Never apologize for showing feeling. When you do so, you apologize for truth.
Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881) English politician and author
(Attributed)
The most dangerous strategy is to jump a chasm in two leaps.
Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881) English politician and author
(Attributed)
Frank and explicit: That is the right line to take when you wish to conceal your mind and confuse the minds of others.
Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881) English politician and author
Sybil, “The Gentleman in Downing Street,” bk 6, ch 1 (1845)
Next to knowing when to seize an opportunity, the most important thing in life is to know when to forego an advantage.
Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881) English politician and author
The Infernal Marriage (1834)
Nurture your mind with great thoughts; to believe in the heroic makes heroes.
Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881) English politician and author
Coningsby, bk. 3, ch. 1 (1844)
I am a Conservative to preserve all that is good in our constitution, a Radical to remove all that is bad. I seek to preserve property and to respect order, and I equally decry the appeal to the passions of the many or the prejudices of the few.
Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881) English politician and author
Campaign speech, High Wycombe, England (27 Nov. 1832)
http://www.bartleby.com/73/314.html
What we anticipate seldom occurs; what we least expected generally happens.
Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881) English politician and author
Henrietta Temple, bk. 2, ch. 4 (1837)
No sacramental act achieves anything unless it is an outward symbol of what really happens inwardly in experience. The test of that is the reality of the new life as exhibited in its ethical consequences. “How can we who are dead to sin live any longer in sin?” If baptism is a real dying and rising again, then it is indeed a profound revolution in the personal life, a revolution which is simply bound to show itself in a new moral character.
C. Harold Dodd (1884-1973) American religious writer
The Meaning of Paul for Today (1958)
Writing is like driving a car at night. You can only see as far as the headlights, but you make the whole trip that way.
E. L. Doctorow (1931-2015) American author, editor
Writers at Work, 8th ed., ed. by George Plimpton (1988)
It is much easier to be critical than to be correct.
Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881) English politician and author
Speech, House of Commons (24 Jan 1860)
Emperors are necessarily wretched men since only their assassination can convince the public that the conspiracies against their lives are real.
[Condicionem principum miserrimam aiebat, quibus de coniuratione comperta non crederetur nisi occisis.]Domitian (51-96) Roman Emperor
(Attributed)
Suetonius, Life of Domitian, ch. 21
All mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated; God employs several translators; some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice; but God
John Donne (1572-1631) English poet
Devotions on Emergent Occasions, Meditation XVII (1624)
Sir, more than kisses, letters mingle souls;
For, thus friends absent speak.John Donne (1572-1631) English poet
Verse Letter to Sir Henry Wotton (1597)
Death be not proud, though some have callèd thee
Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not so,
For, those, whom thou think’st, thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill me.John Donne (1572-1631) English poet
Holy Sonnets, No. 10, “Death Be Not Proud,” ll. 1-4 (1609)
(Source)
No man is an Island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were; any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee.
John Donne (1572-1631) English poet
Devotions on Emergent Occasions, Meditation 17 (1624)
Lying to ourselves is more deeply ingrained than lying to others.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821-1881) Russian novelist
“Celebrating a Lie”
Originality and the feeling of one’s own dignity are achieved only through work and struggle.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821-1881) Russian novelist
Diary of a Writer (1877)
Man has such a predilection for systems and abstract deductions that he is ready to distort the truth intentionally, he is ready to deny the evidence of his senses only to justify his logic.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821-1881) Russian novelist
Notes from the Underground (1864)
Every man has some reminiscences which he would not tell to everyone, but only to his friends. He has others which he would not reveal even to his friends, but only to himself, and that in secret. But finally there are still others which a man is even afraid to tell himself, and every decent man has a considerable number of such things stored away. That is, one can even say that the more decent he is, the greater the number of such things in his mind.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821-1881) Russian novelist
Notes from the Underground (1864)
But men love abstract reasoning and neat systematization so much that they think nothing of distorting the truth, closing their eyes and ears to contrary evidence to preserve their logical constructions.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821-1881) Russian novelist
(Attributed)
If a man harbors any sort of fear, it percolates through all his thinking, damages his personality, makes him landlord to a ghost.
Lloyd Douglas (1877-1951) American Congregationalist clergyman and novelist
(Attributed)
If you want to know about a man you can find out an awful lot by looking at who he married.
Kirk Douglas (1916-2020) American actor
The Daily Mail (London) (9 Sep. 1988)
What is all wisdom save a collection of platitudes? But the man who orders his life according to their teachings cannot go far wrong.
Norman Douglas (1868-1952) Austro-British writer
South Wind, ch. 16 (1917)
The right to be let alone is indeed the beginning of all freedom.
William O. Douglas (1898-1980) US Supreme Court justice (1939-75)
Roth vs. United States, 354 U.S. 476, dissenting opinion (1957)
Justice is too good for some people and not good enough for the rest.
Norman Douglas (1868-1952) Austro-British writer
Good-bye to Western Culture (1930)
Living in Los Angeles is not blameworthy per se.
William O. Douglas (1898-1980) US Supreme Court justice (1939-75)
Lambert v. California (1958)
Government should be concerned with anti-social conduct, not with utterances.
