If Might made Right, life were a wild-beasts’ cage;
If Right made Might, this were the golden age;
But now, until we win the long campaign,
Right must gain Might to conquer and to reign.Henry Van Dyke (1852-1933) American clergyman and writer
“Might and Right” (1 Jul 1915)
No man can be a good citizen unless he has a wage more than sufficient to cover the bare cost of living, and hours of labor short enough so that after his day’s work is done he will have time and energy to bear his share in the management of the community, to help in carrying the general load. We keep countless men from being good citizens by the conditions of life with which we surround them.
Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) American politician, statesman, conservationist, writer, US President (1901-1909)
“The New Nationalism,” speech, Osawatomie, Kansas (31 Aug 1910)
(Source)
It is essential that here should be organizations of labor. This is an era of organization. Capital organizes and therefore labor must organize. My appeal for organized labor is two-fold; to the outsider and the capitalist I make my appeal to treat the laborer fairly, to recognize the fact that he must organize that there must be such organization, that the laboring man must organize for his own protection, and that it is the duty of the rest of us to help him and not hinder him in organizing. That is one-half appeal that I make. Now, the other half is to the labor man himself. My appeal to him is to remember that as he wants justice, so he must do justice. I want every labor man, every labor leader, every organized union man, to take the lead in denouncing disorder and in denouncing the inciting of riot; that in this country we shall proceed under the protection of our laws and with all respect to the laws, I want the labor men to feel in their turn that exactly as justice must be done them so they must do justice.
Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) American politician, statesman, conservationist, writer, US President (1901-1909)
Speech, Milwaukee (14 Oct 1912)
(Source)
Labor is the United States. The men and women who, with their minds, their hearts and hands, create the wealth that is shared in this country — they are America.
Dwight David Eisenhower (1890-1969) American general, US President (1953-61)
Speech, Dedication of the AFL-CIO Building, Washington, DC (4 Jun 1956)
You can prove almost anything with the evidence of a small enough segment of time. How often, in any search for truth, the answer of the minute is positive, the answer of the hour is qualified, and the answers of the year contradictory.
Edwin Way Teale (1899-1980) American naturalist, photographer, writer
Circle Of The Seasons (1953)
How horrible, fantastic, incredible it is that we should be digging trenches and trying on gas masks here because of a quarrel in a far-away country between people of whom we know nothing. It seems still more impossible that a quarrel which has already been settled in principle should be the subject of war.
Neville Chamberlain (1869-1940) British politician, Prime Minster (1937-1940)
Radio broadcast, London (27 Sep 1938)
Politics, as a practice, whatever its professions, has always been the systematic organization of hatreds.
Henry Adams (1838-1918) American journalist, historian, academic, novelist
The Education of Henry Adams, ch. 1 (1907)
In this distinct and separate existence of the judicial power, in a peculiar body of men, nominated indeed, but not removable at pleasure, by the crown, consists one main preservative of the public liberty; which cannot subsist long in any state, unless the administration of common justice be in some degree separated both from the legislative and the also from the executive power. Were it joined with the legislative, the life, liberty, and property of the subject would be in the hands of arbitrary judges, whose decisions would be then regulated only by their own opinions, and not by any fundamental principles of law; which, though legislators may depart from, yet judges are bound to observe. Were it joined with the executive, this union might soon be an overbalance for the legislative. For which reason … effectual care is taken to remove all judicial power out of the hands of the king’s privy council; who, as then was evident from recent instances might soon be inclined to pronounce that for law, which was most agreeable to the prince or his officers. Nothing therefore is to be more avoided, in a free constitution, than uniting the provinces of a judge and a minister of state.
William Blackstone (1723-1780) British jurist, judge, politician
Commentaries on the Laws of England, Book I, ch. 7 “Of the King’s Prerogative” (1765-1769)
(Source)
For Christians above all men are forbidden to correct the stumblings of sinners by force … it is necessary to make a man better not by force but by persuasion. We neither have authority granted us by law to restrain sinners, nor, if it were, should we know how to use it, since God gives the crown to those who are kept from evil, not by force, but by choice.
St. John Chrysostom (c. 347-407) Syrian prelate, preacher, Church Father
On the Priesthood, Book 2
(Source)
There are those, I know, who will reply that the liberation of humanity, the freedom of man and mind, is nothing but a dream. They are right. It is. It is the American Dream.
Archibald MacLeish (1892–1982) American poet, writer, statesman
“We Have Purpose … We All Know It,” Life (30 May 1960)
Part of a series of essays in Life and The New York Times on "The National Purpose."
I never know what South Carolina thinks of a measure. I never consult her. I act to the best of my judgment, and according to my conscience. If she approves, well and good. If she does not, or wishes any one to take my place, I am ready to vacate. We are even.
