Because the Bill implies either that the Civil Magistrate is a competent Judge of Religious Truth; or that he may employ Religion as an engine of Civil policy. The first is an arrogant pretension falsified by the contradictory opinions of Rulers in all ages, and throughout the world: the second an unhallowed perversion of the means of salvation.
James Madison (1751-1836) American statesman, political theorist, US President (1809-17)
“A Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments,” letter to the Virginia Assembly (20 Jun 1785)On a proposed law to have the state financially support "Teachers of the Christian Religion."
Full text.
Truth will ultimately prevail where there is pains to bring it to light.
George Washington (1732-1799) American military leader, Founding Father, US President (1789-1797)
(Attributed)
As for the Republicans — how can one regard seriously a frightened, greedy, nostalgic huddle of tradesmen and lucky idlers who shut their eyes to history and science, steel their emotions against decent human sympathy, cling to sordid and provincial ideals exalting sheer acquisitiveness and condoning artificial hardship for the non-materially-shrewd, dwell smugly and sentimentally in a distorted dream-cosmos of outmoded phrases and principles and attitudes based on the bygone agricultural-handicraft world, and revel in (consciously or unconsciously) mendacious assumptions (such as the notion that real liberty is synonymous with the single detail of unrestricted economic license or that a rational planning of resource-distribution would contravene some vague and mystical “American heritage” — economic oversight, price-fixing, “government in business”, etc. recur often in American colonial history) utterly contrary to fact and without the slightest foundation in human experience? Intellectually, the Republican idea deserves the tolerance and respect one gives to the dead.
H. P. Lovecraft (1890-1937) American fabulist [Howard Phillips Lovecraft]
Letter to C. L. Moore (Aug 1936)
The great principle of morality, “To do as one would be done to,” is more commended than practiced.
John Locke (1632-1704) English philosopher
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, 2.2.7 (1690) [ed. Fraser (1894)]
See the Bible, Matthew 7:12.
By noon it was clear that the Socialists would have a majority. At luncheon my wife said to me, ‘It may well be a blessing in disguise.’ I replied, ‘At the moment it seems quite effectively disguised.’
Winston Churchill (1874-1965) British statesman and author
The Second World War, Volume 6: Triumph and Tragedy, ch. 40 “The End of My Account” (1954)
On the landslide electoral defeat that turned him out of office (26 Jul 1945).
ARCHBISHOP: With God, what is terrible is that one never knows whether it’s not just a trick of the devil.
Jean Anouilh (1910-1987) French dramatist
The Lark [L’Alouette] (1952)
It’s all right to hesitate if you then go ahead!
Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956) German poet, playwright, director, dramaturgist
The Good Person of Szechwan [Der gute Mensch von Sezuan], Prologue (1941) [tr. Bentley (1947)]
Because the establishment proposed by the Bill is not requisite for the support of the Christian Religion. To say that it is, is a contradiction to the Christian Religion itself, for every page of it disavows a dependence on the powers of this world: it is a contradiction to fact; for it is known that this Religion both existed and flourished, not only without the support of human laws, but in spite of every opposition from them, and not only during the period of miraculous aid, but long after it had been left to its own evidence and the ordinary care of Providence. Nay, it is a contradiction in terms; for a Religion not invented by human policy, must have pre-existed and been supported, before it was established by human policy.
James Madison (1751-1836) American statesman, political theorist, US President (1809-17)
“A Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments,” letter to the Virginia Assembly (20 Jun 1785)
On a proposed law to have the state financially support "Teachers of the Christian Religion."Full text.
We are here to help God, to do His work, to remedy His old errors, to strive towards Godhead ourselves.
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) British playwright and critic
Letter to Leo Tolstoy (1909)
Nature, not content with denying to Mr — the faculty of thought, has endowed him with the faculty of writing.
A. E. Housman (1859-1936) English scholar and poet [Alfred Edward Housman]
In L. Houseman, A. E. H. (1937)
From a list of insults drafted by A. E. Housman, posthumously published. The name was left blank in the original, with the intent to fill it in when used later on a target.
The towers are gone now, reduced to bloody rubble, along with all hopes for Peace in Our Time, in the United States or any other country. Make no mistake about it: We are At War now — with somebody — and we will stay At War with that mysterious Enemy for the rest of our lives.
