Oh, the poor folks hate the rich folks,
And the rich folks hate the poor folks,
All of my folks hate all of your folks,
It’s American as apple pie.Tom Lehrer (b. 1928) American mathematician, satirist, songwriter
“National Brotherhood Week” (1965)
Oh why do we not say the important things, it would be so easy, and we are damned because we do not.
Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956) German poet, playwright, director, dramaturgist
“Song about my mother [Lied von meiner Mutter],” from “Thirteen Psalms” (1920) [tr. Middleton]
He tried
To cross
As fast train neared
Death didn’t draft him
He volunteered
Burma-Shave(Other Authors and Sources)
Burma-Shave sign
It is the folly of too many to mistake the echo of a London coffee-house for the voice of the kingdom.
Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) English writer and churchman
The Conduct of the Allies (1711)
You must not tell lies because if you do you will find yourself unable to believe anything that is told to you.
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) British playwright and critic
The Intelligent Woman’s