We believe very strongly on preserving the right to differ in this country, and the right to dissent; and if I have done a good job of anything since I’ve been president, it’s to ensure that there are plenty of dissenters.
Lyndon B. Johnson (1908-1973) American politician, educator, US President (1963-69)
Press Conference (1967-11-17)
(Source)
Video:
At the present day, civilized opinion is a curious mental mixture. The military instincts and ideals are as strong as ever, but they are confronted by reflective criticisms which sorely curb their ancient freedom. Innumerable writers are showing up the bestial side of military service. Pure loot and mastery seem no longer morally allowable motives, and pretexts must be found for attributing them solely to the enemy.
William James (1842-1910) American psychologist and philosopher
“The Moral Equivalent of War” (1906)
(Source)
It seems to me a defect in our much famed Constitution, to have to part with an admirable Govt like Ld Salisbury’s for no question of any importance or any particular reason, merely on account of the number of votes.
Victoria (1819-1901) British monarch, queen, empress (1837-1901) [Alexandrina Victoria Wettin, née Hanover]
Comment (1892)
After Salisbury lost power to Gladstone.
I once told Nixon that the Presidency is like being a jackass caught in a hail storm. You’ve got to just stand there and take it.
Lyndon B. Johnson (1908-1973) American politician, educator, US President (1963-69)
Quoted in Leo Janos, “The Last Days of the President: LBJ in Retirement,” Atlantic Monthly (1973-07)
(Source)
Man would not have attained the possible unless time and again he had reached out for the impossible.
Max Weber (1864-1920) German sociologist, philosopher, political economist [Maximilian Karl Emil Weber]
“Politics as a Vocation” (1919)
The period of Prohibition — called the noble experiment — brought on the greatest breakdown of law and order the United States has known until today. I think there is a lesson here. Do not regulate the private morals of people. Do not tell them what they can take or not take. Because if you do, they will become angry and antisocial and they will get what they want from criminals who are able to work in perfect freedom because they have paid off the police.
Gore Vidal (1925-2012) American novelist, dramatist, critic
“The State of the Union”, Esquire (May 1975)
The object of government is the welfare of the people. The material progress and prosperity of a nation are desirable chiefly so far as they lead to the moral and material welfare of all good citizens.
Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) American politician, statesman, conservationist, writer, US President (1901-1909)
“The New Nationalism,” speech, Osawatomie, Kansas (31 Aug 1910)
(Source)
Kids are without a doubt the most suspicious diners in the world. They will eat mud (raw or baked) rocks, paste, crayons, ball-point pens, moving goldfish, cigarette butts, and cat food. Try to coax a little beef stew into their mouths and they look at you like a puppy when you stand over him with the Sunday paper rolled up.
Erma Bombeck (1927-1996) American humorist
Motherhood: The Second Oldest Profession, ch. 30 (1983)
The history of the past is but one long struggle upward to equality.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902) American social activist, abolitionist, woman's suffragist
Circular (Mar 1863)
The circular called for a National Convention of the Woman's National Loyal League; it was held in New York City two months later.
The act of acting morally is behaving as if everything we do matters.
Gloria Steinem (b. 1934) American feminist, journalist, activist
“The Birth of Ms.”, New York Magazine (19 Apr 1993)
(Source)
Acts themselves alone are history, and these are neither the exclusive property of Hume, Gibbon nor Voltaire, Echard, Rapin, Plutarch, nor Herodotus. Tell me the Acts, O historian, and leave me to reason upon them as I please; away with your reasoning and your rubbish. All that is not action is not worth reading.
William Blake (1757-1827) English poet, mystic, artist
Blake’s Exhibition and Catalogue, Vol. 5 “The Ancient Britons” (1809)
Smile on this
My bold endeavour.[Audacibus annue coeptis]
Virgil (70-19 BC) Roman poet [b. Publius Vergilius Maro; also Vergil]
Georgics [Georgica], Book 1, l. 40ff (1.40) (29 BC) [tr. Rhoades (1881)]
(Source)Calling on (now declared divine) Augustus Caesar to bless his poetry. This line, and a similar one in Virgil's Aeneid (9.625), inspired the phrase "Annuit cœptis" ("He [God] has favored our undertakings") on the reverse of the Great Seal of the United States.
(Source (Latin)). Alternate translations:Aid my bold design.