John C. Calhoun (1782-1850) American Vice President, politician, statesman
(Attributed)
(Source)
In Walter J. Miller, "Calhoun as a Lawyer and Statesman," Part 2, The Green Bag (Jun 1899). Miller cites it as a quote, but it has not been verified in Calhoun’s writings.
A friend of mine says that every man who takes office in Washington either grows or swells; and when I give a man an office, I watch him carefully to see whether he is swelling or growing.
Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924) US President (1913-20), educator, political scientist
Speech, National Press Club, Washington (15 May 1916)
The constitutional freedom of religion [is] the most inalienable and sacred of all human rights.
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) American political philosopher, polymath, statesman, US President (1801-09)
Virginia Board of Visitors Minutes (1819)
(Source)
Referring to a wealthy miser he said, “He has not acquired a fortune; the fortune has acquired him.”
Bion of Borysthenes (c. 325-c. 250 BC) Greek philosopher, cynic, wit
In Diogenes Laërtius, Bion, 4.50
Alt trans.: "Of a rich man who was niggardly he said, “That man does not own his estate, but his estate owns him."
It is therefore necessary that memorable things should be committed to writing, (the witness of times, the light and the life of truth,) and not wholly betaken to slippery memory which seldom yields a certain reckoning.
Edward Coke (1552-1634) English jurist, politician
Les Reports de Edward Coke, Vol. 1 (1660)
Spelling modernized. Betaken means committed.
The critical period in matrimony is breakfast-time.
A. P. Herbert (1890-1971) English humorist, novelist, playwright, politician [Alan Patrick Herbert; pseud. Albert Haddock]
Uncommon Law (1935)
To hold that a state cannot, consistently with the First and Fourteenth Amendments, utilize its public school system to aid any or all religious faiths or sects in the dissemination of their doctrines and ideals does not, as counsel urge, manifest a governmental hostility to religion or religious teachings. A manifestation of such hostility would be at war with our national tradition as embodied in the First Amendment’s guaranty of the free exercise of religion. For the First Amendment rests upon the premise that both religion and government can best work to achieve their lofty aims if each is left free from the other within its respective sphere.
Hugo Black (1886-1971) American politician and jurist, US Supreme Court Justice (1937-71)
McCollum v. Board of Education, 333 U.S. 203, 211-212 (1948) [majority opinion]
(Source)
An unlearned carpenter of my acquaintance once said in my hearing: “There is very little difference between one man and another, but what little there is is very important.” This distinction seems to me to go to the root of the matter. It is not only the size of the difference which concerns the philosopher, but also its place and its kind.
William James (1842-1910) American psychologist and philosopher
“The Importance of Individuals,” The Will to Believe: And Other Essays in Popular Philosophy (1897)
Failure to understand what is demanded of us is the source of anxiety.
Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907-1972) Polish-American rabbi, theologian, philosopher
Who Is Man?, ch. 6 (1965)
Without people nothing is possible; without institutions nothing is lasting.
Jean Monnet (1888-1979) French political economist, diplomat
(Attributed)
In Ralph Nader, speech, Washington (25 Mar 1998)
Celebrity is a mask that eats into the face. As soon as one is aware of being “somebody,” to be watched and listened to with extra interest, input ceases, and the performer goes blind and deaf in his overanimation. One can either see or be seen.
It is not possible to lay down an inflexible rule as to when compromise is right and when wrong; when it is a sign of the highest statesmanship to temporize, and when it is merely a proof of weakness. Now and then one can stand uncompromisingly for a naked principle and force people up to it. This is always the attractive course; but in certain great crises it may be a very wrong course. Compromise, in the proper sense, merely means agreement; in the proper sense opportunism should merely mean doing the best possible with actual conditions as they exist. A compromise which results in a half-step toward evil is all wrong, just as the opportunist who saves himself for the moment by adopting a policy which is fraught with future disaster is all wrong; but no less wrong is the attitude of those who will not come to an agreement through which, or will not follow the course by which, it is alone possible to accomplish practical results for good.
Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) American politician, statesman, conservationist, writer, US President (1901-1909)
“Latitude and Longitude Among Reformers,” The Century (Jun 1900)
(Source)
Pick battles big enough to matter, small enough to win.
Jonathan Kozol (b. 1936) American non-fiction writer, educator, activist
“On Being a Teacher”, Continuum (1981)
My good friends, this is the second time in our history that there has come back from Germany to Downing Street peace with honour. I believe it is peace for our time. We thank you from the bottom of our hearts. And now I recommend you to go home and sleep quietly in your beds.
Neville Chamberlain (1869-1940) British politician, Prime Minster (1937-1940)
Speech, Downing Street, London (30 Sep 1938)
The day following returning from the Munich Conference with Hitler, Mussolini and Daladier. The conference had agreed that Germany could annex Sudetenland while guaranteeing the remaining frontiers of Czechoslovakia.
Power is power over human beings. Over the body — but, above all, over the mind.
