When believers and unbelievers live in the same manner — I distrust the religion.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
Journal (1864)
People who fly into a rage always make a bad landing.
Will Rogers (1879-1935) American humorist
(Attributed)
If I had no duties, and no reference to futurity, I would spend my life in driving briskly in a post-chaise with a pretty woman.
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) English writer, lexicographer, critic
Comment (19 Sep 1777)
In James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791)
And now go, and make interesting mistakes, make amazing mistakes, make glorious and fantastic mistakes. Break rules. Leave the world more interesting for your being here. Make good art.
Neil Gaiman (b. 1960) British author, screenwriter, fabulist
Speech (2012-05-17), Commencement, University of the Arts, Philadelphia [19:28]
(Source)
Sex is a conversation carried out by other means.
Peter Ustinov (1921-2004) English actor, author, director
Interview, in Wendy Leigh, Speaking Frankly: What Makes a Woman Good in Bed (1978)
Riches rather enlarge than satisfy Appetites.
Thomas Fuller (1654-1734) English physician, preacher, aphorist, writer
Gnomologia: Adages and Proverbs, #4048 (1732)
(Source)
Religion is too important a matter to its devotees to be a subject of ridicule. If they indulge in absurdities, they are to be pitied rather than ridiculed.
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) German philosopher
Lecture, Königsberg (1775)
Quoted in H. L. Mencken, A New Dictionary of Quotations on Historical Principles from Ancient and Modern Sources (1946).
I think the detective story is by far the best upholder of the democratic doctrine in literature. I mean, there couldn’t have been detective stories until there were democracies, because the very foundation of the detective story is the thesis that if you’re guilty you’ll get it in the neck and if you’re innocent you can’t possibly be harmed. No matter who you are. There was no such conception of justice until after 1830. There was no such thing as a policeman or a detective in the world before 1830, because the modern conception of the policeman and detective, namely, a man whose only function is to find out who did it and then get the evidence that will punish him, did not exist. … In Paris before the year 1800 — read the Dumas stories — there were gangs of people whose business was to go out and punish wrongdoers. But why? Because they had hurt De Marillac or Richelieu or the Duke or some Huguenot noble, not just because they had harmed society. It is only the modern policeman that is out to protect society.
Rex Stout (1886-1975) American writer
On “The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes,” Invitation to Learning Radio Show, hosted by Mark Van Doren (Jan 1942)
Transcribed in Mark Van Doren, The New Invitation to Learning: The Essence of the Great Books of All Times (1942).
Indeed, I know of no country where the love of money occupies as great a place in the hearts of men, or where people are more deeply contemptuous of the theory of permanent equality of wealth.
Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) French writer, diplomat, politician
Democracy in America, Vol. 1, pt. 1, ch. 3 (1835) [tr. Goldhammer]
The sciences have developed in an order the reverse of what might have been expected. What was most remote from ourselves was first brought under the domain of law, and then, gradually, what was nearer: first the heavens, next the earth, then animal and vegetable life, then the human body, and last of all (as yet very imperfectly) the human mind.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Religion and Science, ch. 3 (1935)
If it is a virtue to love my neighbor as a human being, it must be a virtue — and not a vice — to love myself, since I am a human being, too.
Eric Hoffer (1902-1983) American writer, philosopher, longshoreman
The Art of Loving, 2.3d (1956)
God give us men. The time demands
Strong minds, great hearts, true faith, and willing hands;
Men whom the lust of office does not kill;
Men whom the spoils of office cannot buy;
Men who possess opinions and a will;
Men who have honor; men who will not lie;
Men who can stand before a demagogue
And damn his treacherous flatteries without winking;
Tall men, sun-crowned, who live above the fog
In public duty and in private thinking ….J. G. Holland (1819-1881) American novelist, poet, editor [Josiah Gilbert Holland; pseud. Timothy Titcomb]
“Wanted” (1872)
(Source)
Adapted by Martin Luther King in 1956: "God give us leaders. A time like this demands great leaders. Leaders whom the fog of life cannot chill, men whom the lust of office cannot buy. Leaders who have honor, leaders who will not lie. Leaders who will stand before a pagan god and damn his treacherous flattery."