[tr. Ogilby (1649)]To my bold Endeavours add thy Force.
[tr. Dryden (1709), l. 60]Aid my bold design.
[tr. Nevile (1767), l. 50]Favour my adventurous enterprise.
[tr. Davidson (1854)]Bid my gallant enterprise succeed.
[tr. Blackmore (1871)]Favor my bold emprise.
[tr. Wilkins (1873)]Our bold endeavor bless.
[tr. King (1882)]Favor my adventurous enterprise.
[tr. Bryce (1897)]Favour my bold endeavour.
[tr. Mackail (1899)]Smile on this
My bold endeavour.
[tr. Greenough (1900)]O smile upon this my bold emprise!
[tr. Way (1912)]Give assent to my bold emprise.
[tr. Fairclough (Loeb) (1916)]Be gracious to this my bold design.
[tr. Day-Lewis (1940)]Condone this enterprise
Of bold experiment.
[tr. Bovie (1956)]I hope for an easy passage in this bold venture.
[tr. Slavitt (1971)]Assent to bold undertakings.
[tr. Miles (1980)]Smile on my enterprise.
[tr. Wilkinson (1982)]Agree to my bold beginning.
[tr. Kline (2001)]Assent to this work boldly begun.
[tr. Lembke (2004)]Bless the boldness of this undertaking.
[tr. Fallon (2006)]Approve my bold endeavour.
[tr. Johnson (2009)]Grant me the right to enter upon this bold
Adventure of mine.
[tr. Ferry (2015)]Look with favor upon a bold beginning.
[Bartlett's]
Christian tradition has never upheld this right as absolute and untouchable. … The right to private property is subordinated to the right to common use, to the fact that goods are meant for everyone.
Pope John Paul II (1920-2005) Polish-born Catholic Pontiff (1978-2005) [b. Karol Józef Wojtyła]
On Human Work [Laborem Exercens] (15 Sep 1981)
The miners lost because they had only the constitution. The other side had bayonets. In the end, bayonets always win.
Mary Harris "Mother" Jones (1860-1930) American labor leader [a.k.a. Mother Jones]
Speech, Cooper Union, New York City (1915)
On the failed Colorado miners' strike.
Politics makes strange bed-fellows.
Charles Dudley Warner (1829–1900) American essayist and novelist
My Summer in a Garden, “Fifteenth Week” (1871)
(Source)
There are, in every age, new errors to be rectified, and new prejudices to be opposed.
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) English writer, lexicographer, critic
The Rambler, #86 (12 Jan 1751)
(Source)
If we’ve told lies, you’ve told half-lies. And a man who tells lies, like me, merely hides the truth, but a man who tells half-lies has forgotten where he put it.
Robert Bolt (1924-1995) English dramatist
Lawrence of Arabia [Dryden] (1962)
They tell us sometimes that if we had only kept quiet, all these desirable things would have come about of themselves. I am reminded of the Greek clown who, having seen an archer bring down a flying bird, remarked, sagely: “You might have saved your arrow, for the bird would anyway have been killed by the fall.”
Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902) American social activist, abolitionist, woman's suffragist
Speech, Woman’s Rights Convention, New York City (7 May 1894)
Propaganda thus serves more to justify ourselves than to convince others; and the more reason we have to feel guilty, the more fervent our propaganda.
Eric Hoffer (1902-1983) American writer, philosopher, longshoreman
True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements, Part 3, ch. 14, § 84 (1951)
(Source)
When you’re young, you look at television and think, There’s a conspiracy. The networks have conspired to dumb us down. But when you get a little older, you realize that’s not true. The networks are in business to give people exactly what they want. That’s a far more depressing thought. Conspiracy is optimistic! You can shoot the bastards! We can have a revolution! But the networks are really in business to give people what they want. It’s the truth.
Steve Jobs (1955-2011) American computer inventor, entrepreneur
Interview, Wired (Feb 1996)
How dull, how impossible life would be without dreams — waking dreams, I mean — the dreams that we call “castles in the air,” built by the kindly hands of Hope! Were it not for the mirage of the oasis, drawing his footsteps ever onward, the weary traveler would lie down in the desert sand and die. It is the mirage of distant success, of happiness that, like the bunch of carrots fastened an inch beyond the donkey’s nose, seems always just within our reach, if only we will gallop fast enough, that makes us run so eagerly along the road of Life.
