Trusting no man as his friend, he could not recognize his enemy when the latter actually appeared.
Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) American writer
The Scarlet Letter, ch. 10 “The Leech and His Patient” (1850)
The Lord made Adam,
The Lord made Eve,
He made ‘em both a little bit naive.E. Y. "Yip" Harburg (1896-1981) American lyricist [Edgar Yipsel Harburg, b. Isidore Hochberg]
“The Begat” in Finian’s Rainbow (1946)
And nothing to look backward to with pride,
And nothing to look forward to with hope.
After you have pumped your brains for thoughts and verses, there is a better poetry hinted in whistling a tune on your walk.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
Journal (1859, no date)
Consistency in regard to opinions is the slow poison of intellectual life.
Sir Humphry Davy (1778-1829) British chemist
(Attributed)
In Lord Acton, appendix (71) to Essays on Freedom and Power [ed. G. Himmelfarb] (1949)
It is easier to discover a deficiency in individuals, in states, and in providence, than to see their real import or value.
Am I a genius? I don’t think so. Not yet anyway. As Burt would put it, mocking the euphemisms of educational jargon, I’m exceptional — a democratic term used to avoid the damning labels of gifted and deprived (which used to mean bright and retarded) and as soon as exceptional begins to mean anything to anyone they’ll change it. The idea seems to be: use an expression only as long as it doesn’t mean anything to anybody. Exceptional refers to both ends of the spectrum, so all my life I’ve been exceptional.
Daniel F. Keyes (1927-2014) American author
“Flowers for Algernon” (1959)
The strength or weakness of our conviction depends more on our courage than on our intelligence.
Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues (1715-1747) French moralist, essayist, soldier
Reflections and Maxims [Réflexions et maximes], #318 (1746) [tr. Stevens (1940)]
If a man be gracious and courteous to strangers, it shows he is a citizen of the world, and that his heart is no island cut off from other lands, but a continent that joins to them.
Francis Bacon (1561-1626) English philosopher, scientist, author, statesman
“Of Goodness, and Goodness of Nature,” Essays, No. 13 (1625)
(Source)
Conscience is thoroughly well-bred and soon leaves off talking to those who do not wish to hear it.
Samuel Butler (1835-1902) English novelist, satirist, scholar
Further Extracts from the Note-Books of Samuel Butler, ch. 4 (1934)
(Source)
To say that religion cannot stand without a state establishment is not only contrary to fact (as has been proved already) but is a contradiction in phrase. Religion must have stood a time before any law could have been made about it; and if it did stand almost three hundred years without law it can still stand without it.
John Leland (1754-1841) American Baptist minister, civil libertarian
The Connecticut Dissenters Strong Box, #1 (1802)
It is now the moment when by common consent we pause to become conscious of our national life and to rejoice in it, to recall what our country has done for each of us, and to ask ourselves what we can do for our country in return.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (1841-1935) American jurist, Supreme Court Justice
“In Our Youth Our Hearts Were Touched With Fire,” Memorial Day address, Keene, New Hampshire (30 May 1884)
(Source)
Contemplation is that condition of alert passivity in which the soul lays itself open to the divine Ground within and without, the immanent and trancendent Godhead.
Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) English novelist, essayist and critic
The Perennial Philosophy, ch. 16 (1946)
The more men have to lose, the less willing they are to venture.
Thomas Paine (1737-1809) American political philosopher and writer
Common Sense, “Of the Present Ability of America” (14 Feb 1776)
Mankind are an incorrigible race. Give them but bugbears and idols — it is all that they ask; the distinctions of right and wrong, of truth and falsehood, of good and evil, are worse than indifferent to them.
William Hazlitt (1778-1830) English writer
“Common Places,” #76, The Literary Examiner (Sep-Dec 1823)
A man who does not possess himself enough to hear disagreeable things without visible marks of anger and change of countenance, or agreeable ones without sudden bursts of joy and expansion of countenance, is at the mercy of every artful knave or pert coxcomb.
Lord Chesterfield (1694-1773) English statesman, wit [Philip Dormer Stanhope]
Letter to his son, #183 (22 May 1749)
KOSH: The avalanche has already started. It is too late for the pebbles to vote.
