Singing is loving.
[Cantare Amantis est]
Augustine of Hippo (354-430) Christian church father, philosopher, saint [b. Aurelius Augustinus]
(Attributed)
Alt. trans.:
- "Singing is characteristic of a loving person."
- "Singing is what the lover does."
- "Singing belongs to one who loves."
Every new and successful example, therefore, of a perfect separation between the ecclesiastical and civil matters, is of importance; and I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in showing that religion and Government will both exist in greater purity the less they are mixed together.
James Madison (1751-1836) American statesman, political theorist, US President (1809-17)
Letter to Edward Livingston (10 Jul 1822)
Neil Gaiman (b. 1960) British author, screenwriter, fabulist
Sandman, Book 3. Dream Country, # 20 “Façade” (1990)
(Source)
There is nothing upon the face of the earth so insipid as a medium. Give me love or hate! A friend that will go to jail for me, or an enemy that will run me through the body!
Frances Burney (1752-1840) English novelist, diarist, playwright [Fanny Burney, Madame d’Arblay]
Camilla, Book 3, ch. 12 (1796)
Older men declare war. But it is youth that must fight and die. And it is youth who must inherit the tribulation, the sorrow and the triumphs that are the aftermath of war.
Herbert Hoover (1874-1964) American engineer, bureaucrat, President of the US (1928-32)
Speech, Republican National Convention, Chicago (27 Jun 1944)
The mode of flattery … best adapted to the purposes of a statesman is the flattery of listening.
Henry Taylor (1800-1886) English dramatist, poet, bureaucrat, man of letters
The Statesman: An Ironical Treatise on the Art of Succeeding, ch. 31 (1836)
Every day you may make progress. Every step may be fruitful. Yet there will stretch out before you an ever-lengthening, ever-ascending, ever-improving path. You know you will never get to the end of the journey. But this, so far from discouraging, only adds to the joy and the glory of the climb.
Winston Churchill (1874-1965) British statesman and author
“Painting as a Pastime,” The Strand Magazine (Dec 1921/Jan 1922)
Knowledge is partial, because our intellect is an instrument, it is only a part of us, it can give us information about things which can be divided and analysed, and whose properties can be classified part by part. But Brahma is perfect, and knowledge which is partial can never be a knowledge of him.
Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) Indian Bengali poet, philosopher [a.k.a. Rabi Thakur, Kabiguru]
Sādhanā : The Realisation of Life (1916)
We want the facts to fit the preconceptions. When they don’t, it is easier to ignore the facts than to change the preconceptions.
Jessamyn West (1902-1984) American writer, Quaker
The Quaker Reader, Introduction (1962)
MAL: It’s my estimation that every man ever got a statue made of him was one kind of sumbitch or another.
Ben Edlund (b. 1968) American cartoonist, writer, producer
Firefly, 1×07 “Jaynestown” (18 Oct 2002)
Encourage free schools, and resolve that not one dollar of money shall be appropriated to the support of any sectarian school. Resolve that neither the state nor nation shall support institutions of learning other than those sufficient to afford every child growing up in the land the opportunity of a good common school education, unmixed with sectarian, pagan, or atheistical dogmas. Leave the matter of religion to the family altar, the church, and the private schools, supported entirely by private contributions. Keep the church and state forever separate.
Ulysses S. Grant (1822-1885) American military leader, US President (1869-77)
Speech to veterans of the Army of Tennessee (30 Sep 1875)
Riches are a good handmaid, but the worst mistress.
Francis Bacon (1561-1626) English philosopher, scientist, author, statesman
De Augmentis Scientiarum [Advancement of Learning], Book 6, ch. 3, Antitheses #6 “Riches” (1605)
(Source)
There is all the difference in the world between departure from recognized rules by one who has learned to obey them, and neglect of them through want of training or want of skill or want of understanding. Before you can be eccentric, you must know where the circle is.
Ellen Terry (1848-1928) English stage actress
Ellen Terry’s Memoirs, 2nd ed., ch. 5 (1932)
National budgets are a nation’s theology walking.