In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he made school boards.
Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
Following the Equator, ch. 25 (1898)
Vows made in Storms are forgot in Calms.
Thomas Fuller (1654-1734) English physician, preacher, aphorist, writer
Gnomologia: Adages and Proverbs, #5408 (1732)
(Source)
It is preoccupation with possession, more than anything else, that prevents men from living freely and nobly.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Principles of Social Reconstruction [Why Men Fight], ch. 8 (1916)
There is nothing to make one indignant in the mere fact that life is hard, that men should toil and suffer pain. The planetary conditions once for all are such, and we can stand it. But that so many men, by mere accidents of birth and opportunity, should have a life of nothing else but toil and pain and hardness and inferiority imposed upon them, should have no vacation, while others natively no more deserving never get any taste of this campaigning life at all, — this is capable of arousing indignation in reflective minds. It may end by seeming shameful to all of us that some of us have nothing but campaigning, and others nothing but unmanly ease.
William James (1842-1910) American psychologist and philosopher
“The Moral Equivalent of War” (1906)
(Source)
Shun evil profit, for dishonest gain
Is just the same as failure.Hesiod (fl. 750-650 BC) Greek oral poet, mythologist
Works and Days, l. 352 [tr. Wender (1973)]
In the criminal code we find no feminine pronouns, as “He,” “His,” “Him,” we are arrested, tried and hung, but singularly enough, we are denied the highest privileges of citizens, because the pronouns “She,” “Hers” and “Her,” are not found in the constitutions. It is a pertinent question, if women can pay the penalties of their crimes as “He,” why may they not enjoy the privileges of citizens as “He”?
Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902) American social activist, abolitionist, woman's suffragist
The Woman’s Bible (1898)
The period of time covered by history is far too short to allow of any perceptible progress in the the popular sense of Evolution of the Human Species. The notion that there has been any such Progress since Caesar’s time (less than 20 centuries ago) is too absurd for discussion. All the savagery, barbarism, dark ages and the rest of it of which we have any record as existing in the past exists at the present moment.
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) British playwright and critic
Caesar and Cleopatra, Notes, “Apparent Anachronisms” (1899)
Don’t ever make the mistake with people like me thinking we are looking for heroes. There aren’t any and if there were, they would be killed immediately. I’m never surprised by bad behaviour. I expect it.
For every special interest is entitled to justice, but not one is entitled to a vote in Congress, to a voice on the bench, or to representation in any public office. The Constitution guarantees protections to property, and we must make that promise good. But it does not give the right of suffrage to any corporation. The true friend of property, the true conservative, is he who insists that property shall be the servant and not the master of the commonwealth; who insists that the creature of man’s making shall be the servant and not the master of the man who made it. The citizens of the United States must effectively control the mighty commercial forces which they have called into being.
Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) American politician, statesman, conservationist, writer, US President (1901-1909)
“The New Nationalism,” speech, Osawatomie, Kansas (31 Aug 1910)
(Source)
It goes without saying that you should never have more children than you have car windows.
Erma Bombeck (1927-1996) American humorist
(Attributed)
FORD: Better three hours too soon than a minute too late.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Merry Wives of Windsor, Act 2, sc. 2, l. 319 (2.2.319) (1597)
(Source)
The character of every act depends upon the circumstances in which it is done.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (1841-1935) American jurist, Supreme Court Justice
Schenck v. United States (1919)
When nations grow old, the Arts grow cold,
And Commerce settles on every tree.William Blake (1757-1827) English poet, mystic, artist
On Art And Artists, “On the Foundation of the Royal Academy” (1800)
Building air castles is a harmless business as long as you don’t attempt to live in them.
Josh Billings (1818-1885) American humorist, aphorist [pseud. of Henry Wheeler Shaw]
(Attributed)
Accepting the view that man was prior in the creation, some Scriptural writers say that as the woman was of the man, therefore, her position should be one of subjection. Grant it, then as the historical fact is reversed in our day, and the man is now of the woman, shall his place be one of subjection?
Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902) American social activist, abolitionist, woman's suffragist
The Woman’s Bible (1898)
In our age there is no such thing as “keeping out of politics.” All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred, and schizophrenia.