To make our idea of morality centre on forbidden acts is to defile the imagination and to introduce into our judgments of our fellow-men a secret element of gusto.
Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) Scottish essayist, novelist, poet
“A Christmas Sermon,” Across the Plains, ch. 12 (1892)
But Goethe tells us in his greatest poem that Faust lost the liberty of his soul when he said to the passing moment: “Stay, thou art so fair.” And our liberty, too, is endangered if we pause for the passing moment, if we rest on our achievements, if we resist the pace of progress. Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.
John F. Kennedy (1917-1963) US President (1961-63)
Speech, Paulskirche, Frankfurt, Germany (25 Jun 1963)
(Source)
Variant in some locations: "... And those who look only to the past are certain to miss the future."
It is a mortifying reflection for any man to consider what he has done with what he might have done.
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) English writer, lexicographer, critic
Comment
Quoted by Rev. Dr. Maxwell (1770), in James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791).
Shed no tear! O shed no tear!
The flower will bloom another year.
Weep no more! O weep no more!
Young buds sleep in the root’s white core.John Keats (1795-1821) English poet
“Faery Songs,” I (1818)
Aristocracy has three successive ages, — the age of superiorities, the age of privileges, and the age of vanities; having passed out of the first, it degenerates in the second, and dies away in the third.
[L’aristocratie a trois âges successifs: l’âge des supériorités, l’âge des privilèges, l’âge des vanités; sortie du premier, elle dégènère dans le second et s’éteint dans le dernier.]
François-René de Chateaubriand (1768-1848) French writer, politican, diplomat
Memoirs from Beyond the Grave [Mémoires d’Outre-Tombe], Book 1, ch. 1 “The Vallé-aux-loups” (1848-1850) [tr. Kline]Alt. trans.:
- Aristocracy has three successive ages. First superiorities, then privileges and finally vanities. Having passed from the first, it degenerates in the second and dies in the third.
- Aristocracy has three successive ages. First superiority, then privileges and finally vanities. Having passed from the first, it degenerates in the second and dies in the third.
He rises by lifting others.
Robert Green Ingersoll (1833-1899) American lawyer, agnostic, orator
“Liberty”
Our language has wisely sensed these two sides of man’s being alone. It has created the word “loneliness” to express the pain of being alone. And it has created the word “solitude” to express the glory of being alone.
Paul Tillich (1886-1965) American theologian and philosopher
The Eternal Now, “Loneliness and Solitude” (1963)
(Source)
The World is a very complex system. It is easy to have too simple a view of it, and it is easy to do harm and to make things worse under the impulse to do good and make things better.
Kenneth Ewart Boulding (1910-1993) American economist, educator, poet, philosopher
Speech, 7th Friends Association for Higher Education Conference, Malone College (1986)
You can “just listen” to the Brahms violin concerto and enjoy it keenly. But if you read about Brahms’ life, you appreciate it more. And, if you’ve listened to recordings of it, you will appreciate it ten times as much.
Jascha Heifetz (1901-1987) Lithuanian-American violinist
(Unsourced)
Quoted on his official web page.
The practical work of today is to abolish the cannibals of competition, warriors of supply and demand, tyrants of monopoly, monsters of the market, devourers of men, women and children, buyers and sellers of life.
Henry Demarest Lloyd (1847-1903) American political activist and journalist
Man, the Social Creator, ch. 5 (1906)
(Source)
The faith that stands on authority is not faith. The reliance on authority measures the decline of religion, the withdrawal of the soul.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
“The Over-Soul,” Essays: First Series, ch. 9 (1841)
(Source)
Anger begins with folly, and ends with repentance.
