It is always darkest just before the Day dawneth.
Thomas Fuller (1608-1661) English churchman, historian
A Pisgah-Sight of Palestine, ii. xi (1650)
The dog is a gentleman; I hope to go to his heaven, not man’s.
Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
Letter to W.D. Howells (2 Apr 1899)
IVANOVA: You’ll excuse me, but I’m in the middle of fifteen things, all of them annoying.
J. Michael (Joe) Straczynski (b. 1954) American screenwriter, producer, author [a/k/a "JMS"]
Babylon 5, 1×01 “Midnight on the Firing Line” (26 Jan 1994)
A large part of the mischief and folly of the world comes from rushing in, taking a position, the not knowing how to retreat. There is something about making a speech or writing an article which perverts the human mind. When an utterance is published, the Rubicon has been crossed and the bridges have been burned. It seems to end the inquiry, and after that we almost cease to be interested in the truth, being so preoccupied to prove that we already possess it.
Walter Lippmann (1889-1974) American journalist and author
Columnn, New York Herald Tribune (10 Oct 1953)
You can do very little with faith, but you can do nothing without it.
Samuel Butler (1835-1902) English novelist, satirist, scholar
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler, ch. 21 “Faith” (1912)
Full text.
He wears a mask, and his face grows to fit it.
George Orwell (1903-1950) English writer [pseud. of Eric Arthur Blair]
“Shooting an Elephant” (1936)
Everything is worth what its purchaser will pay for it.
Publilius Syrus (d. 42 BC) Assyrian slave, writer, philosopher [less correctly Publius Syrus]
Sententiae [Moral Sayings], # 847
There is nothing that people bear more impatiently, or forgive less, than contempt; and an injury is much sooner forgotten than an insult.
Lord Chesterfield (1694-1773) English statesman, wit [Philip Dormer Stanhope]
Letter to his son, #112 (9 Oct 1746)
Ultimately our moral sense or conscience becomes a highly complex sentiment — originating in the social instinct, largely guided by the approbation of our fellow men, ruled by reason, self-interest, and in later times by deep religious feelings, and confirmed by instruction and habit.
Charles Darwin (1809-1882) English naturalist
The Descent of Man, 2d ed., ch. 5 (1874)
What I like in a good author isn’t what he says, but what he whispers.
Logan Pearsall Smith (1865-1946) American-English essayist, editor, anthologist
Afterthoughts, “Arts and Letters” (1931)
Administrivia: Still having a few technical difficulties
Well, irritatingly enough, though the Atom/RSS feed for the site looks fine in Google Reader, and in the viewer in FeedBurner, too, the email version that FeedBurner sends out looks … less than … good.
Apologies to WIST readers who use that feature. I’ll try to figure out what the heck is going on.
Training distiguishes an army from an armed mob.
Douglas MacArthur (1880-1964) American general
“Annual Report of the Chief of Staff” (30 Jun 1934)
We should not pretend to understand the world only by the intellect; we apprehend it just as much by feeling. Therefore, the judgment of the intellect is, at best, only the half of truth, and must, if it be honest, also come to an understanding of its inadequacy.
Carl Jung (1875-1961) Swiss psychologist
Psychological Types, “Conclusion” (1921)
Many can bear Adversity but few Contempt.
Thomas Fuller (1654-1734) English physician, preacher, aphorist, writer
Gnomologia: Adages and Proverbs, #3340 (1732)
(Source)
No man who ignores the rights and needs of others can hope to walk in the light of contemplation because his way has turned aside from truth, from compassion, and therefore from God.
Thomas Merton (1915-1968) French-American religious and writer [a.k.a. Fr. M. Louis]
New Seeds of Contemplation, ch. 3 (1961)
Conservatism stands on man’s incontestable limitations; reform on his indisputable infinitiude.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
“The Conservative,” lecture, Boston (1841-12-09)
Administrivia: Welcome to WIST v3!
A combination of factors — a fractious PC that was causing me difficulty updating the old Movable Type site, a new mania for WordPress, and a touch of obsession — has led to my converting over WIST to a WordPress blog. I think it will provide, in the long run, some serious advantages in performance and ease of use, both for me and for my readers.
There’s still a lot to do here — my inability to update the old version caused me to rush this to production. Part of the needed changes are cosmetic — getting the WIST logo back in place. Others more more substantial — getting the feeds working properly, dealing with some odd formatting glitches, etc.
But I’m pleased to be able to roll this out. I hope you continue to enjoy reading and using WIST as much as I enjoy keeping it updated. And, at a rather appropriate cracking-the-7000-quote mark, it’s a perfect time for a brand new era.
UPDATE: I was unable to make a final post in the old MT installation to let folks kno this, but … as part of the conversion, the RSS feed addresses for WIST have changed. If you were using FeedBurner, then you’ll see a difference, but you don’t have to do anything. If you had a direct subscription to the feed from the site, though, it no longer works. Go to the RSS link at the top of the page to make a new choice over how you want to subcribe here.