David Gerrold (b. 1944) American author [b. Jerrold David Friedman]
Babylon 5, “Believers” (27 Apr 1994)
Where the very safety of the country depends upon the resolution to be taken, no considerations of justice or injustice, humanity or cruelty, nor of glory or shame, should be allowed to prevail. But putting all other considerations aside, the only question should be, “What course will save the life and liberty of the country?”
Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527) Italian politician, philosopher, political scientist
The Discourses on Livy, Book 3, ch. 41 (1517) [tr. Detmold (1882)]
“Work, the what’s-its-name of the thingummy and the thing-um-a-bob of the what-d’you-call-it.”
P. G. Wodehouse (1881-1975) Anglo-American humorist, playwright and lyricist [Pelham Grenville Wodehouse]
Psmith, Journalist (1915)
The real test of a man is not how well he plays the role he has invented for himself, but how well he plays the role that destiny assigned to him.
Václav Havel (1936-2011) Czech playwright, essayist, dissident, politician
Disturbing the Peace, ch. 2 “Writing for the Stage” (1986) [tr. P. Wilson (1990)]
When you hear a man speak of his love for his country, it is a sign that he expects to be paid for it.
H. L. Mencken (1880-1956) American writer and journalist [Henry Lewis Mencken]
“The Mind of Man,” A Mencken Chrestomathy (1949)
Fortitude is the Guard and Support of the other Virtues; and without Courage a Man will scarece keep steady to his Duty, and fill up the Character of a truly worthy Man.
John Locke (1632-1704) English philosopher
Some Thoughts Concerning Education, #115 (1693)
There is a fatality, a feeling so irresistible and inevitable that it has the force of doom, which almost invariably compels human beings to linger around and haunt, ghostlike, the spot where some great and marked event has given the color to their lifetime; and still the more irresistibly, the darker the tinge that saddens it.
Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) American writer
The Scarlet Letter, ch. 5 “Hester at Her Needle” (1850)
Without your love
It’s a honky-tonk parade
Without your love
It’s a melody played in a penny arcade.
It’s a Barnum and Bailey world
Just as phony as it can be
But it wouldn’t be make-believe
If you believed in me.E. Y. "Yip" Harburg (1896-1981) American lyricist [Edgar Yipsel Harburg, b. Isidore Hochberg]
“It’s Only a Paper Moon” (1933) (co-written with Billy Rose)
Good Master, how shall I recount this Thine inestimable charity?
What return can I make for this vast boon? […]
What reward shall I give my God,
except my heart’s obedience to His command?
And Thy command is this:
that we love one another.Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109) British monk, theologian, archbishop, saint.
“A Prayer for Friends”
Attributed in Prayers and Meditations of St. Anselm, selected and translated by a Religious of C.S.M.V. (1952)
To love one’s country above all others is in no way incompatible with respecting and wishing well to all others.
Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) American politician, statesman, conservationist, writer, US President (1901-1909)
“The Two Americas” (20 May 1901)
The Courage we desire and prize is not the Courage to die decently, but to live manfully.
Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) Scottish essayist and historian
“Boswell’s Life of Johnson,” Critical and Miscellaneous Essays (1827-1855)
(Source)
Originally published in Fraser's Magazine, Vol 5, # 28 (1832). Reviewing a new 1831 edition of James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson.
At the time of writing I never think of what I have said before. My aim is not to be consistent with my previous statements on a given question, but to be consistent with truth as it may present itself to me [at the] given moment. The result has been that I have grown from truth to truth.
Mohandas Gandhi (1869-1948) Indian philosopher and nationalist [Mahatma Gandhi]
In Harijan (30 Sep 1939)
A philosophy without heart and a faith without intellect are abstractions from the true life of knowledge and faith. The man whom philosophy leaves cold, and the man whom real faith does not illuminate, may be assured that the fault lies in them, not in knowledge and faith. The former is still an alien to philosophy, the latter an alien to faith.
Georg Hegel (1770-1831) German philosopher
Enzyklopaedie der philosophischen Wissenschaften [Encyclopedia of Philosophical Sciences] (1816)
Human beings are perhaps never more frightening than when they are convinced beyond doubt that they are right.