George Orwell (1903-1950) English writer [pseud. of Eric Arthur Blair]
Nineteen Eighty-Four, 3.3 (1949)
I wouldn’t undertake tew korrekt a mans sektarian views enny quicker than i would tell him which road tew take at a 4 corners, when i didn’t know miself which waz the right one.
[I wouldn’t undertake to correct a man’s sectarian views any quicker than I would tell him which road to take at a four corners, when I didn’t know myself which was the right one.]
Josh Billings (1818-1885) American humorist, aphorist [pseud. of Henry Wheeler Shaw]
Josh Billings: His Works, Complete (1873)
For men have dulled their eyes with sin,
And dimmed the light of heaven with doubt,
And built their temple-walls to shut thee in,
And framed their iron creeds to shut thee out.Henry Van Dyke (1852-1933) American clergyman and writer
“God of the Open Air”, st. 3 (1904)
It is … a simple but sometimes forgotten truth that the greatest enemy to present joy and high hopes is the cultivation of retrospective bitterness.
Robert G. Menzies (1894-1978) Australian politician
Speech to the UN General Assembly (6 Oct 1960)
As long as I’ve known anything about politics, I’ve been skeptical. And it has evolved. The more I saw, the more skeptical I became.
David Brinkley (1920-2003) American broadcast journalist
In Warren Burger, “The Master Skeptic Steps Aside,” New York Times (3 Nov 1996)
The absolute rights of man, considered as a free agent, endowed with discernment to know good from evil, and with power of choosing those measures which appear to him to be most desirable, are usually summed up in one general appellation, and denominated the natural liberty of mankind. This natural liberty consists properly in a power of acting as one thinks fit, without any restraint or control, unless by the law of nature: being a right inherent in us by birth, and one of the gifts of God to man at his creation, when he endowed him with the faculty of freewill. But every man, when he enters into society, gives up a part of his natural liberty, as the price of so valuable a purchase; and, in consideration of receiving the advantages of mutual commerce, obliges himself to conform to those laws, which the community has thought proper to establish.
William Blackstone (1723-1780) British jurist, judge, politician
Commentaries on the Laws of England, Book 1, ch. 1 “Of the Absolute Rights of Individuals” (1765-1769)
(Source)
Laws, like sausages, cease to inspire respect in proportion as we know how they are made.
Otto von Bismarck (1815-1898) Prussian statesman
(Misattributed)
This and variants are attributed to Bismarck (no earlier than the 1930s), as well as to Kaiser Wilhelm, Benjamin Disraeli, and French statesman Honoré Gabriel de Riqueti. Variations on this theme were popular in late 19th Century America.
The precise wording above is attributed to Vermont lawyer and author John Godfrey Saxe, in University Chronicle, University of Michigan (27 Mar 1869).
Variants (usually cited to Bismarck):
- "If you like laws and sausages, you should never watch either one being made."
- "Laws are like sausages — it is best not to see them being made."
- "Laws are like sausages. It is better not to see them being made."
- "Laws are like sausages. You should never see them made."
- "Laws are like sausages. You should never watch them being made."
- "Law and sausage are two things you do not want to see being made."
- "No one should see how laws or sausages are made."
- "To retain respect for sausages and laws, one must not watch them in the making."
- "The making of laws like the making of sausages, is not a pretty sight."
- "Je weniger die Leute darüber wissen, wie Würste und Gesetze gemacht werden, desto besser schlafen sie nachts." [The less the people know about how sausages and laws are made, the better they sleep in the night.]
We are commanded to have only one enemy, the devil. With him never be reconciled! But with a brother, never be at enmity in thy heart.
St. John Chrysostom (c. 347-407) Syrian prelate, preacher, Church Father
Homilies on the Statues, Homily 20
(Source)
Obviously, where art has it over life is in the matter of editing. Life can be seen to suffer from a drastic lack of editing. It stops too quick, or else it goes on too long. Worse, its pacing is erratic. Some chapters are little more than a few sentences in length, while others stretch into volumes. Life, for all its raw talent, has little sense of structure. It creates amazing textures, but it can’t be counted on for snappy beginnings or good endings either. Indeed, in many cases no ending is provided at all. The kind of work that Maxwell Perkins did for Thomas Wolfe, or more recently, that Verna Fields did for Stephen Spielberg, doesn’t get done in life. Even in a literary age like the nineteenth century it never occurred to anyone to posit God as Editor, useful as the metaphor might have been.
Larry McMurtry (b. 1936) American novelist, essayist, bookseller, screenwriter
“‘Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman’ and the Movie-Less Novelists,” Film Flam: Essays on Hollywood (1987)
Despise the enemy strategically, but take him seriously tactically.
Mao Zedong (1893-1976) Chinese revolutionary, political philosopher, statesman [a.k.a. Mao Tse-tung]
Handbook for Revolutionaries
Unlimited power is apt to corrupt the minds of those who possess it.
