The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (1841-1935) American jurist, Supreme Court Justice
Schenck v. United States (3 Mar 1919)
    (Source)
 
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What the world needs is more geniuses with humility, there are so few of us left.

Oscar Levant (1906-1972) American pianist, composer, actor, wit
(Attributed)
 
Added on 20-Sep-07 | Last updated 20-Sep-07
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If radio news is to be regarded as a commodity, only acceptable when saleable, then I don’t care what you call it — I say it isn’t news.

Edward R. Murrow (1908-1965) American journalist
Speech, Radio and Television News Directors Association (RTNDA), Chicago (15 Oct 1958)

Full speech.
 
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But we know that freedom cannot be served by the devices of the tyrant. As it is an ancient truth that freedom cannot be legislated into existence, so it is no less obvious that freedom cannot be censored into existence. And any who act as if freedom’s defenses are to be found in suppression and suspicion and fear confess a doctrine that is alien to America.

Dwight David Eisenhower (1890-1969) American general, US President (1953-61)
Letter to Dr. Robert B. Downs, pres. of the American Library Association (24 Jun 1953)
 
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I know a number of highly sensitive and intelligent people in my own communion who consider as a heresy my faith that God’s loving concern for his creation will outlast all our willfulness and pride. No matter how many eons it takes, he will not rest until all of creation, including Satan, is reconciled to him, until there is no creature who cannot return his look of love with a joyful response of love […] Some people feel it to be heresy because it appears to deny man his freedom to refuse to love God. But this, it seems to me, denies God his freedom to go on loving us beyond all our willfulness and pride. If the Word of God is the light of the world, and this light cannot be put out, ultimately it will brighten all the dark corners of our hearts and we will be able to see, and seeing, will be given the grace to respond with love — and of our own free will.

Madeleine L'Engle (1918-2007) American writer
The Irrational Season (1977)
 
Added on 19-Sep-07 | Last updated 14-Nov-15
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Administrivia: The Mysterious Gil Atkinson

Everybody knows who, say, George Bernard Shaw was. And it’s not likely anyone’s going to question which “Abraham Lincoln” to whom to attribute an Abraham Lincoln quote.

But then you get someone like “Gil Atkinson.” There are a ton of Gil Atkinson quotes on the net. But who is Gil Atkinson. Ah … there’s the rub.

Ninety-nine percent of the quotes in Google have nothing other than the name. A very few identify him as an inventor and businessman (1827-1905) of that name, who invented the automatic sprinkler. There are also a couple of cases where the quotes are attributed to an American historian by that name.
Problem is, the quotes themselves are all over the map. A couple sound plausible from an historian. A couple of others from an inventor (though few of those sound appropriate for someone writing at the turn of the 20th Century). Most of them sound like a (rather trite) motivational speaker or sales consultant (and are quoted most enthusiastically by those same sorts). But there are no Gil Atkinson websites, no “live” comments by him anywhere on the web (by that name), and no books at Amazon by him.

And none of the sources touting they know “who” Gil Atkinson is are reliable enough for me to just take their word — and assume they didn’t just plug in a description from elsewhere.

So, who was Gil Atkinson? Or who are they? Are we talking about multiple folk by that name, of different professions, and how, without actually finding the source of some of these quotes can one really, actually tell?

My conclusion — though I originally had my (one) Gil quote attributed to a contemporary historian, I’m going to backtrack on that, and just leave the name as a contemporary (based on the vocabulary and syntax of the quotes). Which really irks me, but what can you do?

Anyone with any citeable insight into this is more than welcome to chime in.


 
Added on 19-Sep-07; last updated 15-Apr-09
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For the wicked are full of regrets.

[μεταμελείας γὰρ οἱ φαῦλοι γέμουσιν.]

