I would say to the House, as I said to those who have joined this Government: “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.” We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering. You ask, what is our policy? I can say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us; to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.
Winston Churchill (1874-1965) British statesman and author
Speech, House of Commons (13 May 1940)
(Source)
Churchill's first speech in the House after becoming prime minister. Often paraphrased, "I have nothing to offer but blood, sweat and tears..." Audio records of the speech omit the "It is" in the beginning of the "Victory" section.
I hope your rambles have been sweet and your reveries spacious.
Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) American poet
Letter to Dr. & Mrs. J.G. Holland (Autumn 1876)
Full text.
Be neither too early in the Fashion, nor too long out of it, nor at any time too precisely in it.
Thomas Fuller (1654-1734) English physician, preacher, aphorist, writer
Introductio ad Prudentiam, # 498 (1725)
(Source)
Men fear death as children fear to go in the dark; and as that natural fear in children is increased with tales, so is the other.
Francis Bacon (1561-1626) English philosopher, scientist, author, statesman
“Of Death,” Essays, No. 2 (1625)
(Source)
The Americans are poor haters in international affairs because of their innate feeling of superiority over all foreigners. An American’s hatred for a fellow American (for Hoover or Roosevelt) is far more virulent than any antipathy he can work up against foreigners. […] Should Americans begin to hate foreigners wholeheartedly, it will be an indication that they have lost confidence in their own way of life.
Eric Hoffer (1902-1983) American writer, philosopher, longshoreman
True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements, Part 3, ch. 14, § 73 (1951)
(Source)
All the inducements of early society tend to foster immediate action; all its penalties fall on the man who pauses; the traditional wisdom of those times was never weary of inculcating that “delays are dangerous,” and that the sluggish man — the man “who roasteth not that which he took in hunting” — will not prosper on the earth, and indeed will very soon perish out of it. And in consequence an inability to stay quiet, an irritable desire to act directly, is one of the most conspicuous failings of mankind.
Walter Bagehot (1826-1877) British businessman, essayist, journalist
Physics and Politics, ch. 5 “The Age of Discussion” (1869)
Full text.
Goe not for every griefe to the Physitian, nor for every quarrell to the Lawyer, nor for every thirst to the pot.
George Herbert (1593-1633) Welsh priest, orator, poet.
Jacula Prudentum, or Outlandish Proverbs, Sentences, &c. (compiler), # 290 (1640 ed.)
(Source)
When a resolute young fellow steps up to the great bully, the world, and takes him boldly by the beard, he is often surprised to find it comes off in his hand, and that it was only tied on to scare away the timid adventurers.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809-1894) American poet, essayist, scholar
Elsie Venner, ch. 2 (1891)
(Source)
Often misattributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Shy and proud men … are more liable than any others to fall into the hands of parasites and creatures of low character. For in the intimacies which are formed by shy men, they do not choose, but are chosen.
For it seems to me that an unjust law is no law at all.
[Nam mihi lex esse non videtur, quae justa non fuerit.]
Augustine of Hippo (354-430) Christian church father, philosopher, saint [b. Aurelius Augustinus]
On Free Choice of the Will [De Libero Arbitrio Voluntatis], Book 1, ch. 4, sec. 11 / 33 (1.4.11.22) (AD 388) [tr Williams (1993)]
(Source)
More discussion about this and parallel quotations from other notables: An unjust law is no law at all - Wikipedia.
(Source (Latin)). Alternate translations:
A law which is not just does not seem to me to be a law.
[tr. Mark Pontifex (1955)]
For I think that a law that is not just is not a law.
[tr. Benjamin/Hackstaff (1964)]
For I think a law that is not just, is not actually a law.
[E.g.]
The experience of the United States is a happy disproof of the error so long rooted in the unenlightened minds of well-meaning Christians, as well as in the corrupt hearts of persecuting usurpers, that without a legal incorporation of religious and civil polity, neither could be supported. A mutual independence is found most friendly to practical Religion, to social harmony, and to political prosperity.
I think that we should be eternally vigilant against attempts to check the expression of opinions that we loathe and believe to be fraught with death, unless they so imminently threaten immediate interference with the lawful and pressing purposes of the law that an immediate check is required to save the country.
The only trouble with capitalism is capitalists; they’re too damn greedy.
Herbert Hoover (1874-1964) American engineer, bureaucrat, President of the US (1928-32)
(Attibuted)
Remark to columnist Mark Sullivan (c. 1929). Spencer Howard, an archivist at the Hoover Presidential Library, says Sullivan's son recalled Hoover saying this to his father at least once in the early 1930s.
The mischief of flattery is not that it persuades any man that he is what he is not, but that it suppresses the influence of honest ambition, by raising an opinion that honor may be gained without the toil of merit.
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) English writer, lexicographer, critic
The Rambler, #155 (10 Sep 1751)
(Source)
Never, never, never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on the strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter. The statesman who yields to war fever must realise that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events. Antiquated War Offices, weak, incompetent, or arrogant Commanders, untrustworthy allies, hostile neutrals, malignant Fortune, ugly surprises, awful miscalculations — all take their seats at the Council Board on the morrow of a declaration of war. Always remember, however sure you are that you could easily win, that there would not be a war if the other man did not think he also had a chance.
Let this be my last word, that I trust in thy love.
Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) Indian Bengali poet, philosopher [a.k.a. Rabi Thakur, Kabiguru]
Stray Birds (1916)
Full text.
