I believe that that community is already in process of dissolution where each man begins to eye his neighbor as a possible enemy, where non-conformity with the accepted creed, political as well as religious, is a mark of disaffection; where denunciation, without specification or backing, takes the place of evidence; where orthodoxy chokes freedom of dissent; where faith in the eventual supremacy of reason has become so timid that we are not enter our convictions into the open list, to win or lose. Such fears as these are a solvent which can eat out the cement that binds the stones together; they may in the end subject us to a despotism as evil as any that we dread; and they can be allayed only in so far as we refuse to proceed on suspicion, and trust one another until we have tangible ground for misgiving,
Learned Hand (1872-1961) American jurist
“A Plea for the Open Mind and Free Discussion,” speech, University of the State of New York, Albany (1952-10-24)
(Source)
Good laws lead to the making of better ones; bad ones bring about worse.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) French philosopher and writer
The Social Contract, pt. III, ch. 15 (1762)
trans. G.D.H. Cole (1913)
Your honesty is not to be based either on religion or policy. Both your religion and policy must be based on it. Your honesty must be based, as the sun is, in vacant heaven; poised, as the lights in the firmament, which have rule over the day and over the night.
John Ruskin (1819-1900) English art critic, painter, writer, social thinker
Time and Tide, Letter VIII (1867)
To act is to be committed, and to be committed is to be in danger.
James Baldwin (1924-1987) American novelist, playwright, activist
“My Dungeon Shook,” The Fire Next Time (1963)
(Source)
Death is always and under all circumstances a tragedy, for if it is not, then it means that life itself has become one.
Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) American politician, statesman, conservationist, writer, US President (1901-1909)
Letter to Cecil Spring-Rice (12 Mar 1900)
To joke in the face of danger is the supreme politeness, a delicate refusal to cast oneself as a tragic hero.
Edmond Rostand (1868-1918) French playwright
Speech to the Académie française (1903)
Quoted in John Lahr, "Fighting and Writing," The New Yorker (12 Nov 2007).
The effect of the religious freedom Amendment to our Constitution was to take every form of propagation of religion out of the realm of things which could directly or indirectly be made public business, and thereby be supported in whole or in part at taxpayers’ expense. That is a difference which the Constitution sets up between religion and almost every other subject matter of legislation, a difference which goes to the very root of religious freedom and which the Court is overlooking today. This freedom was first in the Bill of Rights because it was first in the forefathers’ minds; it was set forth in absolute terms, and its strength is its rigidity. It was intended not only to keep the states’ hands out of religion, but to keep religion’s hands off the state, and, above all, to keep bitter religious controversy out of public life by denying to every denomination any advantage from getting control of public policy or the public purse.
Robert H. Jackson (1892-1954) US Supreme Court Justice (1941-54), lawyer, jurist, politician
Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U.S. 1, 26-27 (1947) [dissent]
(Source)
The greatest efforts of the race have always been traceable to the love of praise, as its greatest catastrophes to the love of pleasure.
John Ruskin (1819-1900) English art critic, painter, writer, social thinker
Sesame and Lilies, lecture I: “Of Kings’ Treasures,” sec. 3 (1864-1865)
Tranquility is found also in dungeons; but is that enough to make them desirable places to live in?
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) French philosopher and writer
The Social Contract, ch. 4 “Slavery” (1761)
Trans. G.D.H. Cole (1913). Full text.
Happiness is not a goal, it is a by-product. Paradoxically, the one sure way not to be happy is deliberately to map out a way of life in which one would please oneself completely and exclusively.
Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962) First Lady of the US (1933-45), politician, diplomat, activist
You Learn by Living (1960)
When anyone goes about on his hands and knees looking for a great man to worship, he is making sure that one man at any rate shall not be great.
Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936) English journalist and writer
Charles Dickens, ch. 1 (1906)
What is tolerance? It is the consequence of humanity. We are all formed of frailty and error; let us pardon reciprocally each other’s folly — that is the first law of nature.