Pythagoras (c.570 BC - c.495 BC) Greek mathematician and philosopher
(Attributed)
I would rather be attacked than unnoticed. For the worst thing you can do to an author is to be silent as to his works. An assault upon a town is a bad thing; but starving it is still worse.
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) English writer, lexicographer, critic
Comment (26 Mar 1779)
In James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791)
It is the passion that is in a kiss that gives to it its sweetness; it is the affection in a kiss that sanctifies it.
Christian Nestell Bovee (1820-1904) American epigrammatist, writer, publisher
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought, Vol. 1 (1862)
If God created the world, He created sex, and one way to construe our inexhaustible sexual interest is as a form of the praise of creation. Says the Song of Solomon, “The joints of thy thighs are like jewels; the work of the hands of a cunning workman.”
John Updike (1932-2009) American writer
“Even the Bible is Soft on Sex,” New York Times Book Review (20 Jun 1993)
Song of Solomon 7:1 (KJV)
I am indeed rich, since my income is superior to my expense, and my expense is equal to my wishes.
Edward Gibbon (1737-1794) English historian
Memoirs of My Life and Writings (1796)
The wish to talk to God is absurd. We cannot talk to one we cannot comprehend — and we cannot comprehend God; we can only believe in Him. The uses of prayer are thus only subjective.
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) German philosopher
Lecture, Königsberg (1775)
To invent your own life’s meaning is not easy, but it’s still allowed, and I think you’ll be happier for the trouble.
Bill Watterson (b. 1958) American cartoonist
Commencement Address, Kenyon College (20 May 1990)
(Source)
Where men are the most sure and arrogant, they are commonly the most mistaken, and have there given reins to passion, without that proper deliberation and suspense, which can alone secure them from the grossest absurdities.
David Hume (1711-1776) Scottish philosopher, economist, historian, empiricist
An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, Sec. 9.13 “Conclusion, Pt. 1” (1751)
While over Alabama earth
These words are gently spoken
Serve — and hate will die unborn
Love — and chains are broken.Langston Hughes (1902-1967) American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright
“Alabama Earth” (1928)
At Booker T. Washington's grave.
If you are lonely when you are alone, you are in bad company.
[Si vous êtes seul quand vous êtes seul, vous êtes en mauvaise compagnie.]
Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) French philosopher and writer
(Attributed)
Dialectics in many different forms has a surprisingly good press. Most people believe that struggle is very important and that it is important to be on the right side in a conflict. … Part of the difficulty is that the human race has an enormous and by no means unreasonable passion for the dramatic, and conflict is much more dramatic than production. … The awful truth about the universe — that it is not only rather a muddle, but also pretty dull — is wholly unacceptable to the human imagination. Nevertheless, it is the dull, nondialectical processes that hold the world together, that move it forward, and that provide the setting within which the dialectical processes take place. Evolution is the theatre, dialectics the play. It is a tragic error to mistake the play for the theatre, however, because that all too easily ends in the theatre burning down … Unless there is a reasonably widespread appreciation of the proper role of dialectical processes, these tend to get out of hand and become extremely destructive … doing more harm than good.
Kenneth Ewart Boulding (1910-1993) American economist, educator, poet, philosopher
Ecodynamics: A New Theory Of Societal Evolution (1978)
You always hear of the “delicate, sensitive artist.” I assure you that it takes the nerves of a bullfighter, the digestion of a peasant, the vitality of a nightclub hostess, the tact of a diplomat, and the concentration of a Tibetan monk to lead the strenuous life of a virtuoso.
Jascha Heifetz (1901-1987) Lithuanian-American violinist
(Unsourced)
Quoted on his official web page.
The way to avoid the imputation of impudence is not to be ashamed of what we do, but never to do what we ought to be ashamed of.
Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BC) Roman orator, statesman, philosopher
(Attributed)
Attributed in The Spectator (28 May 1712).