Aristotle (384-322 BC) Greek philosopher
Nicomachean Ethics [Ἠθικὰ Νικομάχεια], Book 9, ch. 4 (9.4.10) / 1166b.24-25 (c. 325 BC) [tr. Welldon (1892)]
    (Source)

(Source (Greek)). Alternate translations:

For the wicked are full of remorse.
[tr. Chase (1847)]

Whence it is that the wicked are ever full of repentance.
[tr. Williams (1869)]

For those who are not good are full of remorse.
[tr. Peters (1893)]

For bad men are laden with repentance.
[tr. Ross (1908)]

The bad are always changing their minds.
[tr. Rackham (1934)]

For base people are full of regret.
[tr. Reeve (1948)]

For bad men are full of regrets.
[tr. Apostle (1975)]

For bad men are full of regrets.
[tr. Thomson/Tredennick (1976)]

For base people are full of regret.
[tr. Irwin/Fine (1995)]

For bad people are full of regrets.
[tr. Crisp (2000)]

For base people teem with regret.
[tr. Bartlett/Collins (2011)]

 
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Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few.

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) British playwright and critic
Man and Superman, “Maxims for Revolutionists,” “Democracy” (1903)
    (Source)
 
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Truth stood on one side and Ease on the other; it has often been so.

Theodore Parker
Theodore Parker (1810-1860) American clergyman, transcendentalist, abolitionist
A Discourse of Matters Pertaining to Religion (1842)
 
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Democracy means, not “I am as good as you are,” but, “You are as good as I am.”

Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971) American theologian and clergyman
The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness, foreward (1944)

This quote was difficult to track down. It's quoted everywhere -- but often attributed to Theodore Parker (as I previously did) or James Russell Lowell. I couldn't find, however, any specific citation from either gentleman.

Rev. John Murray Atwood, in his essay "Universalism and Educational Ideas" in 1770-1920 - From Good Luck to Gloucester, ed. Rev. Frederick A Bisbee (1920), writes:

But he who not only feels that he himself has unknown, divine possibilities, but so has his fellow, that democracy means, not I am as good as you are, but you are as good as I am, who seeks as the expression of his own true nature the larger liberty and life for others, is the kind of man essential to construct a new world.


The book is a history of Universalism, which may tie into Theodore Parker's Unitarian career. At any rate, the wording does seem to precede Niebuhr, but lacking a solid citation, I'll leave it with him.
 
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Come! Let us lay a lance in rest,
And tilt at windmills under a wild sky!
For who would live so petty and unblest
That dare not tilt at something ere he die;
Rather than, screened by safe majority,
Preserve his little life to little end,
And never raise a rebel cry!

John Galsworthy
John Galsworthy (1867-1933) English novelist and playwright
“Errantry,” st. 1 (1934)
 
Added on 18-Sep-07 | Last updated 18-Sep-07
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Administrivia: Mary, Mary, Mary …

Though you’d never know it from a lot of quotation sites (including, I’ve discovered, my own), there is in fact a difference between Mary Wollstonecraft and her daughter Mary Shelley — which difference is sometimes muddled by the latter sometimes being known as Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, and both of them sometimes being referred to as Mary Godwin (after MW’s husband, and MS’s father, William Godwin).
Mary Wollstonecraft was a philosopher and commenter on human rights. Mary Shelley was the author of (among other things) Frankenstein. Their quotations are quite different, but often appear misapplied one author to another.
So when recording in a quotation from one or the other of these ladies, do a little bit of research to confirm that your source has the right author. There’s enough bad quotation info out there — no point in adding to it if you can help it.


 
Added on 18-Sep-07; last updated 18-Sep-07
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Every political good carried to the extreme must be productive of evil.

Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797) English social philosopher, feminist, writer
The French Revolution, Book 5, ch. 4 (1794)
    (Source)
 
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It is not necessary to remind you that the fact that your voice is amplified to the degree where it reaches from one end of the country to the other does not confer upon you greater wisdom or understanding than you possessed when your voice reached only from one end of the bar to the other.

Edward R. Murrow (1908-1965) American journalist
Speech, Radio and Television News Directors Association (RTNDA), Chicago (15 Oct 1958)

Full speech. Often quoted: "Just because your voice reaches halfway around the world doesn't mean you are wiser than when it reached only to the end of the bar."
 