George Orwell (1903-1950) English writer [pseud. of Eric Arthur Blair]
“Politics and the English Language” (Apr 1946)
There will always be a part, and always a very large part of every community, that have no care but for themselves, and whose care for themselves reaches little further than impatience of immediate pain, and eagerness for the nearest good.
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) English writer, lexicographer, critic
Taxation No Tyranny (1775)
(Source)
MORE: I will not take the oath. I will not tell you why I will not.
NORFOLK: Then your reasons must be treasonable!
MORE: Not “must be;” may be.
NORFOLK: It’s a fair assumption!
MORE: The law requires more than an assumption; the law requires a fact.Robert Bolt (1924-1995) English dramatist
A Man for All Seasons, Act 2 (1960)
Two sorts of truth: profound truths — recognized by the fact that the opposite is also a profound truth, — in contrast to trivialities where opposites are obviously absurd.
Niels Bohr (1885-1962) Danish physicist
(Attributed)
As quoted in Hans Bohr, "My Father", in Niels Bohr: His Life and Work (1967).Variants:
- " The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth."
- "It is the hallmark of any deep truth that its negation is also a deep truth." [Quoted in Max Delbrück, Mind from Matter: An Essay on Evolutionary Epistemology, (1986)]
People count up the faults of those who keep them waiting.
(Other Authors and Sources)
French saying
How often we recall, with regret, that Napoleon once shot at a magazine editor and missed him and killed a publisher. But we remember, with charity, that his intentions were good.
Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
Letter to Henry Alden (11 Nov 1906)
For Goebbels, anxiety was a double-edged sword: too much anxiety could produce panic and demoralization, too little could lead to complacency and inactivity. An attempt was constantly made, therefore, to achieve a balance between the two extremes.
Leonard W. Doob (1909-2000) American psychologist, academic, author
“Goebbels’ Principles of Propaganda” (1950)
The clergy, by getting themselves established by law, & ingrafted into the machine of government, have been a very formidable engine against the civil & religious rights of man.
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) American political philosopher, polymath, statesman, US President (1801-09)
Letter to Jeremiah Moor (18 Aug 1800)
(Source)
I like work: it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours.
Jerome K. Jerome (1859-1927) English writer, humorist [Jerome Klapka Jerome]
Three Men in a Boat, ch. 15 (1889)
A speech is poetry: cadence, rhythm, imagery, sweep! A speech reminds us that words, like children, have the power to make dance the dullest beanbag of a heart.
Peggy Noonan (b. 1950) American writer
What I Saw at the Revolution, ch. 5 (1990)
Nothing shall seem to me so truly my possessions as the gifts I have wisely bestowed.
Seneca the Younger (c. 4 BC-AD 65) Roman statesman, philosopher, playwright [Lucius Annaeus Seneca]
Moral Letters to Lucilius [Epistulae morales ad Lucilium], letter 20 “On the Happy Life,” sec. 4 [tr. Basore (1932)]
People don’t support you because they like you. You can count on a person’s support only when you do something for him or something to him.
Lyndon B. Johnson (1908-1973) American politician, educator, US President (1963-69)
(Attributed)
(Source)
On support from Congress. An "embittered" comment made to Richard Nixon after Johnson had left the Presidency. Quoted in Richard Nixon, In the Arena: A Memoir of Victory, Defeat, and Renewal, ch. 21 (1990).
Another purpose of the Establishment Clause rested upon an awareness of the historical fact that governmentally established religions and religious persecutions go hand in hand. The Founders knew that only a few years after the Book of Common Prayer became the only accepted form of religious services in the established Church of England, an Act of Uniformity was passed to compel all Englishmen to attend those services and to make it a criminal offense to conduct or attend religious gatherings of any other kind — a law which was consistently flouted by dissenting religious groups in England and which contributed to widespread persecutions of people like John Bunyan who persisted in holding “unlawful [religious] meetings … to the great disturbance and distraction of the good subjects of this kingdom ….” And they knew that similar persecutions had received the sanction of law in several of the colonies in this country soon after the establishment of official religions in those colonies. It was in large part to get completely away from this sort of systematic religious persecution that the Founders brought into being our Nation, our Constitution, and our Bill of Rights with its prohibition against any governmental establishment of religion.
