The great foe of democracy now and in the near future is plutocracy. Every year that passes brings out this antagonism more distinctly. It is to be the social war of the twentieth century. In that war militarism, expansion and imperialism will all favor plutocracy. In the first place, war and expansion will favor jobbery, both in the dependencies and at home. In the second place, they will take away the attention of the people from what the plutocrats are doing. In the third place, they will cause large expenditures of the people’s money, the return for which will not go into the treasury, but into the hands of a few schemers. In the fourth place, they will call for a large public debt and taxes, and these things especially tend to make men unequal, because any social burdens bear more heavily on the weak than on the strong, and so make the weak weaker and the strong stronger. Therefore expansion and imperialism are a grand onslaught on democracy.
William Graham Sumner (1840-1910) American minister, sociologist, anthropologist.
“The Conquest of the United States by Spain” (1899)
Full text.
If science proves some belief of Buddhism wrong, then Buddhism will have to change. In my view, science and Buddhism share a search for the truth and for understanding reality. By learning from science about aspects of reality where its understanding may be more advanced, I believe that Buddhism enriches its own worldview.
The Dalai Lama (b. 1935) Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader [The 14th Dalai Lama; a/k/a Lhama Thondup / Lhama Dhondrub; b. Tenzin Gyatso]
“Our Faith in Science,” editorial, New York times (12 Nov 2005)
Full text.
Illness is a convent which has its rule, its austerity, its silences, and its inspirations.
Albert Camus (1913-1960) Algerian-French novelist, essayist, playwright
Notebooks: 1942-1951, Notebook 4, Jan 1942 – Sep 1945 [tr. O’Brien/Thody (1963)
(Source)
Once a doctrine, however irrational, has gained power in a society, millions of people will believe in it rather than feel ostracized and isolated.
Erich Fromm (1900-1980) American psychoanalyst and social philosopher
Psychoanalysis and Religion, ch. 3 (1950)
Being divorced is like being hit by a Mack truck. If you live through it, you start looking very carefully to the right and to the left.
Jean Kerr (1922-2003) American author and playwright [b. Bridget Jean Collins]
Mary, Mary, ch. 1 (1960)
It is always a bad sign in an army when scapegoats are habitually sought out and brought to sacrifice for every conceivable mistake. It usually shows something very wrong in the highest command. It completely inhibits the willingness of junior commanders to make decisions, for they will always try to get chapter and verse for everything they do.
Erwin Rommel (1891-1944) German field marshal
(Dec. 1942), The Rommel Papers, 18 (ed. B. H. Liddell Hart) (1953)
In this country the Episcopalians have done some good, and I want to thank that church. Having on an average less religion than the others — on an average you have done more good to mankind. You preserved some of the humanities. You did not hate music; you did not absolutely despise painting, and you did not altogether abhor architecture, and you finally admitted that it was no worse to keep time with your feet than with your hands. And some went so far as to say that people could play cards, and that God would overlook it, or would look the other way. For all these things accept my thanks.
Robert Green Ingersoll (1833-1899) American lawyer, agnostic, orator
“What Must We Do to Be Saved?” Sec. 7 (1880)
(Source)
In the real dark night of the soul it is always three o’clock in the morning, day after day.
F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940) American writer [Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald]
“Handle with Care,” Esquire (Mar 1936)
Many married couples separate because they quarrel incessantly; but just as many separate because they were never honest enough or courageous enough to quarrel when they should have.
Sydney J. Harris (1917-1986) Anglo-American columnist, journalist, author
Syndicated column, Chicago Daily News (1965)
Trust him no further than you can throw him.
Thomas Fuller (1654-1734) English physician, preacher, aphorist, writer
Gnomologia: Adages and Proverbs, #5286 (1732)
(Source)
To a monster the norm must seem monstrous, since everyone is normal to himself.
John Steinbeck (1902-1968) American writer
East of Eden (1952)
It is a waste of time to be angry about my disability. One has to get on with life and I haven’t done badly. People won’t have time for you if you are always angry or complaining.
Stephen Hawking (1942-2018) English physicist, author
“Return of the Time Lord,” interview by Emma Brockes, Guardian (27 Sep 2005)
Full text.