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Every day, for example, politicians, of which there are plenty, swear eternal devotion to the ends of peace and security. They always remind me of the elder Holmes’ apostrophe to a katydid: “Thou say’st an undisputed thing in such a solemn way.” And every day statesmen, of which there are few, must struggle with limited means to achieve these unlimited ends, both in fact and in understanding. For the nation’s purposes always exceed its means, and it is finding a balance between means and ends that is the heart of foreign policy and that makes it such a speculative, uncertain business.

Adlai Stevenson (1900-1965) American diplomat, statesman
Call to Greatness (1954)
 
Added on 17-Sep-07 | Last updated 17-Sep-07
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Censorship, like charity, should begin at home; but, unlike charity, it should end there.

Clare Booth Luce
Clare Boothe Luce (1903-1987) American dramatist, diplomat, politician
“Problem of Pornography,” McCall’s (Oct 1966)
 
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The blessed work of helping the world forward, happily does not wait to be done by perfect men; and I should imagine that neither Luther nor John Bunyan, for example, would have satisfied the modern demand for an ideal hero, who believes nothing but what is true, feels nothing but what is exalted.

George Eliot (1819-1880) English novelist [pseud. of Mary Ann Evans]
Scenes of Clerical Life, “Janet’s Repentence,” ch. 10 (1858)
 
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A man must first care for his own household before he can be of use to the state. But no matter how well he cares for his household, he is not a good citizen unless he also takes thought of the state. In the same way, a great nation must think of its own internal affairs; and yet it cannot substantiate its claim to be a great nation unless it also thinks of its position in the world at large.

Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) American politician, statesman, conservationist, writer, US President (1901-1909)
“Nationalism and International Relations,” Social Justice and Popular Rule, ch. 12 (1926).
 
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Industry is a better horse to ride than genius.

Walter Lippmann (1889-1974) American journalist and author
(Attributed)

Quoted in Celebrity Register, ed. C. Amory, E. Blackwell (1963)
 
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If there are no stupid questions, then what kind of questions do stupid people ask? Do they get smart just in time to ask questions?

Scott Adams (b. 1957) American cartoonist
(Attributed)
 
Added on 14-Sep-07 | Last updated 14-Sep-07
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It may be true that morality cannot be legislated, but behavior can be regulated. It may be true that the law cannot change the heart but it can restrain the heartless. It may be true that the law can’t make a man love me, but it can restrain him from lynching me, and I think that’s pretty important also.

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman, civil rights leader, social activist, preacher
“The Other America,” speech, Stanford University (14 Apr 1967)
    (Source)

A motif King used frequently. In the Wall Street Journal (13 Nov 1962), King used the line, "It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can keep him from lynching me, and I think that's pretty important." In Strength to Love, 3.3 (1963), he wrote, "Morality cannot be legislated, but behavior can be regulated. Judicial decrees may not change the heart, but they can restrain the heartless."
 
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The purpose of foreign policy is not to provide an outlet for our own sentiments of hope or indignation; it is to shape real events in a real world.

John F. Kennedy (1917-1963) US President (1961-63)
Address, Salt Lake City (26 Sep 1963)
 
Added on 14-Sep-07 | Last updated 14-Sep-07
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With willing hearts and skillful hands, the difficult we do at once; the impossible takes a bit longer.

(Other Authors and Sources)
Inscription, Seabees (U.S. Naval Construction Batallions) Memorial, Arlington Cemetery.

The US Army Corps of Engineers motto during WW II was “The difficult we do immediately. The impossible takes a little longer.” Other branches used it as well; Newsweek (8 Mar 1943) attributed it to the Army Air Forces and the NY Times (4 Nov 1945) attributed “The impossible we do at once; the miraculous takes a little longer” to the Army Service Forces.
 
Added on 14-Sep-07 | Last updated 14-Sep-07
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Wherever the standard of freedom and independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her [America’s] heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. She will recommend the general cause, by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example. She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself, beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force …. She might become the dictatress of the world: she would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit.

John Quincy Adams (1767-1848) US President (1825-29)
Independence Day Address, Washington, DC (4 Jul 1821)
 
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Speak the truth and shame the Devil.