You should be pioneers in presenting a living faith to the world, and not the dry bones of a traditional faith which the world will not grasp.
Mohandas Gandhi (1869-1948) Indian philosopher and nationalist [Mahatma Gandhi]
(Attributed)
In Mahadev Desai, With Gandhiji in Ceylon (1928)
To be angry, is to revenge the fault of others upon ourselves.
Alexander Pope (1688-1744) English poet
Thoughts on Various Subjects (1727)
The insolence of wealth will creep out.
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) English writer, lexicographer, critic
Comment (18 Apr 1778)
In James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791)
Example has more followers than reason. We unconsciously imitate what pleases us, and insensibly approximate to the characters we most admire. In this way, a generous habit of thought and of action carries with it an incalculable influence.
Christian Nestell Bovee (1820-1904) American epigrammatist, writer, publisher
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought, Vol. 1, “Example” (1862)
(Source)
There is no doubt that even the greatest musical geniuses have sometimes worked without inspiration. This guest does not always respond to the first invitation. We must always work, and a self-respecting artist must not fold his hands on the pretext that he is not in the mood. If we wait for the mood, without endeavouring to meet it half-way, we easily become indolent and apathetic. We must be patient, and believe that inspiration will come to those who can master their disinclination.
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893) Russian composer
Letter to N. F. von Meck (15 Mar 1878)
(Source)
I’m as pure as the driven slush.
Tallulah Bankhead (1902-1968) American actress
In the Observer (24 Feb 1957)
The Rich knowes not who is his friend.
George Herbert (1593-1633) Welsh priest, orator, poet.
Jacula Prudentum, or Outlandish Proverbs, Sentences, &c. (compiler), # 865 (1640 ed.)
(Source)
In a culture that relentlessly promotes avarice and excess as the good life, a person happy doing his own work is usually considered an eccentric, if not a subversive. Ambition is only understood if it’s to rise to the top of some imaginary ladder of success. Someone who takes an undemanding job because it affords him the time to pursue other interests and activities is considered a flake. A person who abandons a career in order to stay home and raise children is considered not to be living up to his potential — as if a job title and salary are the sole measure of human worth.
Bill Watterson (b. 1958) American cartoonist
Commencement Address, Kenyon College (20 May 1990)
(Source)
Mercy is of greater value than justice.
[La clémence vaut mieux que la justice.]
Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues (1715-1747) French moralist, essayist, soldier
Reflections and Maxims [Réflexions et maximes] (1746) [tr. Lee (1903)]
America is far from perfect. It has blundered through arrogance, selfishness, cynicism, and a great deal through ignorance. But without America, the history of humanity in the 20th century would have been infinitely more tragic.
Dominique Moïsi (b. 1946) French political scientist and writer
In the San Francisco Chronicle (16 Dec 2001)
The man of science has learned to believe in justification, not by faith, but by verification.
T. H. Huxley (1825-1895) English biologist [Thomas Henry Huxley]
“On the Advisableness of Improving Natural Knowledge” (1870)
He who don’t luv himself vents hiz spleen bi hating everyboddy else.
[He who doesn’t love himself vents his spleen by hating everybody else.]
Josh Billings (1818-1885) American humorist, aphorist [pseud. of Henry Wheeler Shaw]
Everybody’s Friend, Or; Josh Billing’s Encyclopedia and Proverbial Philosophy of Wit and Humor, “Variety,” “Bread and Butter” (1874)
(Source)
Heaven is not reached at a single bound;
But we build the ladder by which we rise
From the lowly earth to the vaulted skies,
And we mount to its summit round by round.J. G. Holland (1819-1881) American novelist, poet, editor [Josiah Gilbert Holland; pseud. Timothy Titcomb]
“Gradatim”
The difficulty of literature is not to write, but to write what you mean; not to affect your reader, but to affect him precisely as you wish.
Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) Scottish essayist, novelist, poet
“Truth of Intercourse” (1881)
Sometimes a neighbor whom we have disliked a lifetime for his arrogance and conceit lets fall a single commonplace remark that shows us another side, another man really; a man uncertain, puzzled and in the dark like ourselves.
Willa Cather (1873-1947) American author [Wilella Silbert Cather]
Shadows on the Rock (1931)
Our self-denial must first of all be humble. Otherwise it is a contradiction in terms. If we deny ourselves in order to think ourselves better than other men, our self-denial is only self-gratification.
Thomas Merton (1915-1968) French-American religious and writer [a.k.a. Fr. M. Louis]
No Man Is an Island, 6.7 (1955)
Those who cry most loudly that we must smash and destroy are later found among the administrators of some new system of repression.
Noam Chomsky (b. 1928) American linguist and activist
American Power and the New Mandarins, Introduction (1969)
Pain is a part of life. Sometimes it’s a big part, and sometimes it isn’t, but either way, it’s part of the big puzzle, the deep music, the great game. Pain does two things: It teaches you, tells you that you’re alive. Then it passes away and leaves you changed. It leaves you wiser, sometimes. Sometimes it leaves you stronger. Either way, pain leaves its mark, and everything important that will ever happen to you in life is going to involve it in one degree or another.
Jim Butcher (b. 1971) American author
White Night, ch. 31 (2008)
“Don’t you want to join us?” I was recently asked by an acquaintance when he ran across me alone after midnight in a coffeehouse that was already almost deserted. “No, I don’t,” I said.
Franz Kafka (1883-1924) Czech-Austrian Jewish writer
Diary (1914-06) [ed. M. Brod (1948)]
The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment.
Robert M. Hutchins (1899-1977) American educator and educational philosopher
Great Books: The Foundation of a Liberal Education (1954)
(Source)
The essence of true religious teaching is that one should serve and befriend all. … It is easy enough to be friendly with one’s friends. But to befriend the one who regards himself as your enemy is the quintessence of true religion. The other is mere business.
Mohandas Gandhi (1869-1948) Indian philosopher and nationalist [Mahatma Gandhi]
In Harijan (11 May 1947)
The anger of the weak never goes away, Professor, it just gets a little mouldy. It moulds like a beautiful blue cheese in the dark, growing stronger and more interesting. The poor and the weak die with all their anger intact and probably those angers go on growing in the dark of the grave like the hair and the nails.
Marge Piercy (b. 1936) American poet, novelist, social activist
Woman on the Edge of Time (1976)
All theory is against the freedom of the will; all experience for it.
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) English writer, lexicographer, critic
Comment (15 Apr 1778)
In James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791)
The first step toward greatness is to be honest, says the proverb; but the proverb fails to state the case strong enough. Honesty is not only “the first step toward greatness,” — it is greatness itself.
Christian Nestell Bovee (1820-1904) American epigrammatist, writer, publisher
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought, vol. 1 (1862)
(Source)
We are like dwarfs on the shoulders of giants, so that we can see more than them and things at a greater distance.
Bernard of Chartres (d. after 1124) French philosopher, scholar, administrator. [a.k.a. Bernardus Carnotensis]
(Attributed)
Attributed in John of Salisbury, The Metalogicon, 3.4 (1159).Paraphrase of this original: "Bernard of Chartres used to say that we [the Moderns] are like dwarves perched on the shoulders of giants [the Ancients], and thus we are able to see more and farther than the latter. And this is not at all because of the acuteness of our sight or the stature of our body, but because we are carried aloft and elevated by the magnitude of the giants."See here for more discussion. See also Isaac Newton.
If we would amend the world, we should mend Ourselves and teach our Children to be not what we are but what they should be.