Hunter S. Thompson (1937-2005) American journalist, writer
“Kingdom of Fear” (12 Sep 2001)
The ocean has only one taste, the taste of salt.
Truth has only one taste, the taste of liberation.Buddha (c.563-483 BC) Indian mystic, philosopher [b. Siddharta Gautama]
The Dhammapada [tr. P. Lal (1967)]
Happy it is when the interest which the government has in the preservation of its own power, coincides with a proper distribution of the public burdens, and tends to guard the least wealthy part of the community from oppression!
Alexander Hamilton (1757-1804) American statesman, author
The Federalist #36 (8 Jan 1788)
As a writer I have never been able to take myself with that enormous earnestness which is one of the trying characteristics of the craft.
Raymond Chandler (1888-1959) American novelist
Trouble Is My Business, Introduction (1950)
I believe that Providence would never have allowed us to see the victory of the Movement if it had the intention after all to destroy us at the end.
Adolph Hitler (1889-1945) German leader
Speech, Munich (8 Nov 1933)
McCarthy invented the Multiple Lie — the lie with so many tiny gears and fragile connecting rods that reason exhausted itself in the effort to combat it.
Richard H. Rovere (1915-1979) American journalist
“The Frivolous Demagogue,” Esquire (Jun 1958)
On Senator Joseph McCarthy.
We are all tattoed in our cradles with the beliefs of our tribe; the record may seem superficial, but it is indelible. You cannot educate a man wholly out of the superstitious fears which were early implanted in his imagination; no matter how utterly his reason may reject them, he will still feel as the famous woman did about ghosts, Je ne crois pas, mais je les crains, — “I don’t believe in them, but I am afraid of them, nevertheless.”
The secret of grand fortunes without apparent cause is a crime forgotten, for it was properly done.
[Le secret des grandes fortunes sans cause apparente est un crime oublié, parce qu’il a été proprement fait.]
Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850) French novelist, playwright
Le Père Goriot, Part 2 (1835) [tr. Marriage]
Often paraphrased as "Behind every great fortune there is a great crime."
In all candor, the Court fails to perceive any reason for suspending the power of courts to get evidence and rule on questions of privilege in criminal matters simply because it is the president of the United States who holds the evidence.
John J. Sirica (1904-1992) American jurist
Statement (15 Sep 1974)
On obtaining the Watergate tapes from President Richard M Nixon.
Discouraged not by difficulties without, or the anguish of ages within, the heart listens to a secret voice that whispers, “Be not dismayed; in the future lies the Promised Land.”
Helen Keller (1880-1968) American author and lecturer
(Attributed)
In Upton Sinclair, ed., The Cry for Justice, ch. 4 (1915)
Necessity may force you to do unto the prince that which you see the prince about to do to you.
Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527) Italian politician, philosopher, political scientist
The Discourses on Livy, Book 3, ch. 6 (1517) [tr. Detmold (1882)]
See Matthew 7:12.
LE CHEVALIER: One cannot weep for the entire world, it is beyond human strength. One must choose.
Jean Anouilh (1910-1987) French dramatist
Cécile (1954)
Heresy is what the minority believe; it is the name given by the powerful to the doctrine of the weak.
Robert Green Ingersoll (1833-1899) American lawyer, agnostic, orator
“Heretics and Heresies” (1874)
(Source)
We do not need to uplift our hands towards heaven, or to beg the keeper of a temple to let us approach his idol’s ear, as if in this way our prayers were more likely to be heard. God is near you, he is with you, he is within you.
Seneca the Younger (c. 4 BC-AD 65) Roman statesman, philosopher, playwright [Lucius Annaeus Seneca]
Moral Letters to Lucilius [Epistulae morales ad Lucilium], letter 41, sec. 1 “On the God Within Us” [tr. Gummere (1918)]
And, what is worse, the reader often shares the writer’s prejudices, and is far too well pleased with his conclusions to examine either his premises or his reasoning. Stand on a barrel in the streets of Bagdad, and say in a loud voice, ‘Twice two is four, and ginger is hot in the mouth, therefore Mohammed is the prophet of God’, and your logic will probably escape criticism; or, if anyone should by chance criticise it, you could easily silence him by calling him a Christian dog.