Joan D. Chittister (b. 1936) American Benedictine nun, author and lecturer
“From Where I Stand,” column, National Catholic Reporter (17 Feb 2005)
(Source)
The wisest thing to do with a fool is to encourage him to hire a hall and discourse to his fellow citizens. Nothing chills nonsense like exposure to the air.
Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924) US President (1913-20), educator, political scientist
Constitutional Government in the United States, ch. 2 (1908)
The greatest pleasure in life is doing what other people say you cannot do.
Walter Bagehot (1826-1877) British businessman, essayist, journalist
“Shakespeare — The Man,” Prospective Review (Jul 1853)
Full text.
Good words are worth much, and cost little.
George Herbert (1593-1633) Welsh priest, orator, poet.
Jacula Prudentum, or Outlandish Proverbs, Sentences, &c. (compiler), # 155 (1640 ed.)
(Source)
For me, to be a feminist is to answer the question: “Are women human?” with a yes. It is not about whether women are better than, worse than, or identical with men. It’s certainly not about trading personal liberty — abortion, divorce, sexual self-expression — for social protection as wives and mothers, as pro-life feminists propose. It’s about justice, fairness and access to the broad range of human experience. It’s about women consulting their own well-being and being judged as individuals rather than as members of a class with one personality, one social function, one road to happiness. It’s about women having intrinsic value as persons rather than contingent value as a means to an end for others: fetuses, children, “the family,” men.
Katha Pollitt (b. 1949) American poet, feminist, essayist, critic
Reasonable Creatures: Essays on Women and Feminism, Introduction (1994)
The whole history of civilization is strewn with creeds and institutions which were invaluable at first, and deadly afterward.
Walter Bagehot (1826-1877) British businessman, essayist, journalist
Physics and Politics, Part 2, ch. 3 (1872)
I am very imperfect. Before you are gone you will have discovered a hundred of my faults, and if you don’t, I will help you to see them.
Mohandas Gandhi (1869-1948) Indian philosopher and nationalist [Mahatma Gandhi]
Remark (1942)
To Louis Fischer, The Life of Mahatma Gandhi, ch. 38 (1950)
Ubi saeva indignatio ulterius cor lacerare nequit
[Where savage indignation can lacerate his heart no more.]
Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) English writer and churchman
Epitaph
Inscribed on his grave, St. Patrick's, Dublin.
Certitude is not the test of certainty. We have been cocksure of many things that were not so.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (1841-1935) American jurist, Supreme Court Justice
“Natural Law,” Harvard Law Review (1918-11)
(Source)
Legal citation: 32 Harvard Law Review 40, 41 (1918).
Honesty may not be the best policy, but it is worth trying once in a while.
Richard M. Nixon (1913-1994) American politician, writer, US President (1967-74)
Comment in a meeting (1970)
Quoted in H. Stein, "Herb Stein's Unfamiliar Quotations," Slate (16 May 1997).
When Congress passes new emission standards, we hire 50 more engineers and GM hires 50 more lawyers.
Soichiro Honda (1906-1991) Japanese industrialist
(Attributed)
No greater hell than to be slave to fear.
Ben Jonson (1572-1637) English playwright and poet
Every Man in His Humour, 3.2 (1598)
What does love look like? It has the hands to help others. It has the feet to hasten to the poor and needy. It has eyes to see misery and want. It has the ears to hear the sighs and sorrows of men. That is what love looks like.
Augustine of Hippo (354-430) Christian church father, philosopher, saint [b. Aurelius Augustinus]
(Attributed)
The old woman took the umbrella, gratefully, and smiled her thanks. “You’ve a good heart,” she told him. “Sometimes that’s enough to see you safe wherever you go.” Then she shook her head. “But mostly, it’s not.”
Many people dream of success. To me success can only be achieved through repeated failure and introspection. In fact, success represents the 1 percent of your work that only comes from the 99 percent that is called failure.