Democracy is the only system that persists in asking the powers that be whether they are the powers that ought to be.
Sydney J. Harris (1917-1986) Anglo-American columnist, journalist, author
(Attributed)
There are few ironclad rules of diplomacy, but to one there is no exception. When an official reports that talks were useful, it can safely be concluded that nothing was accomplished.
John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-2006) Canadian-American economist, diplomat, author
“The American Ambassador,” Foreign Service Journal (Jun 1969)
Divorce isn’t caused because 50% of marriages end in gayness.
Jon Stewart (b. 1962) American satirist, comedian, and television host. [b. Jonathan Stuart Leibowitz]
The Daily Show (2006-06-06)
(Source)
Debating gay marriage with William Bennett and the assertion that marriage equality will weaken the institution.
No writer who knows the great writers who did not receive the Prize can accept it other than with humility. There is no need to list these writers. Everyone here may make his own list according to his knowledge and his conscience.
Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) American writer
Speech accepting the Nobel Prize (10 Dec 1954)
Full text.
In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.
Albert Camus (1913-1960) Algerian-French novelist, essayist, playwright
“Return to Tipasa,” Summer (1954)
There are two kinds of “disabled” persons: Those who dwell on what they have lost and those who concentrate on what they have left.
Thomas Szasz (1920-2012) Hungarian-American psychiatrist, educator
“Personal Conduct,” The Untamed Tongue (1990)
That’s the way it is when you love. It makes you suffer, and I have suffered much in the years since. But it matters little that you suffer, so long as you feel alive with a sense of the close bond that connects all living things, so long as love does not die!
Herman Hesse (1877-1962) German-born Swiss poet, novelist, painter
Peter Camenzind (1904)
Fearlessness is the first requisite of spirituality. Cowards can never be moral.
Mohandas Gandhi (1869-1948) Indian philosopher and nationalist [Mahatma Gandhi]
In Young India (13 Oct 1921)
Those only deserve a monument who do not need one; that is, who have raised themselves a monument in the minds and memories of men.
No matter who you are or what you plan to do in life, learn to type!
Liz Smith (1923-2017) American entertainment journalist [Mary Elizabeth Smith]
(Attributed)
Do not turn away, through cowardice, from despair. Go through it. … Pass beyond. On the other side of the tunnel you will find light again.
André Gide (1869-1951) French author, Nobel laureate
Journal, detatched pages (1928) [tr. J. O’Brien (1951)]
Our frustration is greater when we have much and want more than when we have nothing and want some. We are less dissatisfied when we lack many things than when we seem to lack but one thing.
Eric Hoffer (1902-1983) American writer, philosopher, longshoreman
True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements, Part 2, ch. 4, § 23 (1951)
(Source)
Don’t forget your great guns, which are the most respectable arguments of the rights of kings.
Frederick II (1712-1786) King of Prussia (a.k.a. Frederick the Great)
Letter to his brother, Prince Henry (21 Apr 1759)
All progress has resulted from people who took unpopular positions. All change is the result of a change in the contemporary state of mind. Don’t be afraid of being out of tune with your environment, and above all pray God that you are not afraid to live, to live hard and fast.
Adlai Stevenson (1900-1965) American diplomat, statesman
“The Educated Citizen,” Address, Princeton University (22 Mar 1954)
Full text.
Winter is icummen in,
Lhude sing Goddamm,
Raineth drop and staineth slop
And how the wind doth ramm!Ezra Pound (1885-1972) American expatriate poet, critic, intellectual
“Ancient Music” l. 1-4 (1902)
Parody of Anglo-Saxon poem, "Cuckoo Song." Full text.
The first thing I want to teach is disloyalty. … This will beget independence — which is loyalty to one’s best self and principles, and this is often disloyalty to the general idols and fetishes.
Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
Mark Twain’s Notebook [ed. Paine (1935)]
Dissatisfaction is a sign of people who are walking on the road and not standing still.
Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) Russian novelist and moral philosopher
Thoughts and Aphorisms, 8.1 (1886-93) [tr. L. Wiener (1905)]
Always be tactful and well-mannered and teach your subordinates to be the same. Avoid excessive sharpness or harshness of voice, which usually indicates the man who has shortcomings of his own to hide.