William Pitt the Elder (1708-1778) British statesman, orator [1st Earl of Chatham]
Speech, House of Lords (9 Jan 1770)
Regarding the case of John Wilkes. More famously stated by Lord Acton in 1887.
About one haff the pitty in this world iz not the result ov sorrow, but satisfackshun that it aint our hoss that haz had hiz leg broke.
[About one half the pity in this world is not the result of sorrow, but satisfaction that it ain’t our hoss that has his leg broke.]
Josh Billings (1818-1885) American humorist, aphorist [pseud. of Henry Wheeler Shaw]
Josh Billings: His Works, Complete (1873)
Romantic love interests almost everybody, because almost everybody knows something about it, or would like to know.
Henry Van Dyke (1852-1933) American clergyman and writer
The Ruling Passion, Preface (1901)
(Source)
CUDDY: Oh, I looked up that philosopher you quoted, Jagger, and you’re right. You can’t always get what you want. But as it turns out, if you try sometimes, you get what you need.
David Shore (b. 1959) Canadian writer, lawyer, screenwriter, television producer
House, ep. 1.01 “Pilot”
There can be no assumption that today’s majority is “right” and the Amish and others like them are “wrong.” A way of life that is odd or even erratic but interferes with no rights or interests of others is not to be condemned because it is different.
Boys, have you been following those appropriations? Well, Secretary Mellon has asked Congress to please wait till after March 15, when the new income taxes come in, before passing any legislation, as he don’t know how much there will be, if any. But Congress says: No, we are going to divide it up now, whether there is any to divide or not. What do you suppose we are in Congress for, if it ain’t to split up the swag? Please pass the gravy.
Will Rogers (1879-1935) American humorist
Column (1928-01-01), “Daily Telegram”
(Source)
Numerous shortened variants of this can be found online. Written while in Beverly Hills.
He who has his thumb on the purse has the power.
[Wer den Daumen auf dem Beutel hat, der hat die Macht.]
Otto von Bismarck (1815-1898) Prussian statesman
Speech to North German Reichstag (21 May 1869)
As it is not to be imagined that the fornicator and the blasphemer can partake of the sacred Table, so it is impossible that he who has an enemy, and bears malice, can enjoy the holy Communion. […] I forewarn, and testify, and proclaim this with a voice that all may hear! “Let no one who hath an enemy draw near the sacred Table, or receive the Lord’s Body! Let no one who draws near have an enemy! Do you have an enemy? Draw not near! Do you wish to draw near? Be reconciled, and then draw near, and touch the Holy Thing!”
St. John Chrysostom (c. 347-407) Syrian prelate, preacher, Church Father
Homilies on the Statutes, Homily 20
(Source)
Whenever I feel afraid
I hold my head erect
And whistle a happy tune
So no one will suspect
I’m afraid. […]
The result of this deception
Is very strange to tell,
For when I fool the people I fear
I fool myself as well.Oscar Hammerstein II (1895-1960) American librettist, theatrical producer, and director
“I Whistle a Happy Tune” (song), The King and I (1951)
The fact that the talk may be boring or turgid or uninspiring should not cause us to forget the fact that it is preferable to war.
Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. (1902-1985) American politician and diplomat
(Attributed)
Regarding the UN.
If you want your memoranda read, put it on one page.
Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924) US President (1913-20), educator, political scientist
Remark to Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt
In Arthur Schlessinger, The Age of Roosevelt: The Coming of the New Deal, 32.7 (1959)
It is incumbent on those only who accept of great charges, to risk themselves on great occasions, when the safety of the nation, or some of it’s very high interests are at stake. An officer is bound to obey orders: yet he would be a bad one who should do it in cases for which they were not intended, and which involved the most important consequences. The line of discrimination between cases may be difficult; but the good officer is bound to draw it at his own peril, & throw himself on the justice of his country and the rectitude of his motives.
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) American political philosopher, polymath, statesman, US President (1801-09)
Letter to John B. Colvin (20 Sep 1810)
(Source)
Self-conceit is the enemy of progress.
Bion of Borysthenes (c. 325-c. 250 BC) Greek philosopher, cynic, wit
In Diogenes Laërtius, Bion, 4.50
The good thing about science is that it’s true whether or not you believe in it.
Neil deGrasse Tyson (b. 1958) American astrophysicist, author, orator
“Real Time With Bill Maher” (4 Feb 2011)
And now the end is near
And so I face the final curtain,
I’ll state my case of which I’m certain.
I’ve lived a life that’s full, I traveled each and ev’ry highway,
And more, much more than this: I did it my way.Paul Anka (b. 1941) Canadian-American singer, songwriter, actor
“My Way” (1969)
Anka adapted this song for Frank Sinatra from the French "Comme D’Habitude" by Claude François and Jacques Revaux.
