Nonconformity is an empty goal, and rebellion against prevailing opinion merely because it is prevailing should no more be praised than acquiescence to it. Indeed, it is often a mask for cowardice, and few are more pathetic than those who flaunt outer differences to expiate their inner surrender.
William Hollingsworth "Holly" Whyte, Jr. (1917-1999) American sociologist, journalist, and civic planner
The Organization Man, ch. 1 (1956)
Language shapes the way we think, and determines what we can think about.
Benjamin Lee Whorf (1897-1941) American linguist, anthropologist
(Attributed)
Expecting the world to treat you fairly because you are a good person is a little like expecting the bull not to attack you because you are a vegetarian.
Dennis Wholey (b. 1939) American writer, television personality, producer
(Attributed)
Whatever women do, they must do twice as well as men to be thought of half as good. Luckily, this is not difficult.
Charlotte Whitton (1896-1975) Canadian politician
Canada Month (Jun. 1963)
comment after being elected mayor of Ottawa (1951)
Damn all expurgated books; the dirtiest book of all is the expurgated book.
Walt Whitman (1819-1892) American poet
(Attributed)
Paraphrase of a comment by Whitman to Horace Traubel, in Traubel's memoir With Walt Whitman in Camden (1906), entry dated 9 May 1999: "Damn the expurgated books! I say damn 'em! The dirtiest book in all the world is the expurgated book." This was in discussion about William Rossetti, who had published an bowdlerized version of Whitman's Leaves of Grass. See here for more discussion.
Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)Walt Whitman (1819-1892) American poet
“Song of Myself,” sec. 51, ll. 1324-26, Leaves of Grass, Book 3 (1855)
(Source)
No nice men are good at getting taxis.
Katharine Whitehorn (1928-2021) English writer, journalist, radio presenter
(Attributed)
Every really new idea looks crazy at first.
Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947) English mathematician and philosopher
(Attributed)
There are no whole truths; all truths are half-truths. It is trying to treat them as whole truths that plays the devil.
Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947) English mathematician and philosopher
(Attributed)
We think in generalities, but we live in details.
Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947) English mathematician and philosopher
(Attributed)
The art of progress is to preserve order amid change, and to preserve change amid order.
Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947) English mathematician and philosopher
Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology (1929)
(Source)
Based on his Gifford Lectures, University of Edinburgh (1927-28), on process philosophy.
The function of University is to enable you to shed details in favor of principles.
Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947) English mathematician and philosopher
The Aims of Education and Other Essays, II (1929)
Liberty is the only thing you cannot have unless you are willing to give it to others.
William Allen White (1868-1944) American writer and journalist
“A Free Press in a Machine Age,” speech, U. of Pennsylvania (2 May 1938)
The most difficult thing in the world is to know how to do a thing and to watch someone else do it wrong without comment.
T. H. White (1906-1964) English writer [Terence Hanbury White]
(Attributed)
To go against the dominant thinking of your friends, of most of the people you see every day, is perhaps the most difficult act of heroism you can have.
T. H. White (1906-1964) English writer [Terence Hanbury White]
(Attributed)
AMBASSADOR: What happens when the crack reaches all the way around the world?
RAMPION: At that time, the oceans will be sucked in. The colossal pressure generated by the steam will produce a tremendous explosion, ripping the Earth in half.
AMBASSADOR: So it will mean the end of the world?
RAMPION: As we know it, yes.Jon Manchip White (1924-2013) Welsh-American writer
Crack in the World (1965)
(with Julian Zimet)
Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time.
E. B. White (1899-1985) American author, critic, humorist [Elwyn Brooks White]
“Notes and Comments,” New Yorker (3 Jul 1943)
(Source)
Weather is a great bluffer. I guess the same is true of our human society — things can look dark, then a break shows in the clouds, and all is changed.
E. B. White (1899-1985) American author, critic, humorist [Elwyn Brooks White]
(Attributed)
I have one share in corporate Earth, and I am nervous about the management.