Let no one be discouraged by the belief that there is nothing one man or one woman can do against the enormous array of the world’s ills — against misery and ignorance, injustice and violence … Few will have the greatness to bend history itself; but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation …
Robert Francis Kennedy (1925-1968) American politician
“Day of Affirmation,” address, University of Capetown, South Africa (6 Jun 1966)
(Source)
One of the greatest pains to human nature is the pain of a new idea.
Walter Bagehot (1826-1877) British businessman, essayist, journalist
Physics and Politics, ch. 5 “The Age of Discussion” (1869)
Full text.
Hell is full of good meanings and wishings.
George Herbert (1593-1633) Welsh priest, orator, poet.
Jacula Prudentum, or Outlandish Proverbs, Sentences, &c. (compiler), # 170 (1640 ed.)
(Source)
It’s the strange thing about this church: it is obsessed with sex, absolutely obsessed. Now they will say, we with our permissive society and our rude jokes are obsessed — no, we have a healthy attitude: we like it, it’s fun, it’s jolly. Because it’s a primary impulse, it can be dangerous and dark and difficult. It’s a bit like food in that respect, only even more exciting. The only people who are obsessed with food are anorexics and the morbidly obese, and that in erotic terms is the Catholic church in a nutshell.
Stephen Fry (b. 1957) British actor, writer, comedian
The Intelligence Squared Debate, BBC World (7 Nov 2009)
Full video.
Deep-seated preferences cannot be argued about — you cannot argue a man into liking a glass of beer — and therefore, when differences are sufficiently far reaching, we try to kill the other man rather than let him have his way. But that is perfectly consistent with admitting that, so far as appears, his grounds are just as good as ours.
VENKMAN: This city is headed for a disaster of Biblical proportions.
MAYOR: What do you mean, “Biblical”?
RAY: What he means is Old Testament, Mr. Mayor, real wrath-of-God type stuff. Fire and brimstone coming down from the sky! Rivers and seas boiling!
EGON: Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes …
WINSTON: The dead rising from the grave!
VENKMAN: Human sacrifice! Dogs and cats living together! Mass hysteria!
Our century is probably more religious than any other. How could it fail to be, with such problems to be solved? The only trouble is that it has not yet found a God it can adore.
A Degree of Fear sharpeneth, the Excess of it stupifieth.
George Savile, Marquis of Halifax (1633-1695) English politician and essayist
“Fear,” Political, Moral and Miscellaneous Reflections (1750)
(Source)
Congress should not establish a religion and enforce the legal observation of it by law, nor compel men to worship God in any manner contary to their conscience, or that one sect might obtain a pre-eminence, or two combined together, and establish a religion to which they would compel others to conform.
At first you can stand the spotlight in your eyes. Then it blinds you. Others can see you, but you cannot see them.
Charles Lindbergh (1902-1974) American aviator and author
Interview, New York Times (1932)
Many years ago, I concluded that a few hair shirts were part of the mental wardrobe of every man. The president differs from other men in that he has a more extensive wardrobe.
It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations. Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations is an admirable work, and I studied it intently. The quotations when engraved upon the memory give you good thoughts. They also make you anxious to read the authors and look for more.
If you shed tears when you miss the sun, you also miss the stars.
Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) Indian Bengali poet, philosopher [a.k.a. Rabi Thakur, Kabiguru]
Stray Birds (1916)
Full text.
The best doctors in the world are Doctor Diet, Doctor Quiet, and Doctor Merryman.
And if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains but do not have love, I am nothing.
The Bible (The New Testament) (AD 1st - 2nd C) Christian sacred scripture
1 Corinthians 13:2 [NRSV (1989)]
Alternate translations:
And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.
[KJV (1611)]
If I have the gift of prophecy, understanding all the mysteries there are, and knowing everything, and if I have faith in all its fulness, to move mountains, but without love, then I am nothing at all.
[Jerusalem (1966)]
I may have the gift of inspired preaching; I may have all knowledge and understand all secrets; I may have all the faith needed to move mountains—but if I have no love, I am nothing.
[GNT (1976)]
They who clamor loudest for freedom are often the ones least likely to be happy in a free society. The frustrated, oppressed by their shortcomings, blame their failure on existing restraints. Actually, their innermost desire is for an end to the “free for all.” They want to eliminate free competition and the ruthless testing to which the individual is continually subjected in a free society.
Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman, civil rights leader, social activist, preacher
Strength to Love, ch. 4 “Love in Action,” sec 3 (1963)
(Source)
Where the drink goes in, there the wit goes out.
George Herbert (1593-1633) Welsh priest, orator, poet.
Jacula Prudentum, or Outlandish Proverbs, Sentences, &c. (compiler), # 187 (1640 ed.)
(Source)
The great difficulty which history records is not that of the first step, but that of the second step. What is most evident is not the difficulty of getting a fixed law, but getting out of a fixed law; not of cementing (as upon a former occasion I phrased it) a cake of custom, but of breaking the cake of custom; not of making the first preservative habit, but of breaking through it, and reaching something better.
Walter Bagehot (1826-1877) British businessman, essayist, journalist
Physics and Politics, ch. 2 “The Use of Conflict” (1869)
Full text.
Gentlemen, gentlemen, be of good cheer.
For they are out there, and we are in here.(Other Authors and Sources)
Motto of the Playboy Mansion
Originated by Robert Culp (1930-2010), per H. Hefner.