Soichiro Honda (1906-1991) Japanese industrialist
(Attributed)
In T. Peters, Thriving on Chaos (1988)
I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.
The Bible (The New Testament) (AD 1st - 2nd C) Christian sacred scripture
John 13:34-45 (NRSV)
Alternate translations:
- NIV: "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."
- KJV: "A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another."
- "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."
See Matthew 22:36-40.
What really flatters a man is that you think him worth flattering.
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) British playwright and critic
John Bull’s Other Island, ch. 4 (1904)
The truth is incontrovertible. Panic may resent it, ignorance may deride it, malice may distort it, but there it is.
Winston Churchill (1874-1965) British statesman and author
Speech, House of Commons (17 May 1916)
The truth comes as conqueror only because we have lost the art of receiving it as guest.
Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) Indian Bengali poet, philosopher [a.k.a. Rabi Thakur, Kabiguru]
The Fourfold Way of India (1924)
Often paraphrased: "Truth comes as conqueror only to those who have lost the art of receiving it as friend."
Administrivia: Doing the Numbers: 4/2010
It’s been a bit over a year since I last ran the numbers on WIST. In that time, I’ve continued my daily updates, plus shifted things over to WordPress. Let’s see how things have changed.
| How many … | Apr-2010 | Jan-2009 | Feb-2007 | Aug-2003 | Feb-2002 | Nov-2000 |
| Miscellaneous Quotations? | 495 | 507 | 475 | 457 | 446 | 400 |
| Authored Quotations? | 7,618 | 6,091 | 4,610 | 4,233 | 3,869 | 3,208 |
| Total Quotations? | 8,113 | 6,598 | 5,085 | 4,690 | 4,315 | 3,608 |
| Authors? | 1,836 | 1,751 | 1,672 | 1,632 | 1,566 | 1,396 |
The Miscellaneous Quotes number is down a bit due mostly to my moving Bible quotes into the “Authored” category. But I’m very pleased by how the overall total has gone up — amazing what 5 quotes entered nearly every workday can do for those counts.
As to the top authors cited, taking 50 as a threshold …
| Rank | Who | Quotes |
| 1 | Shakespeare, William | 118 |
| 2 | Emerson, Ralph Waldo | 84 |
| 2 | Twain, Mark | 84 |
| 4 | Shaw, George Bernard | 79 |
| 5 | Russell, Bertrand | 73 |
| 6 | Lewis, C.S. | 66 |
| 7 | Chesterton, Gilbert Keith | 65 |
| 8 | Roosevelt, Theodore | 60 |
| 9 | Lincoln, Abraham | 59 |
| 10 | Einstein, Albert | 55 |
| 11 | Franklin, Benjamin | 55 |
| 12 | Ingersoll, Robert G. | 54 |
| 13 | Stevenson, Adlai | 50 |
| 14 | Watterson, Bill | 50 |
Teddy, Abe and Albert have all gotten back into the Top 10 (which only required 44 quotes last time). Ben and Bill have dropped out, and Ambrose Bierce has completely disappeared (heh).
Note that the changes can be somewhat skewed by how I select quotes for entry — some is randomized from various sources, but I’m also slowly going through the existing WIST database by author (at three points around the alphabet), and, as I get to each, trying to research any “Attributed” quotes as well as come up with more quotes for that author, which then go into a weekly rotation.
Still, a bunch of old white guys all of whom are either dead or retired. Not sure if that’s a good or bad thing, but there it is.