William Penn (1644-1718) English writer, philosopher, politician, statesman
Some Fruits of Solitude, #214 (1693)
There is one thing that Christ and all the Christian saints have said with a sort of savage monotony. They have said simply that to be rich is to be in peculiar danger of moral wreck. It is not demonstrably un-Christian to kill the rich as violators of definable justice. It is not demonstrably un-Christian to crown the rich as convenient rulers of society. It is not certainly un-Christian to rebel against the rich or to submit to the rich. But it is quite certainly un-Christian to trust the rich, to regard the rich as more morally safe than the poor.
Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936) English journalist and writer
Orthodoxy, ch. 7 “The Eternal Revolution” (1908)
Sooner or later, we are all asked to compromise ourselves and the things we care about. We define ourselves by our actions. With each decision, we tell ourselves and the world who we are. Think about what you want out of this life, and recognize that there are many kinds of success.
Bill Watterson (b. 1958) American cartoonist
Commencement Address, Kenyon College (20 May 1990)
(Source)
When we are convinced of some great truths, and feel our convictions keenly, we must not fear to express it, although others have said it before us. Every thought is new when an author expresses it in a manner peculiar to himself.
Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues (1715-1747) French moralist, essayist, soldier
Reflections and Maxims [Réflexions et maximes] (1746) [tr. Lee (1903)]
Religion is what you expect. Sects are what you get.
Kee Hinckley (contemp.) American entrepreneur and system architect
Comment, Google Plus (28 Aug 2013)
(Source)
The school is an invaluable adjunct to the home, but it is a wretched substitute for it.
Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) American politician, statesman, conservationist, writer, US President (1901-1909)
Speech, Lansing, Michigan (31 May 1907)
(Source)
If most of us remain ignorant of ourselves, it is because self-knowledge is painful and we prefer the pleasures of illusion.
Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) English novelist, essayist and critic
The Perennial Philosophy, ch. 9 (1946)
Think before you speak. Read before you think. This will give you something to think about that you didn’t make up yourself — a wise move at any age, but most especially at seventeen, when you are in the greatest danger of coming to annoying conclusions.
It seems as if marriage were the royal road through life, and realised, on the instant, what we have all dreamed on summer Sundays when the bells ring, or at night when we cannot sleep for the desire of living. They think it will sober and change them. Like those who join a brotherhood, they fancy it needs but an act to be out of the coil and clamour for ever. But this is a wile of the devil’s. To the end, spring winds will sow disquietude, passing faces leave a regret behind them, and the whole world keep calling and calling in their ears. For marriage is like life in this — that it is a field of battle, and not a bed of roses.
Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) Scottish essayist, novelist, poet
“Virginibus Puerisque” (1881)
(Source)
Education’s purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one.
Malcolm Forbes (1919-1990) American billionaire
(Attributed)
The worst of all deceptions is self-deception.
Socrates (c.470-399 BC) Greek philosopher
In Plato, Cratylus (c. 360 BC)
The successful revolutionary is a statesman, the unsuccessful one is a criminal.
Erich Fromm (1900-1980) American psychoanalyst and social philosopher
Escape from Freedom, 7.2 (1941)
There’s power in the night. There’s terror in the darkness. Despite all our accumulated history, learning, and experience, we remember. We remember times when we were too small to reach the light switch on the wall, and when the darkness itself was enough to make us cry out in fear. Get a good ways out from civilization — say, miles and miles away on a lightless lake — and the darkness is there, waiting. Twilight means more than just time to call the children in from playing outside. Fading light means more than just the end of another day. Night is when terrible things emerge from their sleep and seek soft flesh and hot blood. Night is when unseen beings with no regard for what our people have built and no place in what we have deemed the natural order look in at our world from outside, and think dark and alien thoughts. And sometimes, just sometimes, they do things.
Beyond a certain point there is no return. This point has to be reached.
[Von einem gewissen Punkt an gibt es keine Rückkehr mehr. Dieser Punkt ist zu erreichen.]
Franz Kafka (1883-1924) Czech-Austrian Jewish writer
Notebook, Aphorism #5 [tr. Kaiser and Wilkins]
(Source)Alt. trans.:
- From a certain point onward there is no longer any turning back. That is the point that must be reached.