Laurens van der Post (1906-1996) Afrikaner author, conservationist, statesman, humanitarian
The Lost World of the Kalahari, ch. 3 (1958)
Look at the process of deterioration which our Queen’s English has undergone at the hands of the Americans. Look at those phrases which so amuse us in their speech and books, at their reckless exaggeration and contempt for congruity, and the compare the character and history of the nation — its blunted sense of moral obligation and duty to man, its open disregard of conventional right where aggrandizement is to be obtained.
Henry Alford (1810-1871) English churchman, scholar, poet, hymnodist
Plea for the Queen’s English (1863)
How hard, oh, how hard it is to die and leave one’s country no better than if one had never lived for it.
Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) American lawyer, politician, US President (1861-65)
Remark to William H. Herndon, quoted in letter from Herndon to Ward H. Herdon (6 Mar 1866)
In Emanuel Hertz (ed.), The Hidden Lincoln: From the Letters and Papers of William H. Herndon, 1.2 (1940)
It is in the depths of conscience that God speaks, and if we refuse to open up inside and look into those depths, we also refuse to confront the invisible God who is present within us.
Thomas Merton (1915-1968) French-American religious and writer [a.k.a. Fr. M. Louis]
“Creative Silence,” Love and Living (ed. N Stone, P. Hart) (1985)
What joy can the years bring half so sweet as the unhappiness they’ve taken away?
Logan Pearsall Smith (1865-1946) American-English essayist, editor, anthologist
All Trivia, “Last Words” (1933)
I have often wished I had time to cultivate modesty … But I am too busy thinking about myself.
Edith Sitwell (1887-1964) English poet
(Attributed)
Quoted in The Observer (30 April 1950)
Frame constitutions of government with what wisdom and foresight we may, they must be imperfect, and leave something to discretion, and much to public virtue.
Joseph Story (1779-1845) American lawyer, jurist, Supreme Court Justice (1811-1845)
Address to the Suffolk Bar, New York (4 Sep 1821)
There is no greater sign of a general decay of virtue in a nation than a want of zeal in its inhabitants for the good of their country.
Joseph Addison (1672-1719) English essayist, poet, statesman
The Freeholder, ch. 5 (1716)
You know more of a road by having travelled it then by all the conjectures and descriptions in the world.
For I do not seek to understand in order to believe, but I believe in order to understand. For I believe this: unless I believe, I will not understand.
Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109) British monk, theologian, archbishop, saint.
Proslogion, ch. 1 (c. 1077-1078)
Corruption is like a ball of snow, when once set rolling it must increase.
Charles Caleb "C. C." Colton (1780-1832) English cleric, writer, aphorist
Lacon, 2.6 (1824)
When nations and peoples allow themselves to be defined by their differences, the gulf between them widens. When we fail to pursue peace, then it stays forever beyond our grasp. To denounce or shrug off a call for cooperation is an easy and cowardly thing. That is how wars begin. That is where human progress ends.
Barack Obama (b. 1961) American politician, US President (2009-2017)
Speech, Hradčany Square, Prague (5 Apr 2009)
Full text
The basis of our political systems is the right of the people make and alter their constitutions of government. But the constitution which at any time exists, until changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole people, is sacredly obligatory upon all.
George Washington (1732-1799) American military leader, Founding Father, US President (1789-1797)
“Farewell Address” (17 Sep 1796)
Anyone who takes himself too seriously always runs the risk of looking ridiculous; anyone who can consistently laugh at himself does not.
Václav Havel (1936-2011) Czech playwright, essayist, dissident, politician
Disturbing the Peace, ch. 2 “Writing for the Stage” (1986) [tr. Wilson (1990)]
(Source)
The price of group membership is conformity to prevailing norms.
James MacGregor Burns (1918-2014) American political scientist, biographer
Leadership, ch. 4 (1978)
If love was all you need, then hugging people would have nutritional value. It doesn’t. However, killing and eating them does.