François Rabelais (1494-1553) French writer, humanist, doctor
Le Quart-Livre des faicts et dicts héroïques du bon Pantagruel, Prolog (1552)
 
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You may fool all the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all the time; but you can’t fool all of the people all the time.

Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) American lawyer, politician, US President (1861-65)
(Attributed)

A possible precursor to this quote is the widely-republished Jacques Abbadie, "Traité de la Vérité de la Religion Chrétienne," ch. 2 (1684): "One can fool some men, or fool all men in some places and times, but one cannot fool all men in all places and ages. [… ont pû tromper quelques hommes, ou les tromper tous dans certains lieux & en certains tems, mais non pas tous les hommes, dans tous les lieux & dans tous les siécles.]"  A similar passage was used in Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d’Alembert, ed., Encyclopédie: ou Dictionnaire Raisonné des Sciences, des Arts et des Métiers, Vol. 4 (1754).

First attributed to Lincoln by Fred F. Wheeler, interviewed in the Albany Times (8 Mar 1886): "You can fool part of the people some of the time, you can fool some of the people all of the time, but you cannot fool all the people all of the time."

First cited in detail in Alexander K. McClure, “Abe” Lincoln’s Yarns and Stories, (1904), in the above form; it was cited as a speech in Clinton, Ill. (2 Sep 1858), but the passage is not found in any surviving Lincoln documents. No Lincoln reference is found in contemporary writings.

Also attributed to P.T. Barnum and Bob Dylan. See also Lawrence J. Peter. More detailed discussion of the quotation can be found here.
 
Added on 13-Sep-07 | Last updated 12-Feb-20
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Politics without principle.
Wealth without work.
Pleasure without conscience.
Knowledge without character.
Commerce and industry without morality.
Science without humanity
Worship without sacrifice.

Frederick Lewis Donaldson
Frederick Lewis Donaldson (1860-1953) English Anglican priest and social activist
Sermon, Westminster Abbey, London (20 Mar 1925)

Summarized in a newspaper article (1 Apr 1925) where they are referred to as "the seven social evils," "the seven cardinal crimes of modern society," and "evils of the world." These were quoted by Mohandas Gandhi in an article in Young India, (22 Oct 1925), labeled as the "Seven Social Sins," and are often attributed to Gandhi.

More discussion: Seven Social Sins - Wikipedia.
 
Added on 12-Sep-07 | Last updated 4-Jan-22
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Nothing is so much to be feared as fear.

Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) American philosopher and writer
Journal (7 Sep 1851)
 
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Liberty has never come from the government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of the government. The history of government is a history of resistance. The history of liberty is the history of the limitation of government, not the increase of it.

Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924) US President (1913-20), educator, political scientist
Address to the New York Press Club (9 Sep 1912)
 
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So let us begin anew — remembering on both sides that civility is not a sign of weakness, and sincerity is always subject to proof. Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate.

John F. Kennedy (1917-1963) US President (1961-63)
Inaugural Address (20 Jan 1961)
    (Source)
 
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Lawyers spend a great deal of their time shoveling smoke.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (1841-1935) American jurist, Supreme Court Justice
(Attributed)
 
Added on 12-Sep-07 | Last updated 12-Sep-07
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Domestic policy can only defeat us; foreign policy can kill us.

John F. Kennedy (1917-1963) US President (1961-63)
(Attributed)

Quoted in The Imperial Presidency, ch. 11, by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. (1973).
 
Added on 11-Sep-07 | Last updated 11-Sep-07
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Not failure, but low aim, is crime.

James Russell Lowell (1819-1891) American diplomat, essayist, poet
“For an Autograph,” st. 5 (1868)
    (Source)
 
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I cannot believe that God wants punishment to go on interminably any more than does a loving parent. The entire purpose of loving punishment is to teach, and it lasts only as long as is needed for the lesson. And the lesson is always love.

Madeleine L'Engle (1918-2007) American writer
The Irrational Season (1977)
 
Added on 11-Sep-07 | Last updated 11-Sep-07
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But how shall we expect charity towards others, when we are uncharitable to our selves? Charity begins at home, is the voyce of the world, yet is every man his greatest enemy, and as it were, his owne executioner.