A. E. Housman (1859-1936) English scholar and poet [Alfred Edward Housman]
“The Application of Thought to Textual Criticism”
You talk a great deal about building a better world for your children, but when you are young you can no more envision a world inherited by your children than you can conceive of dying. The society you mold, you mold for yourself. It was this way with my generation. We were unhappy with what we inherited and we tried to reshape it in ways that would make it more tolerable to us. You were not uppermost in our thoughts. Now, in middle age, some of us are trying to rewrite history. Some of us tell you, “We labored and dared and sacrificed — all for you — yet we hear no thanks.” You will not be unduly moved, I hope, by these laments. They are sentimental cries from persons so attached to the society they have rebuilt that they cannot bear the thought of seeing it overhauled by new proprietors.
Russell Baker (1925-2019) American journalist, author, humorist
“The Becoming Looseness of Doom,” There’s a Country in My Cellar (1990)
O beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!
America! America!
God shed His grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!Katharine Lee Bates (1859-1929) American writer and poet
“America,” The Congregationalist (4 Jul 1895)Bates wrote the lyrics as a poem, published as cited above (her original title was "Pikes Peak"). It was combined in 1910 with the 1882 tune "Materna" by church organist and choirmaster Samuel A. Ward (originally for the 17th Century hymn "O Mother dear, Jerusalem"), under the title "America the Beautiful."
There are some remedies worse than the disease.
Publilius Syrus (d. 42 BC) Assyrian slave, writer, philosopher [less correctly Publius Syrus]
Sententiae [Moral Sayings], # 301 [tr. Lyman (1862)]
When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, “This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know,” the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motives.
Robert A. Heinlein (1907-1988) American writer
If This Goes On (1940)
When a man says he is Jesus or makes some other claim that seems to us outrageous, we call him psychotic and lock him up in the madhouse. Freedom of speech is only for normal people.
Thomas Szasz (1920-2012) Hungarian-American psychiatrist, educator
The Untamed Tongue: A Dissenting Dictionary “Schizophrenia” (1990)
Early to rise and early to bed makes a male healthy and wealthy and dead.
James Thurber (1894-1961) American cartoonist and writer
“The Shrike and the Chipmunks”, The New Yorker (1939-02-18)
Often misquoted as "Early to rise and early to bed makes a man healthy, wealthy, and dead."
See Franklin.
Thou hast not true humility,
The highest virtue, mother of them all.Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892) English poet
Idylls of the King, “The Holy Grail” (1859-1885)
Full text.
The more haste, the worse speed.
James Howell (c. 1594 - 1666) British historian and writer
Paroimiographia, “Italian” (1659)
The Catholic and the Communist are alike in assuming that an opponent cannot be both honest and intelligent. Each of them tacitly claims that “the truth” has already been revealed, and that the heretic, if he is not simply a fool, is secretly aware of “the truth” and merely resists it out of selfish motives.
George Orwell (1903-1950) English writer [pseud. of Eric Arthur Blair]
“The Prevention of Literature” (Jan 1946)
A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away.
Barry Goldwater (1909-1998) American politician
Speech, West Chester, Pennsylvania (21 Oct 1964)
In everything that can be called art there is a quality of redemption. It may be pure tragedy, if it is high tragedy, and it may be pity and irony, and it may be the raucous laughter of the strong man. But down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid.
The detective in this kind of story must be such a man. He is the hero; he is everything. He must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man. He must be, to use a rather weathered phrase, a man of honor — by instinct, by inevitability, without thought of it, and certainly without saying it. He must be the best man in his world and a good enough man for any world. I do not care much about his private life; he is neither a eunuch nor a satyr; I think he might seduce a duchess and I am quite sure he would not spoil a virgin; if he is a man of honor in one thing, he is that in all things.
He is a relatively poor man, or he would not be a detective at all. He is a common man or he could not go among common people. He has a sense of character, or he would not know his job. He will take no man’s money dishonestly and no man’s insolence without due and dispassionate revenge. He is a lonely man and his pride is that you will treat him as a proud man or be very sorry you ever saw him. He talks as the man of his age talks — that is, with rude wit, a lively sense of the grotesque, a disgust for sham, and a contempt for pettiness.