Hugo Black (1886-1971) American politician and jurist, US Supreme Court Justice (1937-71)
Engel v. Vitale, 370 U.S. 421, 424-425 (1962) [majority opinion]
(Source)
The basenesses so commonly charged to religion’s account are thus, almost all of them, not chargeable at all to religion proper, but rather to religion’s wicked practical partner, the spirit of corporate dominion. And the bigotries are most of them in their turn chargeable to religion’s wicked intellectual partner, the spirit of dogmatic dominion, the passion for laying down the law in the form of an absolutely closed-in theoretic system. The ecclesiastical spirit in general is the sum of these two spirits of dominion.
William James (1842-1910) American psychologist and philosopher
The Varieties of Religious Experience, Lectures 14-15 “The Value of Saintliness” (1902)
(Source)
Promises may get Friends, but ’tis Performances that keep them.
Thomas Fuller (1654-1734) English physician, preacher, aphorist, writer
Gnomologia: Adages and Proverbs, #3957 (1732)
(Source)
To put pressure upon the destitute for the sake of gain and to make a profit out of the need of another is condemned by all laws, human or divine.
Pope Leo XIII (1810-1903) Italian Catholic pontiff (1878-1903) [b. Vincenzo Gioacchino Raffaele Luigi Pecci]
Rerum Novarum [On the Condition of Workers] (15 May 1891)
All the important human advances that we know of since historical times began have been due to individuals of whom the majority faced virulent public opposition.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Interview by Woodrow Wyatt, BBC TV (1959)
Collected in Bertrand Russell's BBC Interviews (1959) [UK] and Bertrand Russell Speaks His Mind (1960) [US]. Reprinted (abridged) in The Humanist (1982-11/12), and in Russell Society News, #37 (1983-02).
We should stop going around babbling about how we’re the greatest democracy on earth, when we’re not even a democracy. We are a sort of militarised republic. The founding fathers hated two things, one was monarchy and the other was democracy, they gave us a constitution that saw to it we will have neither. I don’t know how wise they were.
Gore Vidal (1925-2012) American novelist, dramatist, critic
“Gore Vidal and the Mind of the Terrorist”, interview by Ramona Koval, Australian Broadcasting Corporation (Nov 2001)
(Source)
[I]t is also true that where there is no governmental restraint or supervision some of the exceptional men use their energies, not in ways that are for the common good, but in ways which tell against this common good. The fortunes amassed through corporate organization are now so large, and vest such power in those that wield them, as to make it a matter of necessity to give to the sovereign — that is, to the Government, which represents the people as a whole –some effective power of supervision over their corporate use. In order to insure a healthy social and industrial life, every big corporation should be held responsible by, and be accountable to, some sovereign strong enough to control its conduct.
Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) American politician, statesman, conservationist, writer, US President (1901-1909)
State of the Union address (5 Dec 1905)
(Source)
There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.
Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) Irish poet, wit, dramatist
The Picture of Dorian Gray, ch. 1 (1891)
The foundation of morality is to have done, once and for all, with lying.
T. H. Huxley (1825-1895) English biologist [Thomas Henry Huxley]
“Science and Marvels” (1886)
We are happy in this world just in proporshun as we make others happy — i stand reddy tew bet 50 dollars on this saying.
[We are happy in this world just in proportion as we make others happy — I stand ready to bet 50 dollars on this saying.]
Josh Billings (1818-1885) American humorist, aphorist [pseud. of Henry Wheeler Shaw]
Josh Billings: His Works, Complete (1873)
Degrade first the arts if you’d mankind degrade,
Hire idiots to paint with cold light and hot shade.William Blake (1757-1827) English poet, mystic, artist
Annotations to Sir Joshua Reynolds’s “Discourses”, title page (c. 1798–1809)
My dear,
Bravery is not a lack of fear. In fact, while being brave you’re usually at the peak of your fear. Bravery is being the only one who knows you’re afraid. Bravery is the act of showing calm waters on top, while underneath waves roar and trash back and forth.
Falsely yours,
Franklin P. JonesFranklin P. Jones (1908-1980) American journalist, humorist, public relations executive
(Attributed)
Core quote ("being the only one") sometimes attributed to David Hackworth.
An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered.
Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936) English journalist and writer
“On Running After One’s Hat” (1908)
What we need and what we want is to moralize politics, and not to politicize morals.
