I am not willing, now or in the future, to bring bad trouble to people who, in my past association with them, were completely innocent of any talk or any action that was disloyal or subversive. I do not like subversion or disloyalty in any form and if I had ever seen any I would have considered it my duty to have reported it to the proper authorities. But to hurt innocent people whom I knew many years ago in order to save myself is, to me, inhuman and indecent and dishonorable. I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year’s fashions, even though I long ago came to the conclusion that I was not a political person and could have no comfortable place in any political group.
Lillian Hellman (1905-1984) American playwright, screenwriter
Letter to Rep. John S. Wood, House Committee on Un-American Activities (19 May 1952)
(Source)
National Archives copy. Reprinted in The Nation (31 May 1952).
In the letter Hellman offers to come before the committee and talk of her own life and beliefs, but not if she could then be compelled to "name names" of others. As a result of the letter and her invoking the Fifth Amendment at the HUAC hearings, Hellman was put on the Hollywood Blacklist for the rest of the decade.
Both [success and failure] are difficult to endure. Along with success come drugs, divorce, fornication, bullying, travel, medication, depression, neurosis and suicide. With failure comes failure.
Joseph Heller (1923-1999) American novelist
Interview with Sam Merrill (Playboy) (1975)
Reprinted in Conversations with Joseph Heller (1993); full text.
We often know that [concepts] can be applied to a wide range of inner or outer experience, but we practically never know precisely the limits of their applicability. This is true even of the simplest and most general concepts like ‘existence’ and ‘space and time’. Therefore, it will never be possible by pure reason to arrive at some absolute truth.
There are things that are so serious that you can only joke about them.
Niels Bohr (1885-1962) Danish physicist
(Attributed)
Sometimes misattributed to Werner Heisenberg. Quoted in A Pais, The Genius of Science: A Portrait Gallery (2000). Other sources give Pais' translation as ""Some subjects are so serious that one can only joke about them."Alt trans.: "Some things are so serious that one can only joke about them."
Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Breeds that forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and freedoms.
Companionship, partnership, mutual reassurance, someone to laugh with and grieve with, loyalty that accepts foibles, someone to touch, someone to hold your hand — these things are marriage, and sex is but the icing on the cake.
But goodness alone is never enough. A hard, cold wisdom is requred for goodness to accomplish good. Goodness without wisdom always accomplishes evil.
Robert A. Heinlein (1907-1988) American writer
Stranger in a Strange Land, ch. 36 [Mike] (1961)
Full text.
You have attributed conditions to villainy that simply result from stupidity.
Wherever they burn books they will also, in the end, burn human beings.
[Dort, wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man auch am Ende Menschen.]
Heinrich Heine (1797-1856) German poet and critic
Almansor: A Tragedy, l. 245 (1823)
Alt trans:
- "Where they burn books, at the end they also burn people."
- "Where they burn books, they will also burn people."
- "It is there, where they burn books, that eventually they burn people."
- "Where they burn books, so too will they in the end burn human beings."
- "Where they burn books, they also burn people."
- "Them that begin by burning books, end by burning men."
- "Wherever books are burned, sooner or later men are also burned."
Never judge someone by who he’s in love with; judge him by his friends. People fall in love with the most appalling people. Take a cool, appraising glance at his pals.
Cynthia Heimel (1947-2018) American feminist, humorist, writer
But Enough about You (1986)
(Source)
A "Sister Soignée" quote.
When in doubt, make a fool of yourself. There is a microscopically thin line between being brilliantly creative and acting like the most gigantic idiot on earth. So what the hell, leap.
We all have rosy memories of a simpler, happy time- a time of homemade apple pie and gingham curtains, a time when Mom understood everything and Dad could fix anything. “Let’s get those traditional family values back!” we murmur to each other. Meanwhile, in a simultaneous universe, everyone I know, and every celebrity I don’t know, is coming out of the closet to talk about how miserable they are because they grew up in dysfunctional families.
No matter what side of an argument you’re on, you always find some people on your side that you wish were on the other.
Jascha Heifetz (1901-1987) Lithuanian-American violinist
(Unsourced)
Quoted on his official web page.
Hell is truth seen too late.
Tryon Edwards (1809-1894) American theologian, writer, lexicographer
A Dictionary of Thoughts (1908)
Also attributed to Henry Gardner Adams, Georg Hegel, John Locke, Anatole France, William Sloane Coffin, Thomas Hobbes, and Michaelangelo. Full text.