The story is the man’s adventure in search of a hidden truth, and it would be no adventure if it did not happen to a man fit for adventure. He has a range of awareness that startles you, but it belongs to him by right, because it belongs to the world he lives in. If there were enough like him, the world would be a very safe place to live in, without becoming too dull to be worth living in.
Raymond Chandler (1888-1959) American novelist
“The Simple Art of Murder,” Atlantic Monthly (Dec 1944)
THE INQUISITOR: Heresy begins with people who are to all appearances better than their neighbors. A gentle and pious girl or a young man, who has obeyed the command of our Lord by giving all this riches to the poor and putting on the garb of poverty, the life of austerity, and the rule of humility and charity, may be the founder of a heresy that will wreck both Church and Empire if not ruthlessly stamped out in time.
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) British playwright and critic
Saint Joan, sc. 6 (1923)
Virtue and Simplicity of Manners are indispensably necessary in a Republic among all orders and Degrees of Men. But there is so much Rascallity, so much Venality and Corruption, so much Avarice and Ambition such a Rage for Profit and Commerce among all Ranks and Degrees of Men even in America, that I sometimes doubt whether there is public Virtue enough to Support a Republic.
John Adams (1735-1826) American lawyer, Founding Father, statesman, US President (1797-1801)
Letter to Mercy Warren (8 Jan 1776)
Full text.
Your friend is the man who knows all about you, and still likes you.
Elbert Hubbard (1856-1915) American writer, businessman, philosopher
A Thousand and One Epigrams (1911)
(Source)
Reprinted in The Notebook of Elbert Hubbard (1927).
Nobody talks much that does n’t say unwise things, — things he did not mean to say; as no person plays much without striking a false note sometimes. Talk, to me, is only spading up the ground for crops of thought. I can’t answer for what will turn up.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809-1894) American poet, essayist, scholar
The Professor at the Breakfast-Table, ch. 1 (1860)
(Source)
The chapter originally appeared as "The Professor at the Breakfast-Table: What He Said, What He Heard, and What He Saw," Atlantic Monthly, (1859-01).
“I shall succeed!” he said to himself. So says the gambler; so says the great captain; but the three words that have been the salvation of some few, have been the ruin of many more.
[“Je réussirai!” Le mot du joueur, du grand capitaine, mot fataliste qui perd plus d’hommes qu’il n’en sauve.]
Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850) French novelist, playwright
Le Père Goriot, Part 1 (1835) [tr. Marriage]
Desperate cases need the most desperate remedies.
Hippocrates (c. 460-c.377 BC) Greek physician
Aphorisms, 1.6 [tr. Chadwick / Mann (1950)]
More commonly, "Extreme maladies require extreme remedies."
The heresy of one age is the orthodox belief and “only infallible rule” of the next.
Theodore Parker (1810-1860) American clergyman, transcendentalist, abolitionist
“The Transient and Permanent in Christianity” (1841)
Try your best to treat others as you wish to be treated yourself, and you will find that this is the shortest way to benevolence.
Mencius (371-278 B.C.) Chinese philosopher
Mencius, 7.A.4 [tr. Lau (1970)]
See also the Bible, Matthew 7:12.
War is mainly a catalogue of blunders.
Winston Churchill (1874-1965) British statesman and author
The Second World War, Vol. 3: The Grand Alliance, ch. 20 “The Soviet Nemesis” (1950)
(Source)
Specifically, on the USSR failing to form an allied front in the Balkans against Hitler prior to his attack on them.
CREON: To say yes, you have to sweat and roll up your sleeves and plunge both hands into life up to the elbows. It’s easy to say no, even if it means dying.
Jean Anouilh (1910-1987) French dramatist
Antigone (1942)
… [S]uffering does not ennoble. It destroys. To resist destruction, self-hatred, or lifelong hopelessness, we have to throw off the conditioning of being despised, the fear of becoming the they that is talked about so dismissively, to refuse lying myths and easy moralities, to see ourselves as human, flawed, and extraordinary. All of us — extraordinary.