Sir Karl Popper (1902-1994) Austrian-British philosopher
The Open Society and Its Enemies, Vol. 1 “The Spell of Plato”, ch. 6 “Totalitarian Justice” (1945)
(Source)
This mournful truth is ev’rywhere confessed —
Slow rises worth, by poverty depressed.Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) English writer, lexicographer, critic
“London: A Poem,” ll. 176-177 (1738)
(Source)
We are all agreed that your theory is crazy. The question that divides us is whether it is crazy enough to have a chance of being correct.
Niels Bohr (1885-1962) Danish physicist
(Attributed)Said by Bohr to Wolfgang Pauli after his presentation of Heisenberg's and Pauli's nonlinear field theory of elementary particles, at Columbia University (1958), in Dale Lee Wolfe, Symposium on Basic Research (1959) by Dael Lee Wolfle.
Variants:
- "Your theory is crazy, but it's not crazy enough to be true." (Spencer Scoular, First Philosophy: The Theory of Everything (2007)).
- "We are all agreed that your theory is crazy. The question which divides us is whether it is crazy enough."
- "We are all agreed that your theory is crazy. The question is whether it is crazy enough to be have a chance of being correct."
- "We in the back are convinced your theory is crazy. But what divides us is whether it is crazy enough."
- "Your theory is crazy, the question is whether it's crazy enough to be true."
- "Yes, I think that your theory is crazy. Sadly, it's not crazy enough to be believed."
Preserve a sense of right proportion, for
Fitness is all-important, in all things.Hesiod (fl. 750-650 BC) Greek oral poet, mythologist
Work and Days, l. 698 [tr. Wender (1973)]
Always bear in mind what the country mother said to her daughter who was coming up to town to be apprenticed to the Bond Street Millinery, “For heaven’s sake be good; but if you can’t be good, be careful.”
Arthur M. Binstead (1861-1914) English author, editor
Pitcher in Paradise, ch. 8 (1903)
The danger of total propaganda is not that the propaganda will be believed. The danger is that nothing will be believed. … The end result of total propaganda are not fanatics, but cynics.
Peter F. Drucker (1909-2005) Austrian-American business consultant
Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices, ch. 30 (1974)
Let your boat of life be light, packed with only what you need — a homely home and simple pleasures, one or two friends, worth the name, someone to love and someone to love you, a cat, a dog, and a pipe or two, enough to eat and enough to wear, and a little more than enough to drink; for thirst is a dangerous thing.
Jerome K. Jerome (1859-1927) English writer, humorist [Jerome Klapka Jerome]
Three Men in a Boat, ch. 3 (1889)
Every society honors its live conformists, and its dead troublemakers.
Mignon McLaughlin (1913-1983) American journalist and author
The Neurotic’s Notebook, ch. 7 (1963)
(Source)
The engine which drives Enterprise is not Thrift, but Profit.
John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946) English economist
A Treatise on Money, ch. 3 (1930)
Prospect is often better than possession.
Thomas Fuller (1654-1734) English physician, preacher, aphorist, writer
Gnomologia: Adages and Proverbs, #3958 (1732)
(Source)
But the purposes underlying the Establishment Clause go much further than that. Its first and most immediate purpose rested on the belief that a union of government and religion tends to destroy government and to degrade religion. The history of governmentally established religion, both in England and in this country, showed that whenever government had allied itself with one particular form of religion, the inevitable result had been that it had incurred the hatred, disrespect and even contempt of those who held contrary beliefs. That same history showed that many people had lost their respect for any religion that had relied upon the support of government to spread its faith.
The Establishment Clause thus stands as an expression of principle on the part of the Founders of our Constitution that religion is too personal, too sacred, too holy, to permit its “unhallowed perversion” by a civil magistrate.
Hugo Black (1886-1971) American politician and jurist, US Supreme Court Justice (1937-71)
Engel v. Vitale, 370 U.S. 421, 431-432 (1962) [majority opinion]
(Source)
A genuine first-hand religious experience like this is bound to be a heterodoxy to its witnesses, the prophet appearing as a mere lonely madman. If his doctrine prove contagious enough to spread to any others, it becomes a definite and labeled heresy. But if it then still prove contagious enough to triumph over persecution, it becomes itself an orthodoxy; and when a religion has become an orthodoxy, its day of inwardness is over: the spring is dry; the faithful live at second hand exclusively and stone the prophets in their turn. The new church, in spite of whatever human goodness it may foster, can be henceforth counted on as a staunch ally in every attempt to stifle the spontaneous religious spirit, and to stop all later bubblings of the fountain from which in purer days it drew its own supply of inspiration.