Thomas Browne (1605-1682) English physician and author
Religio Medici, Part 2, sec. 4 (1643)
    (Source)
 
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We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it — and stop there; lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove-lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove-lid again — and that is well; but also she will never sit down on a cold one anymore.

Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
Following the Equator, ch. 11, epigraph (1897)
    (Source)

See Herbert.
 
Added on 10-Sep-07 | Last updated 22-Mar-24
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Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892) English poet
“Ulysses,” ll. 65-70 (1842)
    (Source)
 
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It is natural to most men to suppose that they have enemies and to find a certain fulfillment of their nature when they embark upon a contest. What a man believes upon grossly insufficient evidence is an index to his desires — desires of which he himself is often unconscious. If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance with his instincts, he will accept it even on the slenderest evidence. The origin of myths is explained in this way, and much of what is currently believed in international affairs is no better than myth.

Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Roads to Freedom ch. 6 (1918)
 
Added on 8-Sep-07 | Last updated 8-Sep-07
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Science is a wonderful thing if one does not have to earn one’s living at it.

Albert Einstein (1879-1955) German-American physicist
Letter to E. Holzapfel (Mar 1951) [Einstein Archive 59-1013]
 
Added on 8-Sep-07 | Last updated 19-Feb-21
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No long-term marriage is made easily, and there have been times when I’ve been so angry or so hurt that I thought my love would never recover. And then, in the midst of near despair, something has happened beneath the surface. A bright little flashing fish of hope has flicked silver fins and the water is bright and suddenly I am returned to a state of love again — till next time. I’ve learned that there will always be a next time, and that I will submerge in darkness and misery, but that I won’t stay submerged. And each time something has been learned under the waters; something has been gained; and a new kind of love has grown. The best I can ask for is that this love, which has been built on countless failures, will continue to grow. I can say no more than that this is mystery, and gift, and that somehow or other, through grace, our failures can be redeemed and blessed.

Madeleine L'Engle (1918-2007) American writer
“The Irrational Season” (1977)
 
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If we commit ourselves to one person for life this is not, as many people think, a rejection of freedom; rather, it demands the courage to move into all the risks of freedom, and the risk of love which is permanent; into that love which is not possession but participation.

Madeleine L'Engle (1918-2007) American writer
“The Irrational Season” (1977)
 
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You’re given the form, but you have to write the sonnet yourself. What you say is completely up to you.

Madeleine L'Engle (1918-2007) American writer
A Wrinkle in Time (1962)
 
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As the skipping rope hit the pavement, so did the ball. As the rope curved over the head of the jumping child, the child with the ball caught the ball. Down came the ropes. Down came the balls. Over and over again. Up. Down. All in rhythm. All identical. Like the houses. Like the paths. Like the flowers.

Madeleine L'Engle (1918-2007) American writer
A Wrinkle in Time (1962)
 
Added on 8-Sep-07 | Last updated 8-Sep-07
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Later, he wondered if he could have changed things, if that gesture would have done any good, if it could have averted any of the harm that was to come. He told himself it wouldn’t. He knew it wouldn’t. But still, afterward, he wished that, just for a moment on that slow flight home, he had touched Wednesday’s hand.

Neil Gaiman (b. 1960) British author, screenwriter, fabulist
American Gods, Part 2, ch. 10 (2001)
    (Source)
 
Added on 8-Sep-07 | Last updated 29-Dec-22
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The Gettysburg speech is at once the shortest and the most famous oration in American history. Put beside it, all the whoopings of the Websters, Sumners and Everetts seem gaudy and silly. It is eloquence brought to a pellucid and almost gem-like perfection — the highest emotion reduced to a few poetical phrases.

H. L. Mencken (1880-1956) American writer and journalist [Henry Lewis Mencken]
Smart Set (May 1920)
 
Added on 5-Sep-07 | Last updated 5-Sep-07
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The true rule, in determining to embrace, or reject any thing, is not whether it have any evil in it; but whether it have more of evil, than of good. There are few things wholly evil, or wholly good. Almost every thing, especially of governmental policy, is an inseparable compound of the two; so that our best judgment of the preponderance between them is continually demanded.

Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) American lawyer, politician, US President (1861-65)
Remarks, House of Representatives (1848-06-20)
    (Source)

Speaking on internal improvements (infrastructure) as part of governmental policy.
 
Added on 5-Sep-07 | Last updated 17-Apr-23
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Although is had its share of strenuous Christians … the gathering at Philadelphia was largely made up of men in whom the old fires were under control or had even flickered out. Most were nominally members of one of the traditional churches in their part of the country.. and most were men who could take their religion or leave it alone. Although no one in this sober gathering would have dreamed of invoking the Goddess of Reason, neither would anyone have dared to proclaim his opinions had the support of the God of Abraham and Paul. The Convention of 1787 was highly rationalist and even secular in spirit.

Clinton Rossiter
Clinton Rossiter (1917-1970) American historian and political scientist [Clinton Lawrence Rossiter III]
(Attributed)

Quoted from the Joint Baptist Committee's pamphlet, "Critique of David Barton's 'America's Godly Heritage'"
 
Added on 4-Sep-07 | Last updated 4-Sep-07
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Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you;
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren’t lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live.

Dorothy Parker (1893-1967) American writer
“Résumé,” New York World (16 Aug 1925)
    (Source)

Reprinted in Enough Rope (1926). Parker attempted suicide several times, by a variety of methods.
 
Added on 3-Sep-07 | Last updated 22-Jun-20
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ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL
BUT SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE
EQUAL THAN OTHERS

George Orwell (1903-1950) English writer [pseud. of Eric Arthur Blair]
Animal Farm, ch. 10 (1946)
 
Added on 3-Sep-07 | Last updated 6-Jan-16
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This is the sort of pedantry up with which I will not put.

Winston Churchill (1874-1965) British statesman and author
(Spurious)


Margin note after receiving an objection to ending a sentence with a preposition and using a dangling participle in official documents.  Frequently attributed to Churchill, the earliest reference to himwith this quotation is in September 1945.  The earliest the comment can be found is in a joke (not mentioning Churchill) in The Strand in May 1942.  More here.

Also given in different sources as:

  • "This is the sort of bloody nonsense up with which I will not put."
  • "This is the kind of arrant pedantry up with which I will not put."
  • "This is the type of impertinence up with which I shall not put."
 
Added on 3-Sep-07 | Last updated 24-Jul-12
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I hate journalists. There is nothing in them but tittering jeering emptiness. They have all made what Dante calls the Great Refusal, — that is they have ceased to be self-centered, have given up their individuality…. The shallowest people on the ridge of the earth.

William Butler Yeats (1865-1939) Irish poet and dramatist
Letter to Katharine Tynan (30 Aug 1888)
 
Added on 1-Sep-07 | Last updated 1-Sep-07
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NAPOLEON: There is nothing so bad or so good that you will not find an Englishman doing it; but you will never find an Englishman in the wrong. He does everything on principle. He fights you on patriotic principles; he robs you on business principles; he enslaves you on imperial principles.

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) British playwright and critic
Man of Destiny (1898)
 
Added on 1-Sep-07 | Last updated 1-Sep-07
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The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.

FDR - test our progress abundance of those who have much enough for those who have too little - wist.info quote

Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882-1945) American lawyer, politician, statesman, US President (1933-1945)
Inaugural Address (20 Jan 1937)
    (Source)
 
Added on 31-Aug-07 | Last updated 14-Feb-22
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So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882-1945) American lawyer, politician, statesman, US President (1933-1945)
First Inaugural Address (4 Mar 1933)
    (Source)

See Bacon.
 
Added on 31-Aug-07 | Last updated 21-Jul-16
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The millions who are in want will not stand idly by silently forever while the things to satisfy their needs are within easy reach.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882-1945) American lawyer, politician, statesman, US President (1933-1945)
Commencement Speech at Oglethorpe U. (22 May 1932)
 
Added on 31-Aug-07 | Last updated 31-Aug-07
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