No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable.
Adam Smith (1723-1790) Scottish economist
The Wealth of Nations, 1.8 (1776)
That [First] Amendment requires the state to be a neutral in its relations with groups of religious believers and nonbelievers; it does not require the state to be their adversary. State power is no more to be used so as to handicap religions than it is to favor them.
Hugo Black (1886-1971) American politician and jurist, US Supreme Court Justice (1937-71)
Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U.S. 1, 18 (1947) [majority opinion]
(Source)
If things are ever to move upward, someone must be ready to take the first step, and assume the risk of it. No one who is not willing to try charity, to try nonresistance as the saint is always willing can tell whether these methods will or will not succeed. When they do succeed, they are far more powerfully successful than force or worldy prudence. Force destroys enemies; and the best that can be said of prudence is that it keeps what we already have in safety. But nonresistance, when successful, turns enemies into friends; and charity regenerates its objects.
William James (1842-1910) American psychologist and philosopher
The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902)
Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves but under circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living.
Karl Marx (1818-1883) German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist
The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon, ch. 1 (1852)
(Source)
If all be true that I do think,
There are five reasons we should drink:
Good wine, a friend, or being dry,
Or lest we should be by and by,
Or any other reason why.Henry Aldrich (1647-1710) English theologian and philosopher
“If all be true that I do think”, l. 1-5
Good humor and generosity carry the day with the popular heart all the world over.
Alexander Smith (1830-1867) Scottish poet
Dreamthorp, ch. 12 (1863)
The yearning for an afterlife is the opposite of selfish: it is love and praise for the world that we are privileged, in this complex interval of light, to witness and experience.
John Updike (1932-2009) American writer
Self-Consciousness: Memoirs, ch. 6 (1989)
All men in whose character there is not an element of hardened baseness must admit the need in our public life of those qualities which we somewhat vaguely group together when we speak of “reform,” and all men of sound mind must also admit the need of efficiency. There are, of course, men of such low moral type, or of such ingrained cynicism, that they do not believe in the possibility of making anything better, or do not care to see things better. There are also men who are slightly disordered mentally, or who are cursed with a moral twist which makes them champion reforms less from a desire to do good to others than as a kind of tribute to their own righteousness, for the sake of emphasizing their own superiority. From neither of these classes can we get any real help in the unending struggle for righteousness. There remains the great body of the people, including the entire body of those through whom the salvation of the people must ultimately be worked out. All these men combine or seek to combine in varying degrees the quality of striving after the ideal, that is, the quality which makes men reformers, and the quality of so striving through practical methods — the quality which makes men efficient. Both qualities are absolutely essential. The absence of either makes the presence of the other worthless or worse.
Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) American politician, statesman, conservationist, writer, US President (1901-1909)
“Latitude and Longitude Among Reformers,” The Century (Jun 1900)
(Source)
Anxiety leads to a narrowing of the field of attention, the so-called tunnel vision, and when people are anxious they are unable to attend to the total situation as is necessary to enable them to act rationally, but impulsively do the first thing that comes into their heads which is usually determined by what others are doing at the same time.
James A. C. Brown (1911-1964) Scottish psychiatrist, author [James Alexander Campbell Brown]
Techniques of Persuasion: From Propaganda to Brainwashing, ch. 9 (1963)
Reporters, especially those in Washington, face an old journalistic dilemma: because their stature tends to rise and fall with that of the people they cover, they thus have a stake in the successes of their subject.
Walter Isaacson (b. 1952) American writer, biographer, journalist, editor
Kissinger: A Biography, ch. 25 (1992)
Power brings with it responsibility. You cannot have power to work well without having so much power as to be able to work ill.
Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) American politician, statesman, conservationist, writer, US President (1901-1909)
Speech, Milwaukee (7 Sep 1910)
Politeness iz often wasted, but it iz a good and cheap mistake tew make.
[Politeness is often wasted, but it is a good and cheap mistake to make.]
Josh Billings (1818-1885) American humorist, aphorist [pseud. of Henry Wheeler Shaw]
Josh Billings: His Works, Complete (1873)
Every mountain is, rightly considered, an invitation to climb.
A person is not old until regrets take the place of hopes and plans.
Scott Nearing (1883-1983) American economist, educator, writer, political activist
(Attributed)
In Helen Nearing, "Twilight and Evening Star," Loving and Leaving the Good Life (1992)
They, that buy an Office, must sell something.