William James (1842-1910) American psychologist and philosopher
The Varieties of Religious Experience, Lectures 14 and 15, “The Value of Saintliness” (1902)
(Source)
Yes, Juan: we know the libertine’s philosophy. Always ignore the consequences to the woman.
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) British playwright and critic
Man and Superman, Act 3 (1903)
Piss not against the wind.
John Ray (1627-1705) English naturalist [a.k.a. John Wray]
A Collection of English Proverbs (1678)
Our moral progress may be measured by the degree in which we sympathize with individual suffering and individual joy.
George Eliot (1819-1880) English novelist [pseud. of Mary Ann Evans]
(Attributed)
In John Morley, "The Life of George Eliot," Critical Miscellanies, Vol. 3 (1886)
A narcissist is someone better looking than you are.
Gore Vidal (1925-2012) American novelist, dramatist, critic
“Vidal: ‘I’m at the Top of a Very Tiny Heap,'” by Michiko Kakutani, New York Times (12 Mar 1981)
Hee that lies with the dogs, riseth with fleas.
George Herbert (1593-1633) Welsh priest, orator, poet.
Jacula Prudentum, or Outlandish Proverbs, Sentences, &c. (compiler), # 343 (1640 ed.)
(Source)
Nothing changes your opinion of a friend so surely as success — yours or his.
Franklin P. Jones (1908-1980) American journalist, humorist, public relations executive
Saturday Evening Post (29 Nov 1953)
Whenever you are to do a thing tho’ it can never be known but to yourself, ask yourself how you would act were all the world looking at you, and act accordingly.
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) American political philosopher, polymath, statesman, US President (1801-09)
Letter to Peter Carr (19 Aug 1785)
(Source)
I hope i shall never hav so much reputashun that i shan’t feel obliged to be alwus civil.
[I hope I shall never have so much reputation that I shan’t feel obliged to be always civil.]
Josh Billings (1818-1885) American humorist, aphorist [pseud. of Henry Wheeler Shaw]
Josh Billings: His Works, Complete (1873)
That the Jews assumed a right Exclusively to the benefits of God will be a lasting witness against them. And the same will it be of Christians.
William Blake (1757-1827) English poet, mystic, artist
Annotations to “An Apology for the Bible” by R. Watson (1797)
(Source)
Those who desire to treat politics and morals apart from one another will never understand either.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) French philosopher and writer
Emile, ch. 4 (1762) [tr. Foxley (1911)]
All Crimes are safe, but hated Poverty.
This, only this, the rigid Law pursues.Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) English writer, lexicographer, critic
“London: A Poem,” lines 159-160 (1738)
(Source)
An expert is a person who has found out by his own painful experience all the mistakes that one can make in a very narrow field.
Niels Bohr (1885-1962) Danish physicist
(Attributed)
As quoted by Edward Teller, in "Dr. Edward Teller's Magnificent Obsession" by Robert Coughlan, LIFE magazine (6 Sep 1954).Variant: "An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes which can be made in a very narrow field."
In all tyrannical governments the supreme magistracy, or the right both of making and of enforcing the laws, is vested in one and the same man, or one and the same body of men; and wherever these two powers are united together, there can be no public liberty.
William Blackstone (1723-1780) British jurist, judge, politician
Commentaries on the Laws of England, Book 1, ch. 2 (1783)
Apply this also to Christ when he comes along the roads as a pilgrim, looking for shelter. You do not take him in as your guest, but you decorate floor and walls and the capitals of the pillars. You provide silver chains for the lamps, but you cannot bear even to look at him as he lies chained in prison. Once again, I am not forbidding you to supply these adornments; I am urging you to provide these other things as well, and indeed to provide them first. No one has ever been accused for not providing ornaments, but for those who neglect their neighbor a hell awaits with an inextinguishable fire and torment in the company of the demons. Do not, therefore, adorn the church and ignore your afflicted brother, for he is the most precious temple of all.
St. John Chrysostom (c. 347-407) Syrian prelate, preacher, Church Father
Homilies on the Gospel of Saint Matthew, Homily 50
(Source)
Why can’t I be different and original, like everybody else?