E. B. White (1899-1985) American author, critic, humorist [Elwyn Brooks White]
(Attributed)
We should all do what, in the long run, gives us joy, even if it is only picking grapes or sorting laundry.
E. B. White (1899-1985) American author, critic, humorist [Elwyn Brooks White]
(Attributed)
If the world were merely seductive, that would be easy. If it were merely challenging, that would be no problem. But I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world, and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.
E. B. White (1899-1985) American author, critic, humorist [Elwyn Brooks White]
(Attributed)
It is easier for a man to be loyal to his club than to his planet; the by-laws are shorter, and he is personally acquainted with the other members.
E. B. White (1899-1985) American author, critic, humorist [Elwyn Brooks White]
(Attributed)
We never really grow up … we just learn how to act in public.
Bryan White (b. 1974) American singer-songwriter
(Attributed)
You shouldn’t say it is not good. You should say, you do not like it; and then, you know, you’re perfectly safe.
James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903) American artist
(Attributed)
Two and two continue to make four, in spite of the whine of the amateur for three, or the cry of the critic for five.
James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903) American artist
Whistler v. Ruskin (1871)
People are morons. I don’t have any other explanation. I really don’t.
Joss Whedon (b. 1964) American screenwriter, author, producer [Joseph Hill Whedon]
(Attributed)
(on Hollywood)
Though not always called upon to condemn ourselves, it is always safe to suspect ourselves.
Richard Whately (1787-1863) English logician, theologian, archbishop
(Attributed)
It is one thing to wish to have the truth on our side; and another to wish sincerely to be on the side of truth.
Richard Whately (1787-1863) English logician, theologian, archbishop
(Attributed)
A man who gives his children habits of industry provides for them better than by giving them a fortune.
Richard Whately (1787-1863) English logician, theologian, archbishop
(Attributed)
Honesty is the best policy, but he who acts on that principle is not an honest man.
Richard Whately (1787-1863) English logician, theologian, archbishop
(Attributed)
In spite of illness, in spite even of the arch-enemy sorrow, one can remain alive long past the usual date of disintegration if one is unafraid of change, insatiable in intellectual curiosity, interested in big things, and happy in small ways.
Edith Wharton (1862-1937) American novelist
(Attributed)
Another unsettling element in modern art is that common symptom of immaturity, the dread of doing what has been done before.
Edith Wharton (1862-1937) American novelist
(Attributed)
If only we’d stop trying to be happy, we could have a pretty good time.
Edith Wharton (1862-1937) American novelist
(Attributed)
The word “idiot” comes from a Greek root meaning private person. Idiocy is the female defect: intent on their private lives, women follow their fate through a darkness deep as that cast by malformed cells in the brain. It is no worse than the male defect, which is lunacy: men are so obsessed by public affairs that they see the world as by moonlight, which shows the outlines of every object but not the details indicative of their nature.
Rebecca West (1892-1983) British author, journalist, literary critic, travel writer [pseud. for Cicily Isabel Fairfield]
Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, Prologue (1941)
(Source)
Sometimes oddly paraphrased, "The main difference between men and women is that men are lunatics and women are idiots."
I believe in censorship. After all, I made a fortune out of it.
Mae West (1892-1980) American film actress
(Attributed)
Humanity either makes, or breeds, or tolerates all its afflictions.
H.G. Wells (1866-1946) British writer [Herbert George Wells]
(Attributed)
The books we think we ought to read are poky, dull, and dry;
The books that we would like to read we are ashamed to buy;
The books that people talk about we never can recall;
And the books that people give us, oh, they’re the worst of all.Carolyn Wells (1869-1942) American author
“On Books”
Living in the lap of luxury isn’t bad, except you never know when luxury is going to stand up.
Orson Welles (1915-1985) American writer, director, actor
(Attributed)
Man is a rational animal who always loses his temper when called upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason.
Orson Welles (1915-1985) American writer, director, actor
(Attributed)
In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, bloodshed — they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love, five hundred years of democracy and peace, and what did they produce …? The cuckoo clock.