Dorothy Allison (b. 1949) American writer and lesbian feminist
Skin, ch. 2 (1994).
Man always has some mental reservation, even in the face of divine decrees. Otherwise, where would be his freedom? And what would be the use of that freedom if it could not threaten Him who threatens it?
Carl Jung (1875-1961) Swiss psychologist
Memories, Dreams, Reflections [Erinnerungen, Träume, Gedanken], ch. 7 [ed. A Jaffe (1962)]
Clay lies still, but blood’s a rover;
Breath’s a ware that will not keep.
Up, lad: when the journey’s over
There’ll be time enough to sleep.A. E. Housman (1859-1936) English scholar and poet [Alfred Edward Housman]
A Shropshire Lad, #4 (“Reveille”), st. 6 (1896)
One may speculate whether the contemporary idea of American society in decay is not a false notion which has been created, at least partially, by this old movie portrait of a society that was once stable, orderly and governed by the immutable justice of the Hollywood censorship code. This is the ever-popular myth of a golden age which persuades so many generations that there was once a wonderful moment in the past when the world was sound and good people ruled and evil was justly punished. After Camelot came chaos and despair, except, of course, that Camelot never existed, any more than the world portrayed by those old Hollywood films existed.
Russell Baker (1925-2019) American journalist, author, humorist
“Golden Oldies,” So This Is Depravity (1980)
A goal without an action plan is only a daydream.
Nathaniel Branden (1930-2014) Canadian-American psychotherapist, writer (b. Nathan Blumenthal)
(Attributed)
With health, everything is a source of pleasure; without it, nothing else, whatever it may be, is enjoyable; even the other personal blessings, — a great mind, a happy temperament — are degraded and dwarfed for want of it. So it is really with good reason that, when two people meet, the first thing they do is to inquire after each other’s health, and to express the hope that it is good; for good health is by far the most important element in human happiness.
[Mit ihr wird alles eine Quelle des Genusses: hingegen ist ohne sie kein äußeres Gut, welcher Art es auch sei, genießbar, und selbst die übrigen subjektiven Güter, die Eigenschaften des Geistes, Gemütes, Temperaments, werden durch Kränklichkeit herabgestimmt und sehr verkümmert. Demnach geschieht es nicht ohne Grund, daß man vor allen Dingen sich gegenseitig nach dem Gesundheitszustande befragt und einander sich wohlzubefinden wünscht: denn wirklich ist dieses bei weitem die Hauptsache zum menschlichen Glück.]
Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) German philosopher
Parerga and Paralipomena, Vol. 1, “Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life [Aphorismen zur Lebensweisheit],” ch. 2 “What a Man Is [Von dem, was einer ist]” (1851) [tr. Saunders (1890)]
(Source)
(Source (German)). Alternate translation:In general, however, nine-tenths of our happiness depends on health alone. With it everything becomes a source of pleasure, whereas without it nothing, whatever it may be, can be enjoyed, and even the other subjective blessings, such as mental qualities, disposition, and temperament, are depressed and dwarfed by ill-health. Accordingly, it is not without reason that, when two people meet, they first ask about the state of each other's health and hope that it is good; for this really is for human happiness by far the most important thing.
[tr. Payne (1974)]
If you think that by killing men you can prevent someone from censuring your evil lives, you are mistaken. That is not a way of escape which is either possible or honorable. The easiest and noblest way is not to be disabling others, but to be improving yourselves.
Socrates (c.470-399 BC) Greek philosopher
In Plato, Apology, sec. 39 [tr. Jowett (1894)]
In our great hall there stood a vacant chair,
Fashioned by Merlin ere he past away,
And carven with strange figures; and in and out
The figures, like a serpent, ran a scroll
Of letters in a tongue no man could read.
And Merlin called it “The Siege perilous,”
Perilous for good and ill; “for there,” he said,
“No man could sit but he should lose himself …”Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892) English poet
Idylls of the King, “The Holy Grail” (1859-1885)
Full text.
Leisure is the mother of Philosophy; and Common-wealth, the mother of Peace, and Leisure: Where first were great and flourishing Cities, there was first the study of Philosophy.
We must … make the kingdom of God a reality in this world by works of love.
Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965) Alsatian philosopher, physician, philanthropist, polymath
“Religion and Modern Civilization,” Christian Century magazine (1934)
The wisdom of the wise, and the experience of ages, may be preserved by quotation.
Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881) English politician and author
Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 2, Part 4 (1835)
Full text.
As the happiness of the people is the sole end of government, so the consent of the people is the only foundation of it, in reason, morality, and the natural fitness of things.
John Adams (1735-1826) American lawyer, Founding Father, statesman, US President (1797-1801)
Proclamation adopted by the Council of Massachussetts Bay (1774)
Everything a writer learns about the art or craft of fiction takes just a little away from his need or desire to write at all. In the end he knows all of the tricks and has nothing to say.
Raymond Chandler (1888-1959) American novelist
Trouble Is My Business, Introduction (1950)
Full text.
It takes two to speak the truth, — one to speak, and another to hear.
Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) American philosopher and writer
A Week on the Concord and Marrimack Rivers, “Wednesday” (1849)
Full text.
If we had no other means to judge the Nazi doctrines, the single fact that they seek shelter behind the Gestapo would be sufficient evidence against them. Doctrines which can stand the trial of logic and reason can do so without persecuting Skeptics.
Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973) Austrian economist, philosopher, author
Omnipotent Government: The Rise of the Total State and Total War (1944)
Search thine own heart. What paineth thee
In others in thyself may be.John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–1892) American poet and abolitionist
“The Chapel of Hermits,” l. 85 (1851)
Friendship may well deserve the sacrifice of pleasure, though not of conscience.
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) English writer, lexicographer, critic
The Rambler, #64 (27 Oct 1750)
(Source)
If a man has a genuine, sincere, hearty wish to get rid of his liberty, if he is really bent upon becoming a slave, nothing can stop him. And the temptation is to some natures a very great one. Liberty is often a heavy burden on a man. It involves that necessity for perpetual choice which is the kind of labor men have always dreaded. In common life we shirk it by forming habits, which take the place of self-determination. In politics party-organization saves us the pains of much thinking before deciding how to cast our vote. In religious matters there are great multitudes watching us perpetually, each propagandist ready with his bundle of finalities, which having accepted we may be at peace. The more absolute the submission demanded, the stronger the temptation becomes to those who have been long tossed among doubts and conflicts.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809-1894) American poet, essayist, scholar
Elsie Venner, ch. 18 (1859)
(Source)
Between persons who are perpetually in each other’s company dislike or love increases daily; every moment brings reasons to love or hate each other more and more.
[Entre personnes sans cesse en présence, la haine et l’amour vont toujours croissant: on trouve à tout moment des raisons pour s’aimer ou se haïr mieux.]
Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850) French novelist, playwright
The Vicar of Tours [Le curé de Tours], ch. 1 (1832) [tr. Wormeley]
A man loses contact with reality if he is not surrounded by his books.
François Mitterrand (1916-1996) President of France (1981-1995)
Times of London (10 May 1982)
On why he continued to live in Rue de Bièvre, using the Elysée Palace only for official functions.
God bless you, and send you health, which is the first and greatest of all blessings!
Lord Chesterfield (1694-1773) English statesman, wit [Philip Dormer Stanhope]
Letter to his son, #419 (12 Mar 1768)
(Source)
To do unto all men as you would wish to have done unto you, and to reject for others what you would reject for yourself.
Muhammad (570-632) Arabian merchant, prophet, founder of Islam [Mohammed]
The Sayings of Muhammed, 138 [tr. Al-Suhrawardy (1941)]
See also the Bible, Matthew 7:12.
I am reminded of the professor who, in his declining hours, was asked by his devoted pupils for his final counsel. He replied, “Verify your quotations.”
Winston Churchill (1874-1965) British statesman and author
The Second World War, Vol. 4: The Hinge of Fate (1951)
(Source)
Constant effort and frequent mistakes are the stepping-stones of genius.
Elbert Hubbard (1856-1915) American writer, businessman, philosopher
Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 12: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists, “William Herschel” (1916)
(Source)
‘Tis an old Saying, That an Ounce of Prevention is worth a Pound of Cure.
Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) American statesman, scientist, philosopher, aphorist
Letter to Samuel Johnson (13 Sep 1750)
“It is impossible to help all,” says the miser, and — helps none.