[Qu’est-ce que la tolérance? c’est l’apanage de l’humanité. Nous sommes tous pétris de faiblesses et d’erreurs; pardonnons-nous réciproquement nos sottises, c’est la première loi de la nature.]
Voltaire (1694-1778) French writer [pseud. of Francois-Marie Arouet]
Dictionnaire philosophique portatif, “Tolerance” (1764)
I learned that it is the weak who are cruel, and that gentleness is to be expected only from the strong.
Leo C. Rosten (1908-1997) Polish-American author and political scientist
Captain Newman, M.D. (1962)
Sometimes attributed to Leo Buscaglia, who often quoted it.
Our passions are like convulsion-fits, which, though they make us stronger for the time, leave us the weaker ever after.
Alexander Pope (1688-1744) English poet
“Thoughts on Various Subjects” (1727)
A mature person is one who does not think only in absolutes, who is able to be objective even when deeply stirred emotionally, who has learned that there is both good and bad in all people and all things, and who walks humbly and deals charitably with the circumstances of life, knowing that in this world no one is all-knowing and therefore all of us need both love and charity.
Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962) First Lady of the US (1933-45), politician, diplomat, activist
You Learn by Living (1960)
To complain of the age we live in, to murmur at the present possessors of power, to lament for the past, to conceive extravagant hopes of the future, are the common dispositions of the greatest part of mankind.
Edmund Burke (1729-1797) Anglo-Irish statesman, orator, philosopher
“Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents” (23 Apr 1770)
I am approached with the most opposite opinions and advice, and that by religious men, who are equally certain that they represent the Divine will. I am sure that either the one or the other class is mistaken in the belief, and perhaps in some respects both. I hope it will not be irreverent for me to say that if it is probable that God would reveal his will to others, on a point so connected with my duty, it might be supposed he would reveal it directly to me; for, unless I am more deceived in myself than I often am, it is my earnest desire to know the will of Providence in this matter. And if I can learn what it is I will do it! These are not, however, the days of miracles, and I suppose it will be granted that I am not to expect a direct revelation. I must study the plain physical facts of the case, ascertain what is possible and learn what appears to be wise and right. The subject is difficult, and good men do not agree.
Free speech is not to be regulated like diseased cattle and impure butter. The audience (in this case the judge or jury) that hissed yesterday may applaud today, even for the same performance.
William O. Douglas (1898-1980) US Supreme Court justice (1939-75)
Dissent, Kingsley Books, Inc. v. Brown, 354 U.S. 436, 447 (1957)
The court ruled 5-4 to allow banning the sale of obscene books.
To waste, to destroy, our natural resources, to skin and exhaust the land instead of using it so as to increase its usefulness, will result in undermining in the days of our children the very prosperity which we ought by right to hand down to them amplified and developed.
Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) American politician, statesman, conservationist, writer, US President (1901-1909)
State of the Union Address (3 Dec 1907)
Full text.
What is required of us is that we love the difficult and learn to deal with it. In the difficult are the friendly forces, the hands that work on us. Right in the difficult we must have our joys, our happiness, our dreams: there against the depth of this background, they stand out, there for the first time we see how beautiful they are.
Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1963) German poet
Selected Letters of Rainer Maria Rilke (1960)
I used to say that, as Solicitor General, I made three arguments in every case. First came the one I had planned — as I thought, logical, coherent, complete. Second was the one actually presented — interrupted, incoherent, disjointed, disappointing. The third was the utterly devastating argument that I thought of after going to bed that night.
Robert H. Jackson (1892-1954) US Supreme Court Justice (1941-54), lawyer, jurist, politician
“Advocacy Before the Supreme Court,” Morrison Lecture, California State Bar (23 Aug 1951)
(Source)
Reprinted in the Cornell Law Quarterly (Fall 1951). Legal citation "Advocacy Before the Supreme Court," 37 A.B.A.J. 801, 803 (1951).
Administrivia: Searching with Yahoo!