Warren Ellis (b. 1968) English writer
Twitter post [@warrenellis] (24 Mar 2009)
Now, God has thus ordered things that we may learn to bear one another’s burdens; for there is no man without his faults, none without his burden. None is sufficient in himself; none is wise in himself; therefore, we must support one another, comfort, help, teach, and advise one another.
[Nunc autem Deus sic ordinavit, ut discamus alter alterius onera portare, quia nemo sine defectu, nemo sine onere, nemo sibi sufficiens, nemo sibi satis sapiens, sed oportet invicem portare, invicem consolari, pariter adjuvare, et ammonere.]
Thomas à Kempis (c. 1380-1471) German-Dutch priest, author
The Imitation of Christ [De Imitatione Christi], Book 1, ch. 16, v. 4 (1.16.4) (c. 1418-27) [tr. Sherley-Price (1952)]
(Source)
See Galatians 6:2.
(Source (Latin)). Alternate translations:
Therefore God hath so ordained that each one of us shall learn to bear another’s burden: for in this world no man is without default, no man without burden, no man sufficient to himself, nor no man wise enough of himself. Wherefore it behoveth each one of us to bear the burden of others, to comfort others, to help others, to inform others, and to instruct and admonish others in all charity.
[tr. Whitford/Raynal (1530/1871)]
Therefore, God has so ordained that each one of us shall learn to bear another's burden, for in this world no man is without fault, no man without burden, no man sufficient to himself, and no man wise enough of himself. And so it behooves each one of us to bear the burden of others, to comfort others, to help others, to counsel others, and to instruct and admonish others in all charity.
[tr. Whitford/Gardiner (1530/1955)]
But now God hath thus ordained that every man should have a burthen of his owne, let us learne to support and beare one anothers burthens. For there is none without defect, none without his burthen, no man sufficient by himselfe, no man wise enough of himselfe. But we ought to bear with one another, comfort one another, equally helpe, instruct, and admonish one another.
[tr. Page (1639), 1.16.11-13]
But, as the present Condition of the World is ordered, God hath furnished us with constant Occasions of bearing one another's Burthens. For there is no Man lives without his Failings; no Man that is so happy, as never to give Offence; no Man without his Load of Trouble; no Man so sufficient, as never to need Assistance; none so wise, but the Advice of others may, at some time or other, be useful and necessary for him: And therefore we should think ourselves under the strongest Engagements to comfort and relieve, and instruct, and admonish, and bear with one another.
[tr. Stanhope (1696; 1706 ed.)]
But in the present fallen state of human nature, it is his Blessed Will, that we should learn to bear one another's burthens: and as no man is free from some burthen of sin or sorrow; as none has strength and wisdom sufficient for all the purposes of life and duty, the necessity of mutual forbearance, mutual consolation, mutual support, instruction and advice, is founded upon our mutual imperfections, troubles and wants.
[tr. Payne (1803)]
But now God hath thus ordered it, that we may learn to bear one another's burdens; for no man is without fault; no man but hath his burden; no man sufficient of himself; no man wise enough of himself; but we ought to bear with one another, comfort one another, help, instruct, and admonish one another.
[ed. Parker (1841)]
But in the present fallen state of human nature, it is His Blessed Will that we should learn to bear one another's burthens: and as no man is free from some burthen of sin or sorrow, as none has a strength and wisdom sufficient for all the purposes of life and duty, the necessity of mutual forbearance, mutual consolation, mutual support, instruction, and advice, is founded upon our mutual imperfections, troubles, and wants.
[tr. Dibdin (1851)]
But now God has so ordered it, that we learn to bear one another's burdens; for there is no man without defect, no one without his burden, no man sufficient for himself, no man wise enough for himself; but we must support one another, comfort one another, assist, instruct, and admonish one another.
[ed. Bagster (1860)]
But now hath God thus ordained, that we may learn to bear one another’s burdens, because none is without defect, none without a burden, none sufficient of himself, none wise enough of himself; but it behoveth us to bear with one another, to comfort one another, to help, instruct, admonish one another.
[tr. Benham (1874)]
But now God hath thus ordered it, that we may learn to bear one another's burdens; for no man is without fault; no man but hath his burden; no man is sufficient of himself; no man is wise enough of himself; but we ought to bear with one another, comfort one another, help, instruct, and admonish one another.