The current Top Quotes (by views) are always shown in the sidebar at WIST. As a snapshot:
- Teddy Roosevelt: “The New Nationalism,” speech, Osawatomie, Kansas (31 Aug 1910) (497)
- Seneca the Younger: De Tranquillitate Animi [On Tranquility of Mind] [tr. W. Langsdorf (1900)] (329)
- Michel de Montaigne: “That to Philosophize Is to Learn to Die,” Essays (1588) [tr. D. Frame (1958)] (327)
- Nathaniel Hawthorne: The Scarlet Letter, “Introduction: The Custom-House” (1850) (319)
- John Steinbeck: Nobel prize acceptance speech (10 Dec 1962) (295)
- Robert Frost: “The Lesson for Today,” A Witness Tree (1942) (287)
- Lord Chesterfield: Letter to his son (9 Oct 1746) (284)
- Robert Louis Stevenson: “Aes Triplex” (1878) (265)
- William Henley: “Invictus” (1875) (243)
- Patrick Henry: Speech, Virginia Ratifying Convention (5 Jun 1788) (202)
Now, why those particular quotes, I have no idea. Most of them are not particularly famous.
Finally, as far as all the Google Analytics numbers, I’m doing about about 560 visitors (470 unique) hitting around 750 pages per week. That appears to be down from the last time, substantially — but still enough to make me feel like someone’s appreciating the effort.
The vast majority of hits are from the US, but other English-speaking countries (UK, Canada, Australia, India) round out the top 5. 82% of visitors are new, the rest are returning customers. Three-quarters of the traffic is via search engines; 10% are referred from other sites, and over 15% enter in the address directly.
And those are the numbers, to go with the words.
As learned commentators view
In Homer more than Homer knew.Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) English writer and churchman
On Poetry (1733)
Secular schools can never be tolerated because such schools have no religious instruction, and a general moral instruction without a religious foundation is built on air; consequently, all character training and religion must be derived from faith.
Adolph Hitler (1889-1945) German leader
Speech (26 Apr 1933)
Made during negotiations toward the Nazi-Vatican Concordant of 1933.
A pun does not commonly justify a blow in return. But if a blow were given for such cause, and death ensued, the jury would be judges both of the facts and of the pun, and might, if the latter were of an aggravated character, return a verdict of justifiable homicide.
Whilst I concur with the synod in the efficacy of prayer and in the hope that our country may be preserved from the attack of pestilence … I am constrained to decline the appointment of any period or mode as proper for the public manifestation of this reliance. I could not do otherwise without transcending the limits prescribed by the Constitution for the President and without feeling that I might in some degree disturb the security which religion nowadays enjoys in this country in its complete separation from the political concerns of the General Government.
Andrew Jackson (1767-1845) American politician, general, US President (1829-1837)
Letter to the Synod of the Reformed Church of North America (12 Jun 1832)
On declining their request during a cholera epidemic for a national "day of fasting, humiliation, and prayer."
Knowledge is power.
[Nam et ipsa scientia potestas est.]
Francis Bacon (1561-1626) English philosopher, scientist, author, statesman
Sacred Meditations [Meditationes Sacræ], “Of Heresies [De Hæresibus]” (1597)
Alt. trans.: "Knowledge itself is power."
Unless a man has talents to make something of himself, freedom is an irksome burden. Of what avail is freedom to choose if the self be ineffectual? We join a mass movement to escape individual responsibility, or, in the words of the ardent young Nazi, “to be free from freedom.” It was not sheer hypocrisy when the rank-and-file Nazis declared themselves not guilty of all the enormities they had committed. They considered themselves cheated and maligned when made to shoulder responsibility for obeying orders. Had they not joined the Nazi movement in order to be free from responsibility?
Eric Hoffer (1902-1983) American writer, philosopher, longshoreman
The True Believer, Part II, Sec. 26 (1951)
There isn’t one senior manager in this company who hasn’t been associated with a product that flopped. That includes me. It’s like learning to ski. If you aren’t falling down, you’re not learning.
William D. Smithburg (b. 1938) American businessman
(Attributed)
Smithburg was chairman of Quaker Oats. In Bennis and Nanus, "Leading Others, Managing Yourself," Leaders: The Strategies for Taking Charge (1985)
But is uniformity of opinion desirable? No more than of face and stature. Introduce the bed of Procrustes then, and as there is danger that the great men may beat the small, make us all of a size, by lopping the former and stretching the latter. Difference of opinion is advantageous in religion. The several sects perform the office of a Censor morum over each other. Is uniformity attainable? Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites. To support roguery and error all over the earth.