Google has been very slow to rebuild its indexing of WIST, for reasons I can’t quite figure out. Granted, I originally caused the problems by unintentionally blocking the Googlebots IPs, but I’ve had that fixed for a couple of months. Still, when I look at “visitors” I’m seeing only a handful of Googlebot hits.
Yahoo’s Yslurp bot, though, has been hitting WIST like crazy, so I’ve added a Yahoo search box in the sidebar as yet another way to search WIST.
As an example of the disparity, a search for “liberty” comes up with 137 results in Yahoo, 71 in Google. On the other hand, I like the Google results better — the Yahoo outputs include lots of bits here and there that aren’t WIST-oriented, and it picks up the page description in the results text every time, which is a bit annoying.
But, for the moment, Yahoo’s results counts are coming out better, so I’ll be leaving the box there for the time being.
When we’re incomplete, we’re always searching for somebody to complete us. When, after a few years or a few months of a relationship, we find that we’re still unfulfilled, we blame our partners and take up with somebody more promising. This can go on and on — series polygamy — until we admit that while a partner can add sweet dimension to our lives, we, each of us, are responsible for our own fulfillment. Nobody else can provide it for us, and to believe otherwise is to delude ourselves dangerously and to program for eventual failure every relationship we enter.
Tom Robbins (b. 1932) American novelist
Still Life with Woodpecker (1980)
Half our life is spent trying to find something to do with the time we have rushed through life trying to save.
Will Rogers (1879-1935) American humorist
The New York Times (29 Apr 1930)
Up to a certain point it is good for us to know that there are people in the world who will give us love and unquestioned loyalty to the limit of their ability. I doubt, however, if it is good for us to feel assured of this without the accompanying obligation of having to justify this devotion by our behavior.
Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962) First Lady of the US (1933-45), politician, diplomat, activist
This Is My Story (1937)
The right to be let alone is indeed the beginning of all freedoms.
William O. Douglas (1898-1980) US Supreme Court justice (1939-75)
Dissent, Public Utilities Commission of the District of Columbia v. Pollack, 343 U.S. 451 (1952) (
The 7-1 ruling held that a streetcar company's playing of the radio was constitutional, and that the PUC could regulate same.
Why we should put ourselves out of our way to do anything for posterity, for what has posterity ever done for us?
Boyle Roche (1743-1807) Irish politician
Speech, Irish Parliament
In Commons debate over a grant that would add to future debt. Quoted in Jonah Barrington, Personal Sketches of His Own Times, ch. 17 (1869)
No penance would ever expiate the sin against free government of holding that a President can escape control of executive powers by law through assuming his military role.
Robert H. Jackson (1892-1954) US Supreme Court Justice (1941-54), lawyer, jurist, politician
Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579 (1952) [concurring]
I never met a man I didn’t like.
Will Rogers (1879-1935) American humorist
Motto
(Source)
Rogers' first use of the phrase in writing comes from "Letters of a Self-Made Diplomat to His President," Saturday Evening Post (1926-11-06):
I bet you if I had met him and had a chat with him, I would have found him a very interesting and human fellow, for I never yet met a man that I dident like. When you meet people, no matter what opinion you might have formed about them beforehand, why, after you meet them and see their angle and their personality, why, you can see a lot of good in all of them.
(Misspelling of "didn't" in the original.) Rogers was writing of his regrets over not having met Leon Trotsky while visiting the Soviet Union. The article was incorporated into a book Rogers published about the trip, "There's Not a Bathing Suit in Russia & Other Bare Facts, ch. 4 (1927).
Two other early references, the first from his "Weekly Article" column (1930-06-29):
You know I have often said in answer to inquiries as to how I got away with kidding some of our public men, that it was because I liked all of them personally, and that if there was no malice in your heart there could be none in your "Gags," and I have always said I never met a man I didn't like.