William O. Douglas (1898-1980) US Supreme Court justice (1939-75)
Roth vs. United States, 354 U.S. 476, dissenting opinion (1957)
Marriage is a coming together for better or for worse, hopefully enduring, and intimate to the degree of being sacred.
William O. Douglas (1898-1980) US Supreme Court justice (1939-75)
Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 US 470 (1965) (7 Jun 1965)
As nightfall does not come all at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there is a twilight. And it is in such twilight that we all must be aware of change in the air — however slight — lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness.
William O. Douglas (1898-1980) US Supreme Court justice (1939-75)
Speech to Young Lawyers Section of the Washington State Bar Association (10 Sep. 1976)
Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us.
William O. Douglas (1898-1980) US Supreme Court justice (1939-75)
The Nieman Reports, vol. 7, no. 1, “The One Un-Amercan Act” (Jan. 1953)
No man can put a chain about the ankle of his fellow man without at last finding the other end fastened about his own neck.
Frederick Douglass (1817-1895) American abolitionist, orator, writer
Speech, Civil Rights Mass Meeting, Washington, D.C. (1883)
The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims, have been born of earnest struggle. The conflict has been exciting, agitating, all-absorbing, and for the time being, putting all other tumults to silence. It must do this or it does nothing. If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.
Frederick Douglass (1817-1895) American abolitionist, orator, writer
Speech on West India Emancipation (4 Aug 1857)
Also cited (in part) as a letter to a colleague in 1849. More background here.
When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.
Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930) British writer and physician
The Sign of Four, ch. 6, (Sherlock Holmes) (1889)
The dogge waggeth his tayle, not for you, but for your bread.
Thomas Draxe (d. 1618) English writer [also Thomas Drake]
Bibliotheca Scholastica Instructissima (1633)
earlier ed. 1616?
Do not believe that it is very much of an advance to do the unnecessary three times as fast.
Peter F. Drucker (1909-2005) Austrian-American business consultant
(1969)
On computers
Plans are only good intentions unless they immediately degenerate into hard work.
Peter F. Drucker (1909-2005) Austrian-American business consultant
(Attributed)
The understanding that underlies the right decision grows out of the clash and conflict of opinions and out of the serious consideration of competing alternatives.
Peter F. Drucker (1909-2005) Austrian-American business consultant
Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices, ch. 29 (1974)
Wherever you see a successful business, someone once made a courageous decision.
Peter F. Drucker (1909-2005) Austrian-American business consultant
(Attributed)
The most important thing in communication is to hear what isn’t being said.
Peter F. Drucker (1909-2005) Austrian-American business consultant
(Attributed)
Efficiency is doing things right. Effectiveness is doing the right things.
Peter F. Drucker (1909-2005) Austrian-American business consultant
Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices, ch. 2 (1974)
Sometimes quoted as "Management" and "Leadership"; also attrib. Warren Bennis
There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.
Peter F. Drucker (1909-2005) Austrian-American business consultant
(Attributed)
So much of what we call management consists in making it difficult for people to work.
Peter F. Drucker (1909-2005) Austrian-American business consultant
(Attributed)
My greatest strength as a consultant is to be ignorant and ask a few questions.
Peter F. Drucker (1909-2005) Austrian-American business consultant
(Attributed)
He who will not reason is a bigot; he who cannot is a fool; and he who dares not is a slave.
Sir William Drummond (1770-1828) Scottish scholar and philosopher
Academical Questions, Preface (1805)
(sometimes attrib. Byron)
To get to heaven we must take it with us.
Henry Drummond (1851-1897) Scottish cleric, naturalist
(Attributed)
Beware the fury of a patient man.
John Dryden (1631-1700) English poet, dramatist, critic
Absalom and Achitophel, Part I, l. 1005 (1681)
How can finite grasp infinity?
John Dryden (1631-1700) English poet, dramatist, critic
(Attributed)
Errors like straws upon the surface flow:
Who would search for pearls must dive below.John Dryden (1631-1700) English poet, dramatist, critic
All for Love, Prologue (1677)
A capacity to change is indispensable. Equally indispensable is the capacity to hold fast to that which is good.
John Foster Dulles (1888-1959) American politician and diplomat
(Attributed)
The cost of liberty is less than the price of repression.
W. E. B. Du Bois (1868-1963) American writer, historian, social reformer [William Edward Burghardt Du Bois]
John Brown (1909)
Efficiency is intelligent laziness.
David Dunham (contemp.) American computer programmer, game designer
(Attributed)
http://lists.trolltech.com/qt-interest/2002-01/thread00788-0.html
Don’t let them tame you!
Isadora Duncan (1877-1927) American dancer, choreographer
Curtain speech, Symphony Hall, Boston (1922)
If I could tell you what it meant, there would be no point in dancing it.
Isadora Duncan (1877-1927) American dancer, choreographer
(Attributed)
And that’s the world in a nutshell, an appropriate receptacle.
(Other Authors and Sources)
Stan Dunn
A fanatic is a man who does what he thinks th’ Lord wud do if He knew th’ facts iv the case.
[A fanatic is a man who does what he thinks the Lord would do if He knew the facts of the case.]
Finley Peter Dunne (1867-1936) American humorist and journalist
“Casual Observations,” Mr. Dooley’s Opinions (1901)
