When the natural Weakness and Imperfection of Human Understanding is considered, with the unavoidable Influences of Education, Custom, Books and Company, upon our Ways of thinking, I imagine a Man must have a good deal of Vanity who believes, and a good deal of Boldness who affirms, that all the Doctrines he holds, are true; and all he rejects, are false. And perhaps the same may be justly said of every Sect, Church and Society of men when they assume to themselves that Infallibility which they deny to the Popes and Councils.
Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) American statesman, scientist, philosopher, aphorist
Letter to Abiah Franklin (father) (13 Apr 1738)
Full text.
An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.
Winston Churchill (1874-1965) British statesman and author
(Attributed)
Churchill reportedly used used this phrase frequently prior to WWII, but it has not been found per se by Churchill scholars in his writings, speeches, press conferences, radio addresses, or parliamentary debates.
However, on a radio broadcast (20 Jan 1940), speaking of the neutral states standing by while Germany (and Russia) swallowed them up (referencing Finland fighting against Russia in particular), "Each one hopes that if he feeds the crocodile enough, the crocodile will eat him last. All of them hope that the storm will pass before their turn comes to be devoured. But I fear -- I fear greatly -- the storm will not pass. It will rage and it will roar, even more loudly, even more widely."
Also attributed to Franklin Roosevelt.
More discussion of this quotation: An Appeaser Is One Who Feeds a Crocodile, Hoping It Will Eat Him Last – Quote Investigator.
I have an old-fashioned belief that Americans like to make up their own minds on the basis of all available information. The conclusions you draw are your own affair. I have no desire to influence them, and shall leave such efforts to those who have more confidence in their own judgment than I have in mine.
Those who matter don’t mind, and those who mind don’t matter.
Bernard Baruch (1870-1965) American businessman and statesman
(Attributed)
When asked by Igor Cassini, society columnist for the New York Journal American, how he handled the seating arrangements at all his dinner parties, Baruch responded, "I never bother about that. Those who matter don't mind, and those who mind don't matter."Quoted in Bennett Cerf, Shake Well Before Using: A New Collection of Impressions and Anecdotes Mostly Humorous (1948).
The more ignorant men are, the more convinced are they that their little parish and their little chapel is an apex to which civilization and philosophy has painfully struggled up the pyramid of time from a desert of savagery.
Some people have no original ideas because they do not think well enough of themselves to consider their ideas worth noticing and developing.
It’s not the load that breaks you down, it’s the way you carry it.
Lena Horne (1917-2010) American singer, actress, dancer, activist
(Attributed)
The bill for establishing religious freedom, the principles of which had, to a certain degree, been enacted before, I had drawn in all the latitude of reason and right. It still met with opposition; but, with some mutilations in the preamble, it was finally passed; and a singular proposition proved that its protection of opinion was meant to be universal.
Where the preamble declares, that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed by inserting “Jesus Christ,” so that it would read “A departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy author of our religion;” the insertion was rejected by the great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mohammedan, the Hindoo, and Infidel of every denomination.
Thought that is silenced is always rebellious. Majorities, of course, are often mistaken. This is why the silencing of minorities is necessarily dangerous. Criticism and dissent are the indispensable antidote to major delusions.
DICAEPOLIS: Comedy too can sometimes discern what is right. I shall not please, but I shall say what is true.
Aristophanes (c. 450-c. 388 BC) Athenian comedic playwright
Acharnians, li. 500-501 (425 BC) [tr. Athen. (1912)]
Full text.
The neer to the church, the further from God.
John Heywood (1497?-1580?) English playwright and epigrammist
Proverbes, Part 1, ch. 9 (1546)
(Source)
To the question whether I am a pessimist or an optimist, I answer that my knowledge is pessimistic, but my willing and hoping are optimistic.
Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965) Alsatian philosopher, physician, philanthropist, polymath
Out of My Life and Thought, An Autobiography, Epilogue (1933) [tr. Campion]
See also Gramsci.
When [ignorance] does not know something, it says that what it does not know is stupid.
Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) Russian novelist and moral philosopher
A Confession, ch. 7 (1882) [tr. Maude (1921)]
Full text.
‘What a pity that Bilbo did not stab that vile creature, when he had a chance!’
‘Pity? It was Pity that stayed his hand. Pity, and Mercy: not to strike without need. And he has been well rewarded, Frodo. Be sure that he took so little hurt from the evil, and escaped in the end, because he began his ownership of the Ring so. With Pity.’
J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973) English writer, fabulist, philologist, academic [John Ronald Reuel Tolkien]
The Lord of the Rings, Vol. 1: The Fellowship of the Ring, Book 1, ch. 2 “The Shadow of the Past” [Bilbo and Gandalf] (1954)
(Source)
The important thing in life is not the victory but the contest; the essential thing is not to have won but to have fought well.
[L’important dans la vie ce n’est point le triomphe, mais le combat, l’essentiel ce n’est pas d’avoir vaincu mais de s’être bien battu.]
Pierre Frédy, Baron de Coubertin (1863-1937) French pedagogue, historian, founder of the International Olympic Committee
Olympic Creed, Speech, Olympic Games, London (24 Jul 1908)
Alt. trans: "The important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle, the essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well."