And from a speech at a Boston church, the same month:
I’ve got my epitaph all worked out. When I’m tucked away in the old graveyard west of Oologah [Oklahoma], I hope they will cut this epitaph -- or whatever you call them signs they put over gravestones -- on it, 'Here lies Will Rogers. He joked about every prominent man in his time, but he never met a man he didn’t like.'
That reference was picked up in AP news stories, and Rogers used the phrase for the rest of his life.
More info on Rogers' motto and the above quotations: here, here, and here.
Never say anything on the phone that you wouldn’t want your mother to hear at your trial.
Sydney Biddle Barrows (b. 1952) American prostitute, writer [The Mayflower Madam, alias Sheila Devin]
Mayflower Madam (w. with W. Novak) (1986)
Why should millions be spent daily on the war and yet there’s not a penny available for medical services, artists, or for poor people?… Oh, why are people so crazy?
Anne Frank (1929-1945) German-Dutch Jewish diarist
Diary (1944-05-03)
If people can be educated to see the lowly side of their own natures, it may be hoped that they will also learn to understand and to love their fellow men better. A little less hypocrisy and a little more tolerance toward oneself can only have good results in respect for our neighbors, for we are all too prone to transfer to our fellows the injustice and violence we inflict upon our own natures.
Carl Jung (1875-1961) Swiss psychologist
New Paths in Psychology, Appendix I (1912)
It is a consolation to the wretched to have companions in misery.
Publilius Syrus (d. 42 BC) Assyrian slave, writer, philosopher [less correctly Publius Syrus]
Sententiae [Moral Sayings], # 995
Sovereignty remains at all times with the people and they do not forfeit through elections the rights to have the law construed against and applied to every citizen.
(Other Authors and Sources)
United States Court of Appeals, DC Circuit, Nixon v. Sirica (1973)
5-2 ruling that President Nixon had to turn over tape recordings he was withholding. Quoted in NY Times (14 Oct 1973)
Everything will be all right — you know when? When people, just people, stop thinking of the United Nations as a weird Picasso abstraction and see it as a drawing they made themselves.
Dag Hammarskjöld (1905-1961) Swedish diplomat, author, UN Secretary-General (1953-61)
Quoted in Time (27 Jun 1955)
You say you’re supposed to be nice to the Episcopalians and the Presbyterians and the Methodists and this, that, and the other thing. Nonsense, I don’t have to be nice to the spirit of the Antichrist.
Pat Robertson (1930-2023) American politician and televangelist
The 700 Club broadcast (1991-01-14)
(Source)
The earliest documentation of this quote I can find is in David Cantor, The Religious Right: The Assault on Tolerance & Pluralism in America, Sec. 1, ch. 1 (1994).
No one can advise or help you — no one. There is only one thing you should do. Go into yourself. Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depths of your heart; confess to yourself whether you would have to die if you were forbidden to write.
Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1963) German poet
Letters to a Young Poet, Letter 1 (17 Feb 1903)
trans. M. D. Herter Norton (1993)
May the state fence in the harmless mentally ill solely to save its citizens from exposure to those whose ways are different? One might as well ask if the state, to avoid public unease, could incarcerate all who are physically unattractive or socially eccentric. Mere public intolerance or animosity cannot constitutionally justify the deprivation of a person’s physical liberty.
Potter Stewart (1915-1985) US Supreme Court Justice (1959-81)
O’Connor v. Donaldson, 422 U.S. 563 (1975) [Unanimous opinion]
(Source)
We don’t have to be “successful,” only valuable. We don’t have to make money, only a difference, and particularly in the lives society counts least and puts last.
William Sloane Coffin, Jr. (1924-2006) American minister, social activist
Credo, “Faith, Hope, Love” (2004)
(Source)
Being responsible sometimes means pissing people off.
Colin Powell (1937-2021) American military leader, politician, diplomat
The Powell Principles (2003)
Just as the right to speak and the right to refrain from speaking are complementary components of a broader concept of individual freedom of mind, so also the individual’s freedom to choose his own creed is the counterpart of his right to refrain from accepting the creed established by the majority.