- There is a point of no return. This point has to be reached.
Justice does not belong to the Christian way of life and there is no mention of it in Christ’s teaching. Rejoice with the joyous and weep with those who weep; for this is the sign of limpid purity. Suffer with those who are ill and mourn with sinners; with those who repent, rejoice. Be a partaker in the sufferings of all men. Rebuke no one, revile no one, not even men who live very wickedly. Spread your cloak over the man who is falling and cover him. And if you cannot take upon yourself his sins and receive his chastisement in his stead, then at least patiently suffer his shame and do not disgrace him.
St. Isaac of Nineveh (d. c. 700) Assyrian bishop and theologian [a.k.a. Isaac the Assyrian, Abba Isaac, Isaac of Syria, Isaac Syrus]
Ascetical Homilies
There is no greater satisfaction for a just and well-meaning person than the knowledge that he has devoted his best energies to the service of a good cause.
Albert Einstein (1879-1955) German-American physicist
“A Message to My Adopted Country,” Pageant (Jan 1946)
(Source)
Later reprinted as "The Negro Question."
The bonds that unite another person to ourself exist only in our mind. Memory as it grows fainter relaxes them, and notwithstanding the illusion by which we would fain be cheated and with which, out of love, friendship, politeness, deference, duty, we cheat other people and we exist alone. Man is the only creature that cannot emerge from himself, that knows his fellows only in himself; when he asserts the contrary he is lying.
Marcel Proust (1871-1922) French author
Remembrance of Things Past “The Sweet Cheat Gone” (1913-27)
The world moves into the future as a result of decisions, not as a result of plans. Plans are significant only insofar as they affect decisions.
Kenneth Ewart Boulding (1910-1993) American economist, educator, poet, philosopher
Toward a General Social Science, ch. 1 (1974)
Can you appreciate music without playing it? Of course you can, in the same way that people who are not athletes get enjoyment from attending a game to enjoy the crowd, the excitement, and the experience.
Jascha Heifetz (1901-1987) Lithuanian-American violinist
(Unsourced)
Quoted on his official web page.
The only religion is conscience in action.
Henry Demarest Lloyd (1847-1903) American political activist and journalist
“The Social Conscience”
(Source)
Paraphrased from Man, the Social Creator (1906) in John Haynes Holmes et al., ed., Readings from Great Authors (1919)
To be angry at people means that one considers their acts to be important.
Don Juan Matus (contemp.) Yaqui Indian brujo, possibly a fictional character by Carlos Castañeda
(Attributed)
In Carlos Castaneda, The Teachings of Don Juan (1968).
Wine makes a man better pleased with himself. I do not say that it makes him more pleasing to others. … This is one of the disadvantages of wine, it makes a man mistake words for thoughts.
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) English writer, lexicographer, critic
Comment (28 Apr 1778)
In James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791)
He has but one great fear that fears to do wrong.
Christian Nestell Bovee (1820-1904) American epigrammatist, writer, publisher
(Attributed)
In Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895).
Most people ignore most poetry because most poetry ignores most people.
Adrian Mitchell (1932-2008) English poet, novelist, playwright
Poems, Preface (1964)
If you rebel against high-heeled shoes, take care to do it in a very smart hat.
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) British playwright and critic
The Intelligent Woman’s Guide to Socialism, Capitalism, Sovietism, and Fascism, ch. 79 (1928)
Having given all he had,
He then is very rich indeed.Lao-tzu (604?-531? BC) Chinese philosopher, poet [also Lao-tse, Laozi]
The Way of Life, 81 [tr. Blakney (1955)]
Selling out is usually more a matter of buying in. Sell out, and you’re really buying into someone else’s system of values, rules and rewards.