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) American political philosopher, polymath, statesman, US President (1801-09)
Notes on the State of Virginia, Query 17 (1782)
(Source)
There are two kinds of fools: one says, “This is old, therefore it is good”; the other says, “This is new, therefore it is better.”
William Ralph Inge (1860-1954) English prelate [Dean Inge]
More Lay Thoughts of a Dean (1931)
Love your neighbour, yet pull not downe your hedge.
George Herbert (1593-1633) Welsh priest, orator, poet.
Jacula Prudentum, or Outlandish Proverbs, Sentences, &c. (compiler), # 141 (1640 ed.)
(Source)
… the strange interdependence between thoughtlessness and evil ….
Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) German-American philosopher, political theorist
Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, Postscript (1964)
We might define an eccentric as a man who is a law unto himself, and a crank as one who, having determined what the law is, insists on laying it down to others.
Louis Kronenberger (1904-1980) American critic, novelist, biographer
Company Manners: A Cultural Inquiry into American Life, 3.3 (1954)
If one religion only were allowed in England, the Government would very possibly become arbitrary; if there were but two, the people would cut one another’s throats; but as there are such a multitude, they all live happy and in peace.
Voltaire (1694-1778) French writer [pseud. of Francois-Marie Arouet]
Lettres philosophiques (1734)
It is always well to accept your own shortcomings with candor but to regard those of our friends with polite incredulity.
J. Russell Lynes (1910-1991) American educator, critic, writer
“The Art of Accepting,” Vogue (1 Sep 1952)
I ’ve often wish’d that I had clear,
For life, six hundred pounds a year;
A handsome house to lodge a friend;
A river at my garden’s end;
A terrace walk, and half a rood
Of land set out to plant a wood.Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) English writer and churchman
Imitation of Horace, Book II, Sat. 6
The accident of our finding certain opinions natural and familiar, or novel, and even shocking, ought not to conclude our judgment upon the question whether statutes embodying them conflict with the Constitution of the United States.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (1841-1935) American jurist, Supreme Court Justice
Lochner v. New York, 198 U.S. 45, 76 (1905) [Dissent]
Fiction reveals truths that reality obscures.
Jessamyn West (1902-1984) American writer, Quaker
To See the Dream, pt. 1 (1956)
I pray that none will be offended if I seek to make the Christian religion an inn where all are received joyously, rather than a cottage where some few friends of the family are to be received.
Richard Hooker (1554-1600) English theologian
(Attributed)
Unverified in Hooker's writings. Only appeared recently.
There were all kinds of things of which I was afraid at first, from grizzly bears to “mean” horses and gunfighters, but by acting as if I was not afraid, I gradually ceased to be afraid.
Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) American politician, statesman, conservationist, writer, US President (1901-1909)
An Autobiography, ch. 2 (1913)
Pray as though everything depended on God. Work as though everything depended on you.
Augustine of Hippo (354-430) Christian church father, philosopher, saint [b. Aurelius Augustinus]
(Attributed)
Also attributed to St. Ignatius Loyola, St. Benedict, and Brigham Young. Attributed to Francis Cardnial Spellman (though it predates him).Variant: "Work as if everything depends on you, and pray as if everything depends on God."
SHAKESPEARE: Well, my own fine words notwithstanding, life is no play. We meet people once, and never see them again. There is no shape to events, no point at which we turn to the audience for their praise. No time at which we step behind the stage, to see the actors changing their wigs, and painting their faces, and muttering their lines.
Neil Gaiman (b. 1960) British author, screenwriter, fabulist
Sandman, Book 10. The Wake, # 75 “The Tempest” (1996-02)
(Source)
Speaking to Morpheus. Final issue of the series.
Reason, devoid of the purifying power of faith, can never free itself from distortions and rationalizations.
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman, civil rights leader, social activist, preacher
“Pilgrimage to Nonviolence,” Christian Century (13 Apr 1960)
(Source)