Orson Welles (1915-1985) American writer, director, actor
The Third Man
Miracles sometimes occur, but one has to work terribly hard for them.
Chaim Weizmann (1874-1952) Russian-Israeli scientist, Zionist leader
(Attributed)
All sins are attempts to fill voids.
Simone Weil (1909-1943) French philosopher
Gravity and Grace [La Pesanteur et la Grâce], “To Desire Without An Object” (1947) [ed. Thibon] [tr. Crawford/von der Ruhr (1952)]
(Source)
It is not then, in the glare of public, but in the shade of private life, that we are to look for the man. Private life is always real life. … It is the private virtues that lay the foundation of all human excellence.
M.L. Weems (1759-1825) American clergyman and author [Mason Locke Weems]
The Life of George Washington (1800)
Revenge has no more quenching effect on emotions than salt water has on thirst.
Walter Weckler (1758-1843) American lexicographer
(Attributed)
Newsweek
A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many bad measures.
Daniel Webster (1782-1852) American statesman, lawyer, orator
(Attributed)
All battles are fought by scared men who would have rather have been somewhere else.
John Wayne (1907-1979) American actor, director [b. Marion Michael Morrison]
(Attributed)
We cherish our friends not for their ability to amuse us, but for ours to amuse them.
Evelyn Waugh (1903-1966) English novelist
(Attributed)
Everyone tries to define this thing called Character. It’s not hard. Character is doing what’s right when nobody’s looking.
Julius Caesar "J. C." Watts, Jr. (b. 1957) American writer, politician
(Attributed)
Do not expect to arrive at certainty in every subject which you pursue. There are a hundred things wherein we mortals … must be content with probability, where our best light and reasoning will reach no farther.
Isaac Watts (1674-1748) English theologian and hymnodist
(Attributed)
No one imagines that a symphony is supposed to improve in quality as it goes along, or that the whole object of playing it is to reach the finale. The point of music is discovered in every moment of playing and listening to it. It is the same, I feel, with the greater part of our lives, and if we are unduly absorbed in improving them we may forget altogether to live them.
This is more or less what I would do if I had the power to dream every night of anything I wanted. Some months I would probably fulfill all the more obvious wishes. There might be palaces and banquets, players and dancing girls, fabulous bouts of love, and sunlit gardens beside lakes, with mountains beyond. There would next be long conversations with sages, contemplation of supreme works of art, hearing and playing music, voyages to foreign lands, flying out into space to see the galaxies, and delving into the atom to watch the wiggling wavicles. But the night would come when I might want to add a little spice of adventure — perhaps a dream of dangerous mountain climbing, of rescuing a princess from a dragon, or, better, an unpredictable dream in which I do not know what will happen. Once this has started, I might get still more daring. I would wish to dream whole lifetimes, packing seventy years into a single night. I would dream that I am not dreaming at all, that I will never wake up, that I have completely lost myself somewhere down the tangled corridors of the mind, and, finally, that I am in such excruciating agony that when I wake up, it will be better than all possible dreams.
Alan Watts (1915-1973) Anglo-American philosopher, writer
Beyond Theology, ch. 2 “Is It Serious?” (1964)
You know that if you get in the water and have nothing to hold on to, but try to behave as you would on dry land, you will drown. But if, on the other hand, you trust yourself to the water and let go, you will float. And this is exactly the situation of faith.
Alan Watts (1915-1973) Anglo-American philosopher, writer
The Way of Liberation
CALVIN: It’s not denial. I’m just very selective about the reality I accept.
Bill Watterson (b. 1958) American cartoonist
Calvin & Hobbes (28 Sep. 1992)
CALVIN: I like maxims that don’t encourage behavior modification.
Bill Watterson (b. 1958) American cartoonist
Calvin & Hobbes
CALVIN: I’m a simple man, Hobbes.
HOBBES: You?? Yesterday you wanted a nuclear powered car that could turn into a jet with laser-guided heat-seeking missiles!
CALVIN: I’m a simple man with complex tastes.Bill Watterson (b. 1958) American cartoonist
Calvin & Hobbes