Thomas Fuller (1654-1734) English physician, preacher, aphorist, writer
Gnomologia: Adages and Proverbs, #4975 (1732)
(Source)
Just as maniacs, who never enjoy tranquility, so also he who is resentful and retains an enemy will never have the enjoyment of any peace; incessantly raging and daily increasing the tempest of his thoughts calling to mind his words and acts, and detesting the very name of him who has aggrieved him. Do you but mention his enemy, he becomes furious at once, and sustains much inward anguish; and should he chance to get only a bare sight of him, he fears and trembles, as if encountering the worst evils, indeed, if he perceives any of his relations, if but his garment, or his dwelling, or street, he is tormented by the sight of them. For as in the case of those who are beloved, their faces, their garments, their sandals, their houses, or streets, excite us, the instant we behold them; so also should we observe a servant, or friend, or house, or street, or any thing else belonging to those We hate and hold our enemies, we are stung by all these things; and the strokes we endure from the sight of each one of them are frequent and continual. What is the need then of sustaining such a siege, such torment and such punishment? For if hell did not threaten the resentful, yet for the very torment resulting from the thing itself we ought to forgive the offences of those who have aggrieved us. But when deathless punishments remain behind, what can be more senseless than the man, who both here and there brings punishment upon himself, while he thinks to be revenged upon his enemy!
St. John Chrysostom (c. 347-407) Syrian prelate, preacher, Church Father
Homilies on the Statues, Homily 20
(Source)
Politics is the art of the possible.
[Die politik ist die lehre von möglichen.]
Otto von Bismarck (1815-1898) Prussian statesman
Remark to Meyer von Waldeck (11 Aug 1867)
Quoted in Heinz Amelung, Bismarck-Worte (1918). There is no surviving first-hand account of his words.
When you are right you cannot be too radical; when you are wrong, you cannot be too conservative.
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman, civil rights leader, social activist, preacher
(Misttributed)
(Source)
Often attributed directly to King, he prefaced it, in Why We Can't Wait (1964), with "Someone once wrote ..."
What someone doesn’t want you to publish is journalism; all else is publicity.
Paul Fussell (1924-2012) American cultural and literary historian, author, academic
“A Power of Facing Unpleasant Facts” (1981)
This organization is created to prevent you from going to hell. It isn’t created to take you to heaven.
Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. (1902-1985) American politician and diplomat
News summaries (28 Jun 1954)
On purpose of the United Nations.
The President’s chief job is to lead, not to administer; it is not to oversee every detail, but to put the right people in charge, to provide them with basic guidance and direction, and to let them do their job.
Richard M. Nixon (1913-1994) American politician, writer, US President (1967-74)
Television broadcast (19 Sep 1968)
That therefore the proscribing any citizen as unworthy the public confidence by laying upon him an incapacity of being called to offices of trust and emolument, unless he profess or renounce this or that religious opinion, is depriving him injuriously of those privileges and advantages to which, in common with his fellow citizens, he has a natural right;
That it tends also to corrupt the principles of that very religion it is meant to encourage, by bribing, with a monopoly of worldly honours and emoluments, those who will externally profess and conform to it;
That though indeed these are criminal who do not withstand such temptation, yet neither are those innocent who lay the bait in their way.
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) American political philosopher, polymath, statesman, US President (1801-09)
“Virginia”Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom,” Preamble (1776-06-18; enacted 1786-01-16)
(Source)
Therefore we should not try to alter circumstances but to adapt ourselves to them as they really are, just as sailors do. They don’t try to change the winds or the sea but ensure that they are always ready to adapt themselves to conditions. In a flat calm they use the oars; with a following breeze they hoist full sail; in a head wind they shorten sail or heave to. Adapt yourself to circumstances in the same way.
Bion of Borysthenes (c. 325-c. 250 BC) Greek philosopher, cynic, wit
In Teles of Megara, frag. 2, “On Self-Sufficiency”
The know-nothings are, unfortunately, seldom the do-nothings.
Mignon McLaughlin (1913-1983) American journalist and author
The Neurotic’s Notebook, ch. 5 (1963)
(Source)
Under our constitutional system, courts stand against any winds that blow as havens of refuge for those who might otherwise suffer because they are helpless, weak, outnumbered, or because they are nonconforming victims of prejudice and public excitement. Due process of law, preserved for all by our Constitution, commands that no such practice as that disclosed by this record shall send any accused to his death. No higher duty, no more solemn responsibility, rests upon this Court than that of translating into living law and maintaining this constitutional shield deliberately planned and inscribed for the benefit of every human being subject to our Constitution — of whatever race, creed or persuasion.
Hugo Black (1886-1971) American politician and jurist, US Supreme Court Justice (1937-71)
Chambers v. Florida, 309 U.S. 227, 241 (1940) [majority opinion]
(Source)
Overturning a state murder conviction obtained through a coerced confession.
Once we are destined to live out our lives in the prison of our mind, our one duty is to furnish it well.
Peter Ustinov (1921-2004) English actor, author, director
Dear Me (1977)
To change one’s life: Start immediately, do it flamboyantly, no exceptions, no excuses.
William James (1842-1910) American psychologist and philosopher
(Attributed)
Not found with any citation other than being later in his life. The quotation is found with a variety of punctuation.
