Those who so glibly dismiss as “mere legal technicalities” the procedural guarantees of the Constitution limiting law-enforcement activities forget that nothing is more basic to civil liberty than freedom from arbitrary arrest and imprisonment by policemen who are masters, not servants, of the law. The most characteristic symbol of the police state is the ominous rap on the door at night. Freedom from the fear of that rap is the basic condition for the exercise of every other form of freedom.
The greatest blessing of our democracy is freedom. But in the last analysis, our only freedom is the freedom to discipline ourselves.
Bernard Baruch (1870-1965) American businessman and statesman
Baruch, The Public Years (1960)
In necessary things, unity; in disputed things, liberty; in all things, charity.
I know it’s difficult for you to understand this now, Pete. But you’ve got the majority of your life ahead of you — and one day you’ll find that these high school years will be a tiny, distant memory. The scars, of course, are yours to keep forever.
Tom Batiuk (b. 1947) American cartoonist
Funky Winkerbean (2 Jun 2001)
I am convinced that the world is not a mere bog in which men and women trample themselves and die. Something magnificent is taking place here amidst the cruelties and tragedies, and the supreme challenge to intelligence is that of making the noblest and best in our curious heritage prevail.
Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad with power;
The mills of God grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly small;
The bee fertilizes the flower it robs;
When it is dark enough, you can see the stars.Charles Beard (1874-1948) American historian
Summary of human history, in reply to George S. Counts
Half the work that is done in this world is to make things appear what they are not.
Elias Root Beadle (1812-1879) American cleric, philosopher
(Attributed)
Boggies are an unattractive but annoying people whose numbers have increased rather precipitously since the bottom fell out of the fairy-tale market. Slow and sullen, and yet dull, they prefer to lead simple lives of pastoral squalor. They don’t like machines more complicated than a garrote, a blackjack, or a Luger, and they have always been shy of the ‘big folk’ or ‘biggers’ as they call us. As a rule they avoid us, except on rare occasions when a hundred or so will get together to dry-gulch a lone farmer or hunter. They seldom exceed three feet in height, but are fully capable of overpowering creatures half their size when they get the drop on them. … Their beginnings lie far back in the Good Ole Days when the planet was populated with the kind of colorful creatures you have to drink a quart of Old Overcoat to see nowadays.
I believe that, if ever I had to practice cannibalism, I might manage if there were enough tarragon around.
James Beard (1903-1985) American gastronome and writer
( 23 Jan. 1985)
Recalled on his death
You cannot avoid paradise. You can only avoid seeing it.
You’ve achieved success in your field when you don’t know whether what you’re doing is work or play.
Warren Beatty (b. 1937) American actor
(Attributed)
Mirth is God’s medicine. Everybody ought to bathe in it. Grim care, moroseness, anxiety — all this rust of life ought to be scoured off by the oil of mirth. It is better than emery. Every man ought to rub himself with it.
A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep.
SAGRAMORE: If there were aught I could say, aught I could do to save thee…
HANK: Well, ain’t there aught?
SAGRAMORE: Naught.Edmund Beloin (1910-1992) American screenwriter, producer
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (1949)
(book by Mark Twain)
The trouble is not that we are never happy — it is that happiness is so episodical.
Ruth Benedict (1887-1947) American anthropologist
An Anthropologist at Work, Journal (1912-1916), [ed. Margaret Mead] (1959)
Full text.
I have made mistakes, but have never made the mistake of claiming I never made one.
James Gordon Bennett, Jr. (1841-1918) American editor, newspaper publisher
(Attributed)
Happiness is like a cat — if you coax it or call it, it will avoid you; it won’t come. But if you pay no attention to it and go about your business, you will find it rubbing against your legs and jumping into your lap.
William J. Bennett (b. 1943) American politician, moralist
Commencement Address, George Mason University (22 May 1999)
(Source)
I don’t deserve this award, but I have arthritis and I don’t deserve that either.
Jack Benny (1894-1974) American comedian [b. Benjamin Kubelsky]
(Attributed)
How desperately difficult it is to be honest with oneself. It is much easier to be honest with other people.
E. F. Benson (1867-1940) English novelist, biographer, memoirist and short story writer [Edward Frederic Benson]
A Reaping, “March” (1909)
Full text. (Sometimes misattributed to Edward White Benson)
He rather hated the ruling few than loved the suffering many.
Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) English jurist and philosopher
Comment on James Mill
(Source)
In the journal of Caroline Fox (7 Aug 1840), regarding the father of John Stuart Mill. James Mill was a proponent of Bentham's philosophy. The observation was recalled in conversation with John Bowring, Bentham's executor.
Consistency requires you to be as ignorant today as you were a year ago.
Bernard Berenson (1865-1959) Lithuanian-American art critic and historian
Notebook (1892)
There is no obstacle which cannot be broken down by wills sufficiently keyed up, if they deal with it in time. There is thus no inescapable historic law.