[tr. Anon. (1901)]
But God has so ordained, that we may learn to bear with one another's burdens, for there is no man without fault, no man without burden, no man sufficient to himself nor wise enough. Hence we must support one another, console one another, mutually help, counsel, and advise.
[tr. Croft/Bolton (1940)]
But now God has so arranged that we may learn to bear each other’s burdens, for none is faultless, none without a burden, none sufficient to himself, none wise enough in himself: but we must bear with each other, comfort each other, help, teach, and advise each other.
[tr. Daplyn (1952)]
He will have us learn to bear the burden of one another's faults. Nobody is faultless; each has his own burden to bear, without the strength or the wit to carry it by himself; and we have got to support one another, console, help, correct, advise one another, each in his turn.
[tr. Knox-Oakley (1959)]
As it is, [God] has made things the way they are so that we may learn to bear the burden of one another’s failings. There is no one free from weakness, no one without a load to carry, no one who is self-sufficient, no one who can dispense with others’ help; and so it is our duty to support each other, to comfort each other, to help, guide and advise each other.
[tr. Knott (1962)]
It is God’s plan that we should learn to carry each other's troubles . There is no one free of faults, no one burdenless, no one self-sufficient, no one clever enough to stand alone. We must support one another, comfort one another, help build up one another by instruction and advice.
[tr. Rooney (1979)]
But now God has so arranged things that we may learn to bear each other's burdens, for no one is without faults, no one is without burdens, no one is wholly self-sufficient, no one has enough wisdom all by himself. That being the case, we must support and comfort each other; together we must help, teach, and advise one another.
[tr. Creasy (1989)]
The founders of a new colony, whatever Utopia of human virtue and happiness they might originally project, have invariably recognized it among their earliest practical necessities to allot a portion of the virgin soil as a cemetery, and another portion as the site of a prison.
Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) American writer
The Scarlet Letter, ch. 1 “The Prison Door” (1850)
Once I built a railroad, made it run,
Made it race against time.
Once I build a railroad, now it’s done.
Brother, can you spare a dime?E. Y. "Yip" Harburg (1896-1981) American lyricist [Edgar Yipsel Harburg, b. Isidore Hochberg]
“Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?,” in the musical New Americana (1932)
For it is feeling and force of imagination that makes us eloquent.
[Pectus est enim, quod disertos facit.]
Quintilian (39-90) Roman orator [Marcus Fabius Quintilianus]
De Institutione Oratoria, Book X, ch. 7, l. 15
I think it’s important to remember that these men are not perfect. If they were marble gods, what they did wouldn’t be so admirable. The more we see the founders as humans the more we can understand them.
David McCullough (b. 1933) American author, narrator, historian, lecturer
“David McCullough brings ‘John Adams’ to life,” Interview by Todd Leopold, CNN.com (7 Jun 2005)
On the American "Founding Fathers." Full text.
I hadn’t any heart to touch my breakfast. I told Jeeves to drink it himself.
P. G. Wodehouse (1881-1975) Anglo-American humorist, playwright and lyricist [Pelham Grenville Wodehouse]
My Man Jeeves (1919)
Holding it a sound maxim that it is better to be only sometimes right than at all times wrong, so soon as I discover my opinions to be erroneous I shall be ready to renounce them.
Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) American lawyer, politician, US President (1861-65)
“To the People of Sangamo County,” campaign statement, Illinois State Legislature Race (9 Mar 1862)
Impatience asks for the impossible, wants to reach the goal without the means of getting there. The length of the journey has to be borne with, for every moment is necessary ….
Georg Hegel (1770-1831) German philosopher
Phänomenologie des Geistes [The Phenomenology of the Spirit] (1807)
Full text.
He that seeks trouble never misses.
(Other Authors and Sources)
English proverb
First collected in George Herbert, Outlandish Proverbs (1640).
In a consumer society there are inevitably two kinds of slaves: the prisoners of addiction and the prisoners of envy.
Ivan Illich (1926-2002) Austrian philosopher, social critic, cleric
Tools for Conviviality, ch. 3 (1973)