Aside from laughing it off, the only real answer to a jest is a better jest.
Orrin E. Klapp (1915-1997) American sociologist
Symbolic Leaders: Public Dramas and Public Men, ch. 7 (1964)
To me “bipartisan foreign policy” means a mutual effort, under our indispensable two-Party system, to unite our official voice at the water’s edge so that America speaks with maximum authority against those who would divide and conquer us and the free world. It does not involve the remotest surrender of free debate in determining our position. On the contrary, frank cooperation and free debate are indispensable to ultimate unity. In a word, it simply seeks national security ahead of partisan advantage. Every foreign policy must be totally debated (and I think the record proves it has been) and the “loyal opposition” is under special obligation to see that this occurs.
Arthur Vandenberg (1884-1951) American politician and statesman
The Private Papers of Senator Vandenberg, ed. Arthur H. Vandenberg, Jr. (1952)
Though I prize, as I ought, the good opinion of my fellow citizens; yet, if I know myself, I would not seek or retain popularity at the expense of one social duty or moral virtue.
George Washington (1732-1799) American military leader, Founding Father, US President (1789-1797)
Letter to Henry “Light-Horse Harry” Lee (22 Sep 1788)
Among the repulsions of atheism for me has been its drastic uninterestingness as an intellectual position. Where was the ingenuity, the ambiguity, the humanity (in the Harvard sense) of saying that the universe just happened to happen and that when we’re dead we’re dead?
John Updike (1932-2009) American writer
Self-Consciousness: Memoirs, ch. 4 (1989)
Let us therefore boldly face the life of strife, resolute to do our duty well and manfully; resolute to uphold righteousness by deed and by word; resolute to be both honest and brave, to serve high ideals, yet to use practical methods. Above all, let us shrink from no strife, moral or physical, within or without the nation, provided we are certain that the strife is justified, for it is only through strife, through hard and dangerous endeavor, that we shall ultimately win the goal of true national greatness.
Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) American politician, statesman, conservationist, writer, US President (1901-1909)
“The Strenuous Life,” speech, Hamilton Club, Chicago (10 Apr 1899)
(Source)
Jenny kissed me when we met,
Jumping from the chair she sat in;
Time, you thief, who love to get
Sweets into your list, put that in:
Say I’m weary, say I’m sad,
Say that health and wealth have missed me,
Say I’m growing old, but add,
Jenny kissed me.Leigh Hunt (1784-1859) English critic, essayist, poet, writer [James Henry Leigh Hunt]
“Jenny Kissed Me” (1838)
Though Hunt called it "rondeau" (and that is sometimes given as its title), it is not, in fact, a rondeau.
Widely republished, the punctuation (and occasional italics) of the poem vary between most reprintings.
The "Jenny" is said to be Jane Welsh Carlyle, wife of Thomas Carlyle. The embrace, in some retellings, was in gratitude for Hunt's sonnet, "On a Lock of Milton's Hair." In others it was because he brought the news that her husband had been awarded a £300 pension by the British government. In still others, it was because Hunt had been absent for so long and showed up unexpectedly.
The poem is often said to have been published in an 1838 edition of the Monthly Chronicle, but an article in American Notes and Queries (1889-11-02), quoting the Chicago Dial, says that the poem published in the November 1838 edition of Monthly Chronicle, after the (unnamed?) author discusses a desire to publish a rondeau "which was written on a real occasion," is slightly different:Nelly kiss'd me when we met,
Jumping from the chair she sat in;
Time, you thief! who love to get
Sweets into your list, put that in.
Say I'm jaundic'd, say I'm sad,
Say that health and wealth have miss'd me,
Say I'm growing old, but add
Nelly kiss'd me.
Whether this was initial reticence to mention an actual acquaintance, or a matter of Hunt later changing the actual name and others inferring that that it referred to the wife of his friend, will likely never be known.
He is most powerful who has power over himself.
Seneca the Younger (c. 4 BC-AD 65) Roman statesman, philosopher, playwright [Lucius Annaeus Seneca]
Moral Letters to Lucilius [Epistulae morales ad Lucilium], letter 90, sec. 34 “On the Part Played by Philosophy in the Progress of Man” [tr. Gummere (1918)]
Pedantry iz the science ov investing what little yu know in one kind ov perfumery, and insisting upon sticking that under every man’s knose whom you meet.
[Pedantry is the science of investing what little you know in one kind of perfumery, and insisting upon sticking that under every man’s nose whom you meet.]
Josh Billings (1818-1885) American humorist, aphorist [pseud. of Henry Wheeler Shaw]
Josh Billings: His Works, Complete (1873)
Self is the only prison that can ever bind the soul.