Original phrasing by de Coubertin: "The importance of these Olympiads is not so much to win as to take part."
De Coubertin was drawing from a sermon by Bp. Ethelbert Talbot at St Paul's Cathedral, London (19 Jul 1908): "We have just been contemplating the great Olympic Games. What does it mean? It means that young men of robust physical life have come from all parts of the world. It does mean, I think, as someone has said, that this era of internationalism as seen in the Stadium has an element of danger. Of course, it is very true, as he says, that each athlete strives not only for the sake of sport, but for the sake of his country. Thus a new rivalry is invented. If England be beaten on the river, or America outdistanced on the racing path, or that American has lost the strength which she once possessed. Well, what of it? The only safety after all lies in the lesson of the real Olympia -- that the Games themselves are better than the race and the prize. St. Paul tells us how insignificant is the prize, Our prize is not corruptible, but incorruptible, and though only one may wear the laurel wreath, all may share the equal joy of the contest. All encouragement, therefore, be given to the exhilarating -- I might also say soul-saving -- interest that comes in active and fair and clean athletic sports."
The development from a religion of fear to moral religion is a great step in peoples’ lives. And yet, that primitive religions are based entirely on fear and the religions of civilized peoples purely on morality is a prejudice against which we must be on our guard. The truth is that all religions are a varying blend of both types, with this differentiation: that on the higher levels of social life the religion of morality predominates.
Albert Einstein (1879-1955) German-American physicist
“Religion and Science,” New York Times Magazine (9 Nov 1930)
(Source)
We probably differ on that which relates to the dogmas of theology, the foundation of all sectarianism, and on which no two sects dream alike; for if they did they would then be of the same. you say you are a Calvinist. I am not. I am of a sect by myself, as far as I know.
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) American political philosopher, polymath, statesman, US President (1801-09)
Letter to Ezra Stiles Ely (25 Jun 1819)
(Source)
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, ch. 6 (1945)
Full text.
For the trouble with lying and deceiving is that their efficiency depends entirely upon a clear notion of the truth that the liar and deceiver wishes to hide. In this sense, truth, even if it does not prevail in public, possesses an ineradicable primacy over all falsehoods.
Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) German-American philosopher, political theorist
“Lying in Politics,” Crises of the Republic (1969)
(Source)
I’m a pessimist because of intelligence, but an optimist because of will.
Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937) Italian writer, politician, Marxist political theorist
Letter from Prison (19 Dec 1929)
Also attributed to Romain Rolland.
The only lost cause is one we give up on before we enter the struggle.
Václav Havel (1936-2011) Czech playwright, essayist, dissident, politician
(Attributed)
Quoted in Amnesty International, "From Prisoner to President – A Tribute" (Oct 2003).
The illusion that times that were are better than those that are, has probably pervaded all ages.
Horace Greeley (1881-1872) American newspaper editor, reformer, politician
The American Conflict: a history of the great rebellion in the United States, ch. 1 “Our Country After the Revolution” (1864)
Full text.
Every method is used to prove to men that in given political, economic, and social situations they are bound to be happy and those who are unhappy are mad or criminals or monsters.
Alberto Moravia (1907-1990) Italian novelist [b. Alberto Pincherle]
“Man As an End” (1964) [tr. Wall (1965)]
All men who read escape from something else into what lies behind the printed page; the quality of the dream may be argued, but its release has become a functional necessity. All men must escape at times from the deadly rhythm of their private thoughts. … I hold no particular brief for the detective story as the ideal escape. I merely say that all reading for pleasure is escape, whether it be Greek, mathematics, astronomy, Benedetto Croce, or The Diary of the Forgotten Man. To say otherwise is to be an intellectual snob, and a juvenile at the art of living.
Love me, love my dog.
John Heywood (1497?-1580?) English playwright and epigrammist
Proverbes, Part 2, ch. 9 (1546)
(Source)
Earlier noted as a common proverb by Bernard of Clairvaux in the 11th Century: "Qui me amat, amet et canem meum [Who loves me will love my dog also] in his First Sermon on the Feast of St Michael.
Ignorance is not a simple lack of knowledge but an active aversion to knowledge, the refusal to know, issuing from cowardice, pride or laziness of mind.
Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky,
Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,
Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die,
One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973) English writer, fabulist, philologist, academic [John Ronald Reuel Tolkien]
The Lord of the Rings, Vol. 1: The Fellowship of the Ring, Book 1, ch. 2 “The Shadow of the Past” (1954)
(Source)
Gandalf recites this verse "long known in Elven-lore," after finding lines 6-7 engraved in Quenya (but representing the Black Speech) on the ring Frodo has.
We are ready to die for an opinion but not for a fact: indeed, it is by our readiness to die that we try to prove the factualness of our opinion.
The twentieth century looms before us big with the fate of many nations. If we stand idly by, if we seek merely swollen, slothful ease and ignoble peace, if we shrink from the hard contests where men must win at hazard of their lives and at the risk of all they hold dear, then the bolder and stronger peoples will pass us by, and will win for themselves the domination of the world.
Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) American politician, statesman, conservationist, writer, US President (1901-1909)
“The Strenuous Life,” speech, Hamilton Club, Chicago (10 Apr 1899)
Full text.