Erwin Rommel (1891-1944) German field marshal
Lecture to class of cadets (1938)
In B. H. Liddell Hart, ed., The Rommel Papers, ch. 10 (footnote) (1953)
I attacked the doctrine of eternal pain. I hold it in infinite and utter abhorrence. And if there be a God in this universe who made a hell; if there be a God in this universe who denies to any human being the right of reformation, then that God is not good, that God is not just, and the future of man is infinitely dark. I despise that doctrine, and I have done what little I could to get that horror from the cradle, that horror from the hearts of mothers, that horror from the hearts of husbands and fathers, and sons, and brothers, and sisters. It is a doctrine that turns to ashes all the humanities of life and all the hopes of mankind. I despise it.
Robert Green Ingersoll (1833-1899) American lawyer, agnostic, orator
“Reply to Rev. Drs. Thomas and Lorimer,” speech, Chicago (26 Nov 1882)
(Source)
You can’t teach an old dogma new tricks.
Dorothy Parker (1893-1967) American writer
In Robert E. Drennan, ed., “Dorothy Parker,” The Algonquin Wits (1968)
Here in America we are descended in blood and spirit from revolutionaries and rebels — men and women who dared to dissent from accepted doctrine. As their heirs, may we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion.
Dwight David Eisenhower (1890-1969) American general, US President (1953-61)
Speech, Columbia University Bicentennial Dinner, New York City (31 May 1954)
And the great owners, who must lose their land in an upheaval, the great owners with access to history, with eyes to read history and to know the great fact: when property accumulates in too few hands it is taken away. And that companion fact: when a majority of the people are hungry and cold they will take by force what they need. And the little screaming fact that sounds through all history: repression works only to strengthen and knit the repressed. The great owners ignored the three cries of history. The land fell into fewer hands, the number of dispossessed increased, and every effort of the great owners was directed at repression.
I have no idea. People who boast about their IQ are losers.
Stephen Hawking (1942-2018) English physicist, author
“The Science of Second-Guessing”, interview by Deborah Solomon, New York Times (12 Dec 2004)
When asked his IQ.
A dissenter is to the absoluteness of power what an exception is to the validity of a formulated scientific rule — both must be dealt with and somehow eliminated.
Eric Hoffer (1902-1983) American writer, philosopher, longshoreman
Ordeal of Change, 15.4 (1964)
In a society of sovereign states, an agreement will be maintained only if all partners consider it in their interest. They must have a sense of participation in the result. The art of diplomacy is not to outsmart the other side but to convince it either of common interests or of penalties if an impasse continues.
Henry Kissinger (b. 1923) German-American diplomat
Years of Upheaval, ch. 6 (1982)
God doth not promise here to man that He
Will free him quickly from his misery;
But in His own time, and when He thinks fit,
Then He will give a happy end to it.Robert Herrick (1591-1674) English poet
“God’s Time Must End Our Trouble,” Hesperides, # 252 (1648)
Love what you do. Get good at it. Competence is a rare commodity in this day and age. And let the chips fall where they may.
Jon Stewart (b. 1962) American satirist, comedian, and television host. [b. Jonathan Stuart Leibowitz]
Commencement Address, College of William & Mary (2004-05-20)
(Source)
Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words? He thinks I don’t know the ten-dollar words. I know them all right. But there are older and simpler and better words, and those are the ones I use.
Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) American writer
In A. E. Hotchner, Papa Hemingway, Pt. 1, ch. 4 “Havana, 1951-53” (1966)
When told Faulkner said Hemingway was not courageous enough to use words a reader might need to look up in the dictionary. Full text.
Cannon and fire-arms are cruel and damnable machines. I believe them to have been the direct suggestion of the devil. Against the flying ball, no valour avails; the soldier is dead ‘ere he sees the means of his destruction.
Martin Luther (1483-1546) German religious reformer
Table Talk, # 820 [tr. W. Hazlitt (1848)]
Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
Steve Jobs (1955-2011) American computer inventor, entrepreneur
Commencement Address, Stanford University (2005)
(Source)
Diplomacy and defense are not substitutes for one another. Either alone would fall.