[Man kann nicht allen helfen! sagt der Engherzige und — hilft Keinem.]
Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach (1830-1916) Austrian writer
Aphorisms [Aphorismen], No. 105 (1880) [tr. Wister (1883)]
(Source)
(Source (German)). Alternate translation:You can't be of help to everybody! say the narrow-minded, and help nobody.
[tr. Scrase/Mieder (1994)]
To serve the God of Love one must be free, one must face the terrible responsibility of the decision to love in spite of all unworthiness whether in oneself or in one’s neighbor.
Thomas Merton (1915-1968) French-American religious and writer [a.k.a. Fr. M. Louis]
New Seeds of Contemplation, ch. 10 (1961)
It looks to me as if the state of mankind always had been and always would be a state of just tolerable discomfort.
A. E. Housman (1859-1936) English scholar and poet [Alfred Edward Housman]
Letter to Gilbert Murray (23 Apr 1900)
I am unclear what a “role model” is, but those who used the term seemed to be saying that teachers are people children tend to emulate. In any event, many Miamians must have thought their children would become homosexual if subjected to homosexual teachers. That prompted me to ponder teachers I haven’t seen, and scarcely thought about, for decades, and for the first time I reflected on how their sex lives had affected my own. My first thought was that it was curious, perhaps perverse, that I have not turned out to be a spinster.
Russell Baker (1925-2019) American journalist, author, humorist
“Role Models,” So This Is Depravity (1980)
When your work speaks for itself, don’t interrupt.
Henry J. Kaiser (1882-1967) American industrialist
(Attributed)
Hell is where no one has anything in common with anybody else except the fact that they all hate one another and cannot get away from one another and from themselves.
Thomas Merton (1915-1968) French-American religious and writer [a.k.a. Fr. M. Louis]
New Seeds of Contemplation, ch. 17 (1961)
Instead of looking on discussion as a stumbling block in the way of action, we think it an indispensable preliminary to any wise action at all.
Pericles (c. 495-429 BC) Greek statesman
Funeral Oration (431 BC). In Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War, 2.40 [tr. Crawley & Wick (1982)]
The old order changeth, yielding place to new,
And God fulfills Himself in many ways,
Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892) English poet
Idylls of the King, “The Passing of Arthur” (1859-1885)
(Source)
To this war of every man against every man, this also is consequent; that nothing can be unjust. The notions of right and wrong, justice and injustice, have there no place. Where there is no common power, there is no law; where no law, no injustice. Force and fraud are in war the two cardinal virtues.
But the other vitality is still there, that rancorous, sardonic, wonderful insistence on the right to dissent, to question, to object, to raise holy hell and, in direst extremity, to laugh the self-appointed squad leaders off the face of the earth with great whoops of dirty, disdainful glee. Suppress friction and a machine runs fine. Suppress friction, and a society runs down.
John D. MacDonald (1916–1986) American author
A Deadly Shade of Gold (1965)
There is no curing a sick man who believes himself in health.
Henri-Frédéric Amiel (1821-1881) Swiss philosopher, poet, critic
Journal (6 Feb 1877) [tr. Ward (1887)]
Any government is in itself an evil insofar as it carries within it the tendency to deteriorate into tyranny. However, except for a very small number of anarchists, everyone of us is convinced that civilized society cannot exist without a government.
Albert Einstein (1879-1955) German-American physicist
“A Reply to the Soviet Scientists” (Dec 1947), Bulletin of Atomic Scientists (Feb 1948)
(Source)
Jupiter, now assuredly is the time when I could readily consent to be slain, lest life should sully this ecstasy with some disaster.
Terence (186?-159 BC) African-Roman dramatist [Publius Terentius Afer]
Eunuchus, Act 3, sc. 5, l. 2 (l. 550)
You can hardly convince a man of an error in a lifetime, but must content yourself with the reflection that the progress of science is slow. If he is not convinced, his grandchildren may be.
Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) American philosopher and writer
A Week on the Concord and Marrimack Rivers (1849)
Full text.
Paradise is nearer you than the thongs of your sandals, and the Fire likewise.
