That is happiness; to be dissolved into something complete and great.
Willa Cather (1873-1947) American author [Wilella Silbert Cather]
My Antonia, 1.2 (1918)
The truth is not simply what you think it is; it is also the circumstances in which it is said, and to whom, why, and how it is said.
Václav Havel (1936-2011) Czech playwright, essayist, dissident, politician
Disturbing the Peace, ch. 2 “Writing for the Stage” (1986) [tr. P. Wilson (1990)]
The greatness of America lies not in being more enlightened than any other nation, but rather in her ability to repair her faults.
Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) French writer, diplomat, politician
Democracy in America, Vol. 1, ch. 13 (1835)
All very serious revolutionary propositions begin as huge jokes. Otherwise they would be stamped out by the lynching of their first exponents.
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) British playwright and critic
“Where is the New Element in the Norwegian School?”, The Quintessence of Ibsenimsm (1891)
The effect of a good government is to make life more valuable; of a bad one, to make it less valuable.
Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) American philosopher and writer
“Slavery in Massachussetts,” speech, Farmingham (4 Jul 1854)
For myself, I am an optimist — it does not seem to be much use being anything else.
Winston Churchill (1874-1965) British statesman and author
Speech, Lord Mayor’s Banquet, London (9 Nov 1954)
The neer to the church, the further from God.
John Heywood (1497?-1580?) English playwright and epigrammist
Proverbes, Part 1, ch. 9 (1546)
(Source)
The Jealous are Troublesome to others, but a Torment to themselves.
William Penn (1644-1718) English writer, philosopher, politician, statesman
More Fruits of Solitude, #190 (1693)
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)
Good writing, like gold, combines lustrous lucidity with high density. What this means is good writing is packed with hints.
Eric Hoffer (1902-1983) American writer, philosopher, longshoreman
Entry (1957) in “Eric Hoffer and the Art of the Notebook” by Tom Bethell, Harper’s Magazine (July 2005)
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)
To flee vice is the beginning of virtue, and to have got rid of folly is the beginning of wisdom.
[Virtus est vitium fugere et sapientia prima stultitia caruisse.]
Horace (65-8 BC) Roman poet and satirist [Quintus Horacius Flaccus]
Epistles, Book 1, Epistle 1, l. 41 (c. 20 BC and 14 BC)
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)
No one has a right to sit down and feel hopeless. There’s too much work to do.
Dorothy Day (1897-1980) American journalist, Catholic social activist
(Attributed)
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.
If men could learn from history, what lessons it might teach us! But passion and party blind our eyes, and the light which experience gives is a lantern on the stern, which shines only on the waves behind us!
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) English poet and critic
Table Talk, 18 Dec 1831 (1835)
Men want the same thing from their underwear that they want from women: a little bit of support, and a little bit of freedom.
Jerry Seinfeld (b. 1954) American comedian
(Attributed)
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.
Information is the currency of democracy.
Ralph Nader (b. 1934) American attorney, author, lecturer, political activist
Speech, Washington (25 Mar 1998)
My greatest happiness consists precisely in doing nothing whatever that is calculated to obtain happiness.
Chuang Tzu (369-286 BC) Chinese philosopher, co-founder of Taoism
(Attributed)
In Thomas Merton, The Way of Chuang Tzu, "Perfect Joy" (1965)
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).
In America the majority raises formidable barriers around the liberty of opinion; within these barriers an author may write what he pleases, but woe to him if he goes beyond them.
Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) French writer, diplomat, politician
Democracy in America, Vol. 1, ch. 15 (1835)
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)]
The most important care of a good government should be to get people used little by little to managing without it.
Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) French writer, diplomat, politician
Journey to America, 2, Notebook (20 Sep 1831) [tr. Lawrence (1971)
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.
Raymond Chandler (1888-1959) American novelist
“The Simple Art of Murder,” Atlantic Monthly (Dec 1944)
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.
All that is left to us is our being horrified at the loss of our sense of horror.
Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907-1972) Polish-American rabbi, theologian, philosopher
God in Search of Man: A Philosophy of Judaism, ch. 36 (1955)
To achieve great things, two things are needed: a plan, and not quite enough time.
Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990) American conductor, composer, author, music lecturer, pianist
(Attributed)
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.
Sir Karl Popper (1902-1994) Austrian-British philosopher
(Attributed)
As paraphrased by Ryszard Kapuscinski, "The Philosopher as Giant-Slayer," New York Times Magazine (1 Jan 1995)
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.
Eric Hoffer (1902-1983) American writer, philosopher, longshoreman
Entry (1955) in “Eric Hoffer and the Art of the Notebook” by Tom Bethell, Harper’s Magazine (July 2005)
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.
Nature intended illusions for the wise as well as for fools, let the former should be rendered too miserable by their wisdom.
Nicolas Chamfort (1741-1794) French writer, epigrammist (b. Nicolas-Sébastien Roch)
Maxims and Thoughts, ch. 1 (1796) [tr. Merwin (1984)]
He will through life be master of himself and a happy man who from day to day can have said, “I have lived: tomorrow the Father may fill the sky with black clouds or with cloudless sunshine.”