Vivian Stanshall (1943-1995) British singer-songwriter, author, poet and wit
Men Opening Umbrellas Ahead, LP (1974)
A comedian is not a person who opens a funny door — he’s the person who opens a door funny.
Chuck Jones (1912-2002) American animator, screenwriter, producer, and director
In John Lewell, “The Art of Chuck Jones: John Lewell Interviews the Veteran Hollywood Animator” (1982)
I find myself always struck and stimulated by a good anecdote, any trait of heroism, of faithful service. I do not find that the age or country makes the least difference; no, nor the language the actor spoke, nor the religion which they professed, — whether Arab in the desert, or Frenchman in the Academy. I see that sensible men and conscientious men all over the world were of one religion of well-doing and daring, men of sturdy truth, men of integrity and feeling for others.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
“The Preacher,” lecture, Cambridge (1879-05-05)
(Source)
I never will, by any word or act, bow to the shrine of intolerance, or admit a right of enquiry into the religious opinions of others. on the contrary we are bound, you, I, & every one, to make common cause, even with error itself, to maintain the common right of freedom of conscience. we ought with one heart and one hand to hew down the daring and dangerous efforts of those who would seduce the public opinion to substitute itself into that tyranny over religious faith which the laws have so justly abdicated.
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) American political philosopher, polymath, statesman, US President (1801-09)
Letter (1903-04-19) to Edward Dowse
(Source)
Fight fair but don’t f’rget th’ other la-ad may not know where th’ belt line is.
Finley Peter Dunne (1867-1936) American humorist and journalist
“Americans Abroad,” Mr. Dooley’s Philosophy (1900)
Prudence is very inclined to preserve what one possesses, but courage alone knows how to acquire.
Frederick II (1712-1786) King of Prussia (a.k.a. Frederick the Great)
(Attributed)
(Source)
In Heinrich von Treitschke, The Life of Frederick the Great [tr. Sladen (1915)]
Jesus replied, “‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, honor your father and mother,’ and ‘love your neighbor as yourself.'” “All these I have kept,” the young man said. “What do I still lack?” Jesus answered, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth.
The Bible (The New Testament) (AD 1st - 2nd C) Christian sacred scripture
Matthew 19:19-22 [NIV]
See Matthew 22:36-40.
The word “security” is a broad, vague generality whose contours should not be invoked to abrogate the fundamental law embodied in the First Amendment. The guarding of military and diplomatic secrets at the expense of informed representative government provides no real security for our Republic.
Hugo Black (1886-1971) American politician and jurist, US Supreme Court Justice (1937-71)
New York Times Co. v. United States, 403 U.S. 713, 719 (1971) [concurring]
(Source)
I do indeed disbelieve that we or any other mortal men can attain on a given day to absolutely incorrigible and unimprovable truth about such matters of fact as those with which religions deal. But I reject this dogmatic ideal not out of a perverse delight in intellectual instability. I am no lover of disorder and doubt as such. Rather do I fear to lose truth by this pretension to possess it already wholly.
William James (1842-1910) American psychologist and philosopher
The Varieties of Religious Experience, Lectures 14-15 “The Value of Saintliness” (1902)
(Source)
Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles?
The Bible (The New Testament) (AD 1st - 2nd C) Christian sacred scripture
Matthew 7:15-16 [NRSV]
Alt. trans.:
- "Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?" [KJV]
- "Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?" [NIV]
- "Be on your guard against false prophets; they come to you looking like sheep on the outside, but on the inside they are really like wild wolves. You will know them by what they do. Thorn bushes do not bear grapes, and briers do not bear figs." [GNT]
It is a good Blade that bends well.
Thomas Fuller (1654-1734) English physician, preacher, aphorist, writer
Gnomologia: Adages and Proverbs, #2853 (1732)
(Source)
Our moral progress may be measured by the degree in which we sympathize with individual suffering and individual joy.
George Eliot (1819-1880) English novelist [pseud. of Mary Ann Evans]
(Attributed)
In John Morley, "The Life of George Eliot," Critical Miscellanies, Vol. 3 (1886)
“Liberal” comes from the Latin liberalis, which means pertaining to a free man. In politics, to be liberal is to want to extend democracy through change and reform. One can see why the word had to be erased from our political lexicon.
Gore Vidal (1925-2012) American novelist, dramatist, critic
“America First? America Last? America at Last?,” Lowell Lecture, Harvard University (20 Apr 1992)