The surest hindrance of success is to have too high a standard of refinement in our own minds, or too high an opinion of the judgment of the public. He who is determined not to be satisfied with anything short of perfection will never do anything to please himself or others.
William Hazlitt (1778-1830) English writer
The Plain Speaker, “On the Qualifications Necessary for Success” (1826)
Full text.
Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps, for he is the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are, and what they ought to be.
William Hazlitt (1778-1830) English writer
Lectures on the English Comic Writers, Lecture 1 “On Wit and Humour” (1819)
(Source)
Sometimes altered to end "... and what they might have been."
Our repugnance to death increases in proportion to our consciousness of having lived in vain.
William Hazlitt (1778-1830) English writer
“On the Love of Life,” “The Round Table” column, The Examiner (15 Jan 1815)
Full text.
There is nothing more likely to drive a man mad, than the being unable to get rid of the idea of the distinction between right and wrong, and an obstinate, constitutional preference of the true to the agreeable.
My mother drew a distinction between achievement and success. She said that achievement is the knowledge that you have studied and worked hard and done the best that is in you. Success is being praised by others, and that’s nice too, but not as important or satisfying. Always aim for achievement and forget about the success.
Well, son, a funny thing about regret is that it’s better to regret something you have done than to regret something you haven’t.
Gibby Haynes (b. 1957) American rock musician, radio personality, and painter [Gibson Jerome Haynes]
“Sweatloaf” Locust Abortion Technician, album (Butthole Surfers) (1987)
Happiness in this world, when it comes, comes incidentally. Make it the object of pursuit, and it leads us a wild-goose chase, and is never attained. Follow some other object, and very possibly we may find that we have caught happiness without dreaming of it.
Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) American writer
American Notebooks (3 Nov 1851)
In Passages from the American Note-Books of Nathaniel Hawthorne, ed. S. Hawthorne (1868). Full text.
The greatest obstacle to being heroic is the doubt whether one may not be going to prove one’s self a fool; the truest heroism is, to resist the doubt; and the profoundest wisdom, to know when it ought to be resisted, and when to be obeyed.
Even if there is only one possible unified theory, it is just a set of rules and equations. What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe? The usual approach of science of constructing a mathematical model cannot answer the questions of why there should be a universe for the model to describe. Why does the universe go to all the bother of existing?
So Einstein was wrong when he said “God does not play dice”. Consideration of black holes suggests, not only that God does play dice, but that He sometimes confuses us by throwing them where they can’t be seen.
Stephen Hawking (1942-2018) English physicist, author
“The Nature of Space and Time,” Lecture 1, “Classical Theory,” Princeton (1994)
Full text. Variants sometimes seen: "Not only does God play dice with the Universe; he sometimes casts them where they can't be seen." "Not only does God play dice, but... he sometimes throws them where they cannot be seen." "God not only plays dice, He sometimes throws the dice where they cannot be seen."
Without commonly shared and widely entrenched moral values and obligations, neither the law, nor democratic government, nor even the market economy, will function properly.
Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.
There’s a statistical theory that if you gave a million monkeys typewriters and set them to work, they’d eventually come up with the complete works of Shakespeare. Thanks to the Internet, we now know this isn’t true.
Ian Hart (contemp.) Australian media academic, documentary producer
“Between the Idea and Reality, The Case for Qualitative Research,” ITForum Paper #20 (Mar 1997)
(Source)
Human beings of all societies in all periods of history believe that their ideas on the nature of the real world are the most secure, and that their ideas on religion, ethics and justice are the most enlightened. Like us, they think that final knowledge is at last within reach. Like us, they pity the people in earlier ages for not knowing the true facts. Unfailingly, human beings pity their ancestors for being so ignorant and forget that their descendants will pity them for the same reason.
Our schools have been scientifically designed to prevent over-education from happening …. The average American [should be] content with their humble role in life, because they’re not tempted to think about any other role.
William Torrey Harris (1835-1909) American educator, philosopher
The Philosophy of Education (1889)
If you want to know what a man’s character is really like, don’t ask him to tell you his creed or his code (for everyone has a prettified public version of these), but ask him to tell you the living person he most admires – for hero worship is the truest index of a man’s private nature.
We have not passed that subtle line between childhood and adulthood until we move from the passive voice to the active voice — that is, until we have stopped saying, “It got lost,” and say, “I lost it.”