Henry Van Dyke (1852-1933) American clergyman and writer
“The Prison and the Angel”
I suppose the desire for publication is a normal part of the instinct for writing … the writer sits at home, and the mere fact of being printed provides his verses with a kind of audience … So, having his vanity partially satisfied, he can go ahead and try better work.
Robinson Jeffers (1887-1962) American poet
Letter to a group of Occidental College students (1955)
The lives of happy people are dense with their own doings — crowded, active, thick. […] But the sorrowing are nomads, on a plain with few landmarks and no boundaries; sorrow’s horizons are vague and its demands are few.
Larry McMurtry (b. 1936) American novelist, essayist, bookseller, screenwriter
Some Can Whistle, pt. 4, ch. 9 (1989)
The scientific man does not aim at an immediate result. He does not expect that his advanced ideas will be readily taken up. His work is like that of the planter — for the future. His duty is to lay the foundation for those who are to come, and point the way.
Nikola Tesla (1856-1943) Serbian-American inventor, physicist, engineer, futurist
“The Problem of Increasing Human Energy”, The Century (Jun 1900)
No public man can be just a little crooked.
Herbert Hoover (1874-1964) American engineer, bureaucrat, President of the US (1928-32)
Comment (1951)
In Louis Lochner, "Herbert Hoover in His Own Words," New York Times Magazine (9 Aug 1964)
Politics is not an exact science.
[Die Politik ist keine exakte Wissenschaft.]
Otto von Bismarck (1815-1898) Prussian statesman
Speech, Prussian upper house (18 Dec 1863)
In 1884, when speaking in the Reichstag, Bismark offered this variant: "Politics is not a science, as the professors are apt to suppose. It is an art." ["Die Politik ist keine Wissenschaft, wie viele der Herren Proffessoren sich einbilden, sondern eine Kunst."]
We all too often have socialism for the rich and rugged free market capitalism for the poor.
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman, civil rights leader, social activist, preacher
(Attributed)
This phrase is frequently attributed to King, often pointing to some 1964 speech, though the exact phrasing can't be found in his works. He did use variations of the phrase on a number of occasions (e.g., "The Other America", speech at Grosse Pointe High School (14 Mar 1968), but it's also a construction that's been used by others before and after King.
To live among friends is the primary essential of happiness.
William Thomson, Lord Kelvin (1824-1907) Scottish physicist
Lord Kelvin’s Replies to Addresses given on the Celebration of the Jubilee of his Professorship (15-17 Jun 1896)
(Source)
Quoted in G. Fitzgerald, Lord Kelvin, Professor of Natural Philosophy in the University of Glasgow 1846-1899 (1899)
It is hard to say whether the doctors of law or divinity have made the greater advances in the lucrative business of mystery.
Edmund Burke (1729-1797) Anglo-Irish statesman, orator, philosopher
A Vindication of Natural Society (1756)
Why do we expect our Presidents to control destiny when they cannot even control the House of Representatives?
Russell Baker (1925-2019) American journalist, author, humorist
Poor Russell’s Almanac, 2 August (1972)
Our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions any more than our opinions in physics or geometry.
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) American political philosopher, polymath, statesman, US President (1801-09)
“Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom,” Preamble (1776-06-18; enacted 1786-01-16)
(Source)
Just as the good actor perform well whatever role the poet assigns, so too must the good man perform whatever Fortune assigns. For she, says Bion, just like a poet, sometimes assigns the leading role, sometimes that of the supporting role; sometimes that of a king, sometimes that of a beggar. Do not, therefore, being a supporting actor, desire the role of the lead.
Bion of Borysthenes (c. 325-c. 250 BC) Greek philosopher, cynic, wit
As quoted by Teles of Megara, frag. 2, “On Self-Sufficiency”
Never put off till tomorrow the fun you can have today.
Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) English novelist, essayist and critic
Brave New World, 6.1 (1932)
Yes, it’s hard to write. But it’s harder not to.
Carl Van Doren (1885-1950) American writer
(Attributed)
(Source)
In response to a question posed by Mary Margaret McBride. As quoted in James Thurber, "Ave Atque Vale," Bermudian (Nov 1950)
I remembered the way out suggested by a great princess when told that the peasants had no bread: “Well, let them eat cake.”
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) French philosopher and writer
Confessions, ch. 6 (1781) [tr. Cohen (1953)]
Terrorism is the war of the poor, and war is the terrorism of the rich.
[Terrorismus ist der Krieg der Armen und der Krieg ist der Terrorismus der Reichen.]
Peter Ustinov (1921-2004) English actor, author, director
Achtung! Vorurteile (2003)
The original German reads: "Der Terrorismus, der im furchtbaren 11. September kulminierte, ist ein Krieg der Armen gegen die Reichen. Der Krieg ist ein Terrorismus der Reichen gegen die Armen." [The terrorism culminating in the the dreadful events of 11 September is a war of the poor against the rich. War is terrorism of the rich against the poor.]