[Ille potens sui
laetusque deget, cui licet in diem
dixisse “vixi: cras vel atra
nube polum pater occupato
vel sole puro.”]Horace (65-8 BC) Roman poet and satirist [Quintus Horacius Flaccus]
Odes [Carmina] Book 3, Ode 24, l. 41 (c. 23 BC and 13 BC)
Indecision has rendered all my faculties barren.
Henri-Frédéric Amiel (1821-1881) Swiss philosopher, poet, critic
Journal (14 Oct 1872) [tr. Ward (1887)]
Full text.
It’s always hard to see hope with a hangover.
P. J. O'Rourke (b. 1947) American humorist, editor
Holidays in Hell (1989)
What are all the records of history, but narratives of successive villainies, of treasons and usurpations, massacres and wars?
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) English writer, lexicographer, critic
The Rambler, #175 (19 Nov 1751)
(Source)
Looking at cleavage is like looking at the sun. You don’t stare at it. It’s too risky. You get a sense of it and then you look away.
Jerry Seinfeld (b. 1954) American comedian
(Attributed)
The chief reason warfare is still with us is neither a secret death wish of the human species, nor an irrepressible instinct of aggression, nor, finally and more plausibly, the serious economic and social dangers inherent in disarmament, but the simple fact that no substitute for this final arbiter in international affairs has yet appeared on the political scene.
The most important thing a man can know is that, as he approaches his own door, someone on the other side is listening for the sound of his footsteps.
Clark Gable (1901-1960) American film actor [b. William Clark Goebel]
(Attributed)
In Ronald Reagan, Where's the Rest of Me?, ch. 18 (1965). Quoted as something Reagan wrote to his first son, Michael, before his marriage. Alternately given as, "There is no greater happiness for a man than approaching a door at the end of the day knowing someone on the other side of the door is waiting for the sound of his footsteps," in Julia Baumgold, "Ronald Reagan's Total Woman," New York Magazine, 28 Jul 1980.
Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.
Charles Dickens (1812-1870) English writer and social critic
David Copperfield, ch. 12 (1850)
At one time kings were anointed by Deity, so the problem was to see to it that Deity chose the right candidate. In this age the myth is “the will of the people” … but the problem changes only superficially.
Robert A. Heinlein (1907-1988) American writer
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress [Bernardo de la Paz] (1966)
Useful undertakings which require sustained attention and vigorous precision in order to succeed often end up by being abandoned, for, in America, as elsewhere, the people move forward by sudden impulses and short-lived efforts.
Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) French writer, diplomat, politician
Democracy in America, Vol. 1, ch. 5 (1835)
What this country needs is a short, victorious war to stem the tide of revolution.
Vyacheslav von Pléhve (1846-1904) Russian Tsarist security director, Interior Minister [Vyacheslav Konstantinovich von Plehve, or Pleve; Вячесла́в Константи́нович фон Пле́ве]
Comment (1903) [tr. Walder (1974)]
(Source)
Regarding the impending Russo-Japanese War (1904-05). Possibly apocryphal; the comment is quoted in the memoirs of Count Sergei Witte, an opponent of Plehve, several years later (and well after Plehve's 1904 assassination). Witte recounted it as a retort by Plehve to General Alexey Nikolayevich Kuropatkin, who accused Plehve of supporting the conflict for adventurist/expansionist reasons.
Russia, though considered much stronger than Japan militarily, ended up losing the war, destabilizing the government and ironically leading to revolutions in 1905 and 1917.
Alternate translations:
- "We need a little victorious war to stem the tide of revolution." [tr. Yarmolinsky (1921)]
- "We need a little, victorious war to stem the revolution." [tr. Harcave (1990)]
- "To contain the revolution, we need a short victorious war." [tr Hodson (2017)]
HENRY: A speaker is but a prater, a rhyme is but a ballad, a good leg will fall, a straight back will stoop, a black beard will turn white, a curled pate will grow bald, a fair face will wither, a full eye will wax hollow, but a good heart, Kate, is the sun and the moon, or rather the sun and not the moon, for it shines bright and never changes but keeps his course truly. If thou would have such a one, take me.
Many people consider the things which government does for them to be social progress, but they consider the things government does for others as socialism.
Earl Warren (1891-1974) American jurist and politician; Chief Justice of the Supreme Court (1953-69)
Speech, Madison, Wisconsin (Jun 1955)
As for “literature of expression” and “literature of escape” — this is critics’ jargon, a use of abstract words as if they had absolute meanings. Everything written with vitality expresses that vitality: there are no dull subjects, only dull minds.
Raymond Chandler (1888-1959) American novelist
“The Simple Art of Murder,” Atlantic Monthly (Dec 1944)
When the skie falth we shall have Larkes.
[When the sky falls, we shall have larks.]
John Heywood (1497?-1580?) English playwright and epigrammist
Proverbes, Part 1, ch. 4 (1546)
(Source)