What is needed in politics is not the ability to lie but rather the sensibility to know when, where, how and to whom to say things.
Václav Havel (1936-2011) Czech playwright, essayist, dissident, politician
International Herald Tribune (29 Oct 1991)
The two kinds of people I mean
Are the people who lift and the people who lean.Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850-1919) American author and poet.
“Lifting and Leaning”
Here is a good rule of thumb:
Too clever is dumb.Ogden Nash (1902-1971) American poet
“Reflections on Ingenuity,” Many Long Years Ago (1945)
(Source)
Every individual has a place to fill in the world, and is important, in some respect, whether he chooses to be so or not.
Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) American writer
American Notebooks (25 Oct 1836)
In Passages from the American Note-Books of Nathaniel Hawthorne, ed. S. Hawthorne (1868). Full text.
Did you ever hear my definition of marriage? It is, that it resembles a pair of shears, so joined that they cannot be separated; often moving in opposite directions, yet always punishing anyone who comes between them.
Sydney Smith (1771-1845) English clergyman, essayist, wit
Memoir of the Reverend Sydney Smith, by His Daughter, Lady Holland, Vol. 1, ch. 11 (1855)
(Source)
Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes.
Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) American philosopher and writer
Walden, “Economy” (1854)
Know the enemy, know yourself; in a hundred battles you will not be in peril.
Sun-Tzu (fl. 6th C. AD) Chinese general and philosopher [a.k.a. Sun Wu]
The Art of War, “Offensive Strategy” (31) [tr. S. Griffith (1963)]
Alt trans:
- "It is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles; if you do not know your enemies but do know yourself, you will win one and lose one; if you do not know your enemies nor yourself, you will be imperiled in every single battle." [cited ch. 3, last sentence.]
- "If you know others and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles; if you do not know others but know yourself, you win one and lose one; if you do not know others and do not know yourself, you will be imperiled in every single battle."
- "Know your enemy and know yourself, find naught in fear for 100 battles. Know yourself but not your enemy, find level of loss and victory. Know thy enemy but not yourself, wallow in defeat every time."
- "If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle."
- Literal translation: "Know [the] other, know [the] self, hundred battles without danger; not knowing [the] other but know [the] self, one win one loss; not knowing [the] other, not knowing [the] self, every battle must [be] lost."
PREDICAMENT, n. The wage of consistency.
Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914?) American writer and journalist
The Devil’s Dictionary, “Predicatment” (1911)
A hen is only an egg’s way of making another egg.
Samuel Butler (1835-1902) English novelist, satirist, scholar
Life and Habit, ch. 8 (1877)
Full text.
Administrivia: Technical difficulties
Apologies for the lack of WIST entries yesterday. Technical difficulties on my PC (still ongoing) caused the problem, but I’m going to work around them today.
Meantime, I’ll catch up on the gap, and, hopefully, have some Big News for you later this weekend.
Again, thanks for your patience.
Once you say you’re going to settle for second, that’s what happens to you in life.
John F. Kennedy (1917-1963) US President (1961-63)
Comment on the Vice Presidency (1960)
Quoted in T. Sorensen, <i>Kennedy</i>, ch. 1 (1965)
Good Sense is Thing all need, few have,
and none think they lack.Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) American statesman, scientist, philosopher, aphorist
Poor Richard’s Almanack (Jun 1746)
Consult your conscience, rather than popular opinion.
Publilius Syrus (d. 42 BC) Assyrian slave, writer, philosopher [less correctly Publius Syrus]
Sententiae [Moral Sayings], # 146 [tr. Lyman (1862)]
That we should practise what we preach is generally admitted; but anyone who preaches what he and his hearers practise must incur the gravest moral disapprobation.
Logan Pearsall Smith (1865-1946) American-English essayist, editor, anthologist
Afterthoughts, “Life and Human Nature” (1931)
A red is any son-of-a-bitch who wants thirty cents when we’re payin’ twenty-five.
John Steinbeck (1902-1968) American writer
The Grapes of Wrath, ch. 22 (1939)
Judging by common sense is merely another phrase judging by first appearances; and everyone who has mixed among mankind with any capacity for observing them, knows that the men who place implicit faith in their own common sense, are, without any exception, the most wrong-headed and impracticable persons with whom he ever had to deal.
John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) English philosopher and economist
“The Spirit of the Age,” part 2 The Examiner (English journal) (6-29 May 1831)
Worse than idle is compassion
If it ends in tears and sighs.William Wordsworth (1770-1850) English poet
“The Armenian Lady’s Love” (1835)
What I fear most are affirmative actions of sober and well-intentioned men, granting to government powers to do something that appears to need doing.
Robert A. Heinlein (1907-1988) American writer
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (1966)
There are large parts of the Christian ethic which are universally admitted to be too good for this wicked world. We have in fact, two kinds of morality, side by side: one that we preach, but do not practice, and another that we practice, but seldom preach.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
“Eastern and Western Ideals of Happiness,” Sceptical Essays (1928)
There are plenty of decent legislators, and plenty of able legislators; but the blamelessness and the fighting edge are not always combined. Both qualities are necessary for the man who is to wage active battle against the powers that prey. He must be clean of life, so that he can laugh when his public or his private record is searched; and yet being clean of life will not avail him if he is either foolish or timid. He must walk warily and fearlessly, and while he should never brawl if he can avoid it, he must be ready to hit hard if the need arises. Let him remember, by the way, that the unforgivable crime is soft hitting. Do not hit at all if it can be avoided; but never hit softly.
Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) American politician, statesman, conservationist, writer, US President (1901-1909)
“Practical Politics,” The Outlook (26 Apr 1913)
It is revolting to have no better reason for a rule of law than that so it was laid down in the time of Henry IV. It is still more revolting if the grounds upon which it was laid down have vanished long since, and the rule simply persists from blind imitation of the past.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (1841-1935) American jurist, Supreme Court Justice
“The Path of the Law”, 10 Harvard Law Review 457 (1897)
Full text.
As I look at the human story I see two stories. They run parallel and never meet. One is of people who live, as they can or must, the events that arrive; the other is of people who live, as they intend, the events they create.
Margaret C. Anderson (1886-1973) American editor, memoirist
The Fiery Fountains, Part 1 (1951)
Common sense appears to be only another name for the thoughtlessness of the unthinking. It is made of the prejudices of childhood, the idiosyncracies of individual character, and the opinion of the newspapers.
W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965) English novelist and playwright [William Somerset Maugham]
“Clinical Notes,” American Mercury (Nov 1924)
Do as most do; and few will speak ill of thee.
Thomas Fuller (1654-1734) English physician, preacher, aphorist, writer
Introductio ad Prudentiam, Vol. 1, # 135 (1725)
(Source)
Our Creator would never have made such lovely days, and have given us the deep hearts to enjoy them, above and beyond all thought, unless we were meant to be immortal.
Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) American writer
“The Old Manse,” Mosses from an Old Manse (1846)
Avoid shame but do not seek glory — nothing so expensive as glory.
Sydney Smith (1771-1845) English clergyman, essayist, wit
Memoir of the Reverend Sydney Smith, by His Daughter, Lady Holland, Vol. 1, ch. 4 (1855)
(Source)
Noted as his "favorite motto."
I’ve never been convinced that there’s any meaningful division between high culture and pop culture — I think there’s good stuff out there, and there’s stuff that’s not much good, and that Sturgeon’s Law applies to high culture and popular culture: 90% of it will be crap, which means that 10% of it will be amazing.
Hereby it is manifest that during the time men live without a common power to keep them all in awe, they are in that condition which is called war; and such a war as is of every man against every man.
No man on earth is truly free,
All are slaves of money or necessity.
Public opinion or fear of prosecution
forces each one, against his conscience,
to conform.Euripides (485?-406? BC) Greek tragic dramatist
Hecuba, l. 860 [tr. W.Arrowsmith (1956)]
We have left undone those things which we ought to have done, and we have done those things we ought not to have done.
(Other Authors and Sources)
Book of Common Prayer, “Morning Prayer (General Confession)” (1662)
We relish news of our heroes, forgetting that we are extraordinary to somebody too.
Helen Hayes (1900-1993) American actress
(Attributed)
Everything matters more than we think it does, and, at the same time, nothing matters so much as we think it does. The merest spark may set all Europe in a blaze, but though all Europe be set in a blaze twenty times over, the world will wag itself right again.
Samuel Butler (1835-1902) English novelist, satirist, scholar
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler, “Sparks” (1912)
(Source)
History suggests only that capitalism is a necessary condition for political freedom. Clearly it is not a sufficient condition.
Milton Friedman (1912-2006) American economist, intellectual
Capitalism and Freedom, ch. 1 (1962)
Youk’n hide de fier, but w’at you gwine do wid de smoke?
Joel Chandler Harris (1848-1908) American writer
Plantation Proverbs
Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings.
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) English writer, lexicographer, critic
Lives of the English Poets, “Pope” (1781)
(Source)
Advances in medicine and agriculture have saved vastly more lives than have been lost in all the wars in history.
Carl Sagan (1934-1996) American scientist and writer
The Demon-Haunted World, ch. 1 “The Most Precious Thing” (1995)
Most people sell their souls, and live with a good conscience on the proceeds.
Logan Pearsall Smith (1865-1946) American-English essayist, editor, anthologist
Afterthoughts, “Other People” (1931)
It is natural for the mind to believe, and for the will to love; so that, for want of true objects, they must attach themselves to false.
Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) French scientist and philosopher
Pensées, # 81 (1670) [tr. W. Totter (1931)]