Muhammad (570-632) Arabian merchant, prophet, founder of Islam [Mohammed]
The Sayings of Muhammad, #224 [tr. Al-Suhrawardy (1941)]
Never do a wrong thing to make a friend or keep one.
Robert E. Lee (1807-1870) American military leader
Letter to his son (1860)
Treat bad men exactly as if they were insane. They are in-sane, out of health, morally. Reason, which is food to sound minds, is not tolerated, still less assimilated, unless administered with the greatest caution; perhaps, not at all. Avoid collision with them, so far as you honorably can; keep your temper, if you can, — for one angry man is as good as another; restrain them from violence, promptly, completely, and with the least possible injury, just as in the case of maniacs, — and when you have got rid of them, or got them tied hand and foot so that they can do no mischief, sit down and contemplate them charitably, remembering that nine tenths of their perversity comes from outside influences, drunken ancestors, abuse in childhood, bad company, from which you have happily been preserved, and for some of which you, as a member of society, may be fractionally responsible.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809-1894) American poet, essayist, scholar
Elsie Venner, ch. 16 [The Professor] (1859)
(Source)
If you are to judge a man, you must know his secret thoughts, sorrows, and feelings; to know merely the outward events of a man’s life would only serve to make a chronological table — a fool’s notion of history!
[Pour juger un homme, au moins faut-il être dans le secret de sa pensée, de ses malheurs, de ses émotions; ne vouloir connaître de sa vie que les événements matériels, c’est faire de la chronologie, l’histoire des sots!]
Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850) French novelist, playwright
The Wild Ass’s Skin [La Peau de chagrin], Part 2 “A Woman without a Heart” (1831) [tr. Marriage]
Here we subscribe to the ethos that it is not enough to have the courage of your convictions, but you must also have the courage to have your convictions challenged.
Christopher Phillips (b. 1959) American philosopher, writer, creator of the Socrates Cafe discussion groups
Socrates Cafe (2001)
Health is not valued, till Sickness comes.
Thomas Fuller (1654-1734) English physician, preacher, aphorist, writer
Gnomologia: Adages and Proverbs, #2478 (1732)
(Source)
Neither urge another to that thou wouldst be unwilling to do thyself, nor do thyself what looks to thee unseemly and intemperate in another.
William Penn (1644-1718) English writer, philosopher, politician, statesman
Some Fruits of Solitude, # 71 (1693)
See also Matthew 7:12.
When I look back on all these worries I remember the story of the old man who said on his deathbed that he had had a lot of trouble in his life, most of which had never happened.
Winston Churchill (1874-1965) British statesman and author
The Second World War, Vol. 2: Their Finest Hour, ch. 23 “September Tensions” (1949)
(Source)
Never Explain — your Friends do not need it and your Enemies will not believe you anyhow.
Elbert Hubbard (1856-1915) American writer, businessman, philosopher
The Motto Book (1907)
Never suffer an exception to occur till the new habit is securely rooted in your life. Each lapse is like the letting fall of a ball of string which one is carefully winding up, a single slip undoes more than a great many turns will wind again.
William James (1842-1910) American psychologist and philosopher
The Principles of Psychology, ch. 4 (1890)
We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us, it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
Nelson Mandela (1918-2013) South African revolutionary, politician, statesman
Inaugural Address, South Africa (10 May 1994)
While it is very sturdy of comfortable men to point out that life is unfair, the people it is unfair to are not apt to be morally or philosophically elevated by the announcement. If you are going to preach that unfairness is inescapable for some, good sense suggests that you also accept the inevitability of beastly behavior by people who have to carry the burden.
Russell Baker (1925-2019) American journalist, author, humorist
“The Unfairness of It All,” So This Is Depravity (1980)
Most men are rather stupid, and most of those who are not stupid are, consequently, rather vain.
A. E. Housman (1859-1936) English scholar and poet [Alfred Edward Housman]
“The Application of Thought to Textual Criticism,” lecture (4 Aug 1921)
I’m very broad minded usually, she said, but it gets very narrow and fast in spots.
Brian Andreas (b. 1956) American writer, artist, publisher [birth and pen name of Kai Andreas Skye]
Trusting Soul, “Treacherous Rapids” (2000)