John Paul Stevens (1920-2019) American lawyer, US Supreme Court Justice (1975-2010)
Wallace v. Jaffree, 472 U.S. 38 (1985) [Majority Opinion]
Full ruling.
There are only two mantras… yum and yuk. Mine is yum.
Tom Robbins (b. 1932) American novelist
Still Life with Woodpecker (1980)
There is only one cure for the evils which newly acquired freedom produces — and that cure is freedom!
Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800-1859) English writer and politician
“John Milton,” Edinburgh Review (Aug 1825)
(Source)
Review of John Milton, A Treatise on Christian Doctrine.
Some have been thought brave because they were afraid to run away.
(Other Authors and Sources)
English proverb (18th Century)
Collected in Thomas Fuller, Gnomologia (1732).
For why should my liberty be subject to the judgment of someone else’s conscience?
The Bible (The New Testament) (AD 1st - 2nd C) Christian sacred scripture
1 Corinthians 10:29 [NRSV (1989)]
(Source)
On not eating food which someone else considers religiously wrong to eat. Alternate translations:
For why is my liberty judged of another man's conscience?
[KJV (1611)]
Why should my freedom depend on somebody else’s conscience?
[Jerusalem (1966)]
“Well, then,” someone asks, “why should my freedom to act be limited by another person's conscience?
[GNT (1976)]
Nothing in our Constitution is plainer than that declaration of a war is entrusted only to Congress. Of course, a state of war may in fact exist without a formal declaration. But no doctrine that the Court could promulgate would seem to me more sinister and alarming than that a President whose conduct of foreign affairs is so largely uncontrolled, and often even is unknown, can vastly enlarge his mastery over the internal affairs of the country by his own commitment of the Nation’s armed forces to some foreign venture.
Robert H. Jackson (1892-1954) US Supreme Court Justice (1941-54), lawyer, jurist, politician
Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579 (1952) [concurring]
Ratings don’t last. Good journalism does.
Dan Rather (b. 1931) American broadcast journalist
“What I’ve Learned,” Esquire (Aug 2005)
Full article.
What is left when honor is lost?
Publilius Syrus (d. 42 BC) Assyrian slave, writer, philosopher [less correctly Publius Syrus]
Sententiae [Moral Sayings], # 265
Mind you, the Elizabethans had so many words for the female genitals that it is quite hard to speak a sentence of modern English without inadvertently mentioning at least three of them.
Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Post, alt.fan.pratchett
Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.
Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1963) German poet
Letters to a Young Poet, Letter 4 (16 Jul 1903) trans. by M. D. Herter Norton (1993)
Alt trans. (Stephen Mitchell): "Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer."
When young writers write to me about following in the footsteps of those of us who string together nouns and verbs for a living, I tell them this: every story has already been told. Once you’ve read Anna Karenina, Bleak House, The Sound and the Fury, To Kill a Mockingbird and A Wrinkle in Time, you understand that there is really no reason to ever write another novel. Except that each writer brings to the table, if she will let herself, something that no one else in the history of time has ever had. And that is herself, her own personality, her own voice. If she is doing Faulkner imitations, she can stay home. If she is giving readers what she thinks they want instead of what she is, she should stop typing. But if her books reflect her character, who she really is, then she is giving them a new and wonderful gift. Giving it to herself, too.
Anna Quindlen (b. 1953) American journalist, novelist
Commencement Speech, Mount Holyoke College (23 May 1999)
Full text.
The press is a watchdog. Not an attack dog. Not a lapdog. A watchdog. Now, a watchdog can’t be right all the time. He doesn’t bark only when he sees or smells something that’s dangerous. A good watchdog barks at things that are suspicious.
Dan Rather (b. 1931) American broadcast journalist
“What I’ve Learned,” Esquire (Aug 2005)
Full article.
Let not this weak, unknowing hand
Presume Thy bolts to throw,
And deal damnation round the land
On each I judge Thy foe.Alexander Pope (1688-1744) English poet
“The Universal Prayer” (1738)