down by threats — any kind of threat, whether of jail or of retribution after death — then the highest emblem of humanity would be the lion tamer in the circus with his whip, not the prophet who sacrificed himself. But don’t you see, this is just the point — what has for centuries raised man above the beast is not the cudgel but an inward music: the irresistible power of unarmed truth, the powerful attraction of its example.
Boris Pasternak (1890-1960) Russian poet, novelist, and literary translator
Doctor Zhivago [До́ктор Жива́го], Part 1, ch. 2 “A Girl from a Different World” [Nikolai] (1955) [tr. Hayward & Harari (1958), US ed.]
(Source)
Alternate translations:I think that if the beast who sleeps in man could be held down by threats -- any kind of threat, whether of jail or of retribution after death -- then the highest emblem of humanity would be the lion tamer in the circus with his whip, not the self-sacrificing preacher. But don’t you see, this is just the point -- what has for centuries raised man above the beast is not the cudgel but an inward music: the irresistible power of unarmed truth, the attraction of its example.
[tr. Hayward & Harari (1958), UK ed.]I think that if the beast who sleeps in man could be held down by threats -- any kind of threat, whether of jail or of retribution after death -- then the highest emblem of humanity would be the lion tamer in the circus with his whip, not the prophet who sacrificed himself. But this is just the point -- what has for centuries raised man above the beast is not the cudgel, but an inward music -- the irresistible power of unarmed truth.
[tr. Hayward & Harrai (1958); edited version quoted by Ronald Reagan, Moscow State University (1988-05-31)]I think that if the beast dormant in man could be stopped by the threat of, whatever, the lockup or requital beyond the grave, the highest emblem of mankind would be a lion tamer with his whip, and not the preacher who sacrifices himself. But the point is precisely this, that for centuries man has been raised above the animals and borne aloft not by the rod, but by music: the irresistibility of the unarmed truth, the attraction of its example.
[tr. Pevear & Volokhonsky (2010), "A Girl from a Different Circle"]
You can never read your own book with the innocent anticipation that comes with that first delicious page of a new book, because you wrote the thing. You’ve been backstage. You’ve seen how the rabbits were smuggled into the hat. Therefore ask a reading friend or two to look at it before you give it to anyone in the publishing business. This friend should not be someone with whom you have a romantic relationship, unless you want to break up.
Margaret Atwood (b. 1939) Canadian writer, literary critic, environmental activist
In “Ten Rules for Writing Fiction,” The Guardian (20 Feb 2010)
(Source)
When riches and virtue are placed together in the scales of the balance, the one always rises as the other falls.
Plato (c.428-347 BC) Greek philosopher
The Republic, 8.550 [tr. Jowett (1894)]
The public use of a man’s reason must be free at all times, and this alone can bring enlightenment among men.
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) German philosopher
“An Answer to the Question: What Is Enlightenment? Beantwortung der Frage: Was ist Aufklärung?]” (1784)
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They had Gebert down there, slapping him around and squealing and yelling at him. If you’re so sure violence is inferior technique, you should have seen that exhibition; it was wonderful. They say it works sometimes, but even if it does, how could you depend on anything you got that way? Not to mention that after you had done it a few times any decent garbage can would be ashamed to have you found in it.
Rex Stout (1886-1975) American writer
The Red Box, ch. 14 [Archie] (1937)
Describing a police interrogation.
You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers.
You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions.
Americans are not particularly good at sensing the real elements of another people’s culture. It helps them to approach foreigners with carefree warmth and an animated lack of misgiving. It also makes them, on the whole, poor administrators on foreign soil. They find it almost impossible to believe that poorer peoples, far from the Statue of Liberty, should not want in their heart of hearts to become Americans. If it should happen that America, in its new period of world power, comes to do what every other world power has done: if Americans should have to govern large numbers of foreigners, you must expect that Americans will be well hated before they are admired for themselves.
Alistair Cooke (1908-2004) Anglo-American essayist and journalist
Letter From America, “The Immigrant Strain” (6 May 1946)
They wrote in the old days that it is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country. But in modern war there is nothing sweet nor fitting in your dying. You will die like a dog for no good reason.
Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) American writer
“Notes on the Next War,” Esquire (Sep 1935)
This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul; and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body.
“It don’t look well, now, for a feller to be praisin’ himself; but I say it jest because it’s the truth. I believe I’m reckoned to bring in about the finest droves of niggers that is brought in, — at least, I’ve been told so; if I have once, I reckon I have a hundred times, — all in good case, — fat and likely, and I lose as few as any man in the business. And I lays it all to my management, sir; and humanity, sir, I may say, is the great pillar of my management.”
Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896) American author
Uncle Tom’s Cabin, ch. 1 “In Which the Reader Is Introduced to a Man of Humanity” (1862)
I hope we shall take warning from [England’s] example and crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country.
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) American political philosopher, polymath, statesman, US President (1801-09)
Letter (1816-11-12) to George Logan
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Selfishness is that detestable vice which no one will forgive in others, and no one is without in himself.
Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887) American clergyman and orator
Life Thoughts (1858)
Traters, I will here remark, are a onfortnit class of peple. If they wasn’t, they wouldn’t be traters. They conspire to bust up a country — they fail, and they’re traters. They bust her, and they become statesmen and heroes.
[Traitors, I will here remark, are an unfortunate class of people. If they weren’t, they wouldn’t be traitors. They conspire to bust up a country — they fail, and they’re traitors. They bust her, and they become statesmen and heroes.]
Artemus Ward (1834-1867) American humorist, editor, lecturer [pseud. of Charles Farrar Browne]
“The Tower of London,” The Complete Works of Atermus Ward (1898)
All things pass in time. We are far less significant than we imagine ourselves to be. All that we are, all that we have wrought, is but a shadow, no matter how durable it may seem. One day, when the last man has breathed his last breath, the sun will shine, the mountains will stand, the rain will fall, the streams will whisper — and they will not miss him.
Jim Butcher (b. 1971) American author
Princeps’ Fury (2008)
Writers the most learned, the most accurate in details, and the soundest in tendency, frequently fall into a habit which can neither be cured nor pardoned — the habit of making history into the proof of their theories.
John Dalberg, Lord Acton (1834-1902) British historian, politician, writer
Speech (1877-02-28), “The History of Freedom in Antiquity,” Bridgenorth Institute
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What Des-Cartes did was a good step. You have added much several ways, & especially in taking the colours of thin plates into philosophical consideration. If I have seen further it is by standing on the sholders of Giants.
Isaac Newton (1642-1727) English physicist and mathematician
Letter to Robert Hooke (5 Feb 1676)
In the Gregorian calendar, 15 Feb 1676.See Bernard of Chartres.
There is no true intimacy between souls who do not know how to respect one another’s solitude.
Thomas Merton (1915-1968) French-American religious and writer [a.k.a. Fr. M. Louis]
No Man Is an Island, 9.3 (1955)
What use is it to us to hear it said of a man that he has thrown off the yoke, that he does not believe there is a God to watch over his actions, that he reckons himself the sole master of his behavior, and that he does not intend to give an account of it to anyone but himself? Does he think that in that way he will have straightway persuaded us to have complete confidence in him, to look to him for consolation, for advice, and for help, in the vicissitudes of life? Do such men think that they have delighted us by telling us that they hold our souls to be nothing but a little wind and smoke — and by saying it in conceited and complacent tones? Is that a thing to say blithely? Is it not rather a thing to say sadly — as if it were the saddest thing in the world?
Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) French scientist and philosopher
Pensées (1670)