Bill Watterson (b. 1958) American cartoonist
Commencement Address, Kenyon College (20 May 1990)
(Source)
If children had teachers for judgment and eloquence as they have for languages, if their memory was exercised less than their energy or their natural genius, if instead of deadening their vivacity of mind we tried to elevate the free scope and impulses of their souls, what might not result from a fine disposition? As it is, we forget that courage, or love of truth and glory are the virtues that matter most in youth; and our one endeavor is to subdue our children’s spirits, in order to teach them that dependence and suppleness are the first laws of success in life.
Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues (1715-1747) French moralist, essayist, soldier
Reflections and Maxims [Réflexions et maximes] (1746) [tr. Lee (1903)]
We find it almost as difficult as the communists to believe that anyone could think ill of us, since we are as persuaded as the communists that our society is so essentially virtuous that only malice could prompt criticism of any of our actions.
Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971) American theologian and clergyman
The Irony of American History (1962)
Science is not […] a perfect instrument, but it is superb and invaluable tool that works harm only when taken as an end in itself.
Carl Jung (1875-1961) Swiss psychologist
Commentary (on The Secret of the Golden Flower), Introduction (1) (1929) [tr. Baynes (1961)]
Self-correction begins with self-knowledge.
[Principio es de corregirse el conocerse]
Baltasar Gracián y Morales (1601-1658) Spanish Jesuit priest, writer, philosopher
The Art of Worldly Wisdom [Oráculo Manual y Arte de Prudencia], § 69 (1647) [tr. Maurer (1992)]
(Source)
(Source (Spanish)). Alternate translations:The knowledge of one's self is the beginning of amendment.
[Flesher ed. (1685)]Self-knowledge is the beginning of self-improvement.
[tr. Jacobs (1892)]It is a first principle that in order to improve yourself, you must first know yourself.
[tr. Fischer (1937)]
Remember that as a teenager you are at the last stage in your life when you will be happy to hear that the phone is for you.
Books are good enough in their own way, but they are a mighty bloodless substitute for life.
Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) Scottish essayist, novelist, poet
“An Apology for Idlers” (1881)
Behind every great man is a woman rolling her eyes.
Jim Carrey (b. 1962) Canadian American actor, comedian, producer.
(Attributed)
Who has deceiv’d thee so oft as thy self?
Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) American statesman, scientist, philosopher, aphorist
Poor Richard’s Almanack (Jan 1738)
Take the most radical revolutionist and place him upon the all-Russian throne or give him dictatorial power, for which so many of our green revolutionists daydream, and within a year he will have become worse than the Emperor himself.
Mikhail Bakunin (1814-1876) Russian anarchist, political theorist
Science and the Urgent Revolutionary Task (1870)
Everyone is down on pain, because they forget something important about it: Pain is for the living. Only the dead don’t feel it.
Jim Butcher (b. 1971) American author
White Night, ch. 31 (2008)
All human errors are impatience, the premature breaking off of what is methodical, an apparent fencing in of the apparent thing.
[Alle menschlichen Fehler sind Ungeduld, ein vorzeitiges Abbrechen des Methodischen, ein scheinbares Einpfählen der scheinbaren Sache.]
Franz Kafka (1883-1924) Czech-Austrian Jewish writer
Notebook, Aphorism # 2 [tr. Kaiser and Wilkins]
(Source)
Alt. trans.: "All human errors are impatience, a premature breaking off of methodical procedure, an apparent fencing-in of what is apparently at issue."
In asymmetric warfare, the moral high ground truly is the defensible position: there is more power in trust than in any weapon. Battles and even wars might be won on the battlefield, but the future is won by the elapsed time between the last American shame and today’s date on the calendar. It is won by using our power to elevate others. It is won by our courage not to back down from our principles in search of an illusion of security. Our real strength isn’t anything that explodes; it’s something that only endures as long as we insist on it.
George Wiman (contemp.) American blogger, computer technician
“Build the Right Monument” (11 Sep 2011)
(Source)