John F. Kennedy (1917-1963) US President (1961-63)
Speech, University of Washington, Seattle (16 Nov 1961)
A courageous effort consecrates an unhappy end.
Lewis Mumford (1895-1990) American writer, philosopher, historian, architect
The Conduct of Life, 9.10 (1951)
The true barbarian is he who thinks every thing barbarous but his own tastes and prejudices.
In a democracy, the majority of the citizens is capable of exercising the most cruel oppressions upon the minority.
Edmund Burke (1729-1797) Anglo-Irish statesman, orator, philosopher
Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)
Despair is a greater deceiver than hope.
Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues (1715-1747) French moralist, essayist, soldier
Reflections and Maxims [Réflexions et maximes], #455 (1746) [tr. Stevens (1940)]
When as in silks my Julia goes,
Then, then, methinks how sweetly flows
That liquefaction of her clothes.
Next, when I cast mine eyes and see
That brave vibration each way free;
Oh how that glittering taketh me!
The orthodox of all persuasions — Jews and Christians and Muslims, theists and atheists, leftists and rightists — get so wrapped up in their eternal quests, their conversion campaigns, their apocalypses and their utopias, the Rapture and the Revolution, that they forget to ENJOY their infinitesimal time on earth. They forget LIFE, LOVE, LAUGHTER and LIBERTY. Why would anyone make that mistake? God only knows.
Marty Beckerman (b. 1983) American alternative journalist, humorist, author
Dumbocracy, Part III “The Promised Land” (2008)
What do I believe? As an American I believe in generosity, in liberty, in the rights of man. These are social and political faiths that are part of me, as they are, I suppose, part of all of us. Such beliefs are easy to express. But part of me too is my relation to all life, my religion. And this is not so easy to talk about. Religious experience is highly intimate and, for me, ready words are not at hand. I am profoundly aware of the magnitude of the universe, that all is ruled by law, including my finite person. I believe in the infinite wisdom that envelops and embraces me and from which I take direction, purpose, strength.
Adlai Stevenson (1900-1965) American diplomat, statesman
Essay, This I Believe, Vol. 2 (1952) [ed. E. Murrow]
Here shall the Press the People’s right maintain,
Unaw’d by influence and unbrib’d by gain;
Here patriot Truth her glorious precepts draw,
Pledg’d to Religion, Liberty, and Law.Joseph Story (1779-1845) American lawyer, jurist, Supreme Court Justice (1811-1845)
Motto of the Salem Register newspaper
For man, unlike any other thing organic or inorganic in the universe, grows beyond his work, walks up the stairs of his concepts, emerges ahead of his accomplishments. This you may say of man — when theories change and crash, when schools, philosophies, when narrow dark alleys of thought, national, religious, economic, grow and disintegrate, man reaches, stumbles forward, painfully, mistakenly sometimes. Having stepped forward, he may slip back, but only half a step, never the full step back. This you may say and know it and know it. This you may know when the bombs plummet out of the black planes on the market place, when prisoners are stuck like pigs, when the crushed bodies drain filthily in the dust. You may know it in this way. If the step were not being taken, if the stumbling-forward ache were not alive, the bombs would not fall, the throats would not be cut. Fear the time when the bombs stop falling while the bombers live — for every bomb is proof that the spirit has not died. And fear the time when the strikes stop while the great owners live — for every little beaten strike is proof that the step is being taken. And this you can know — fear the time when Manself will not suffer and die for a concept, for this one quality is the foundation of Manself, and this one quality is man, distinctive in the universe.
John Steinbeck (1902-1968) American writer
The Grapes of Wrath, ch. 14 (1939)
Life would be tragic if it weren’t funny.
Stephen Hawking (1942-2018) English physicist, author
“The Science of Second-Guessing”, interview by Deborah Solomon, New York Times (12 Dec 2004)
What comes out of a man is what makes him “unclean.” For from within, out of men’s hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and make a man “unclean.”
The Bible (The New Testament) (AD 1st - 2nd C) Christian sacred scripture
Mark 7:20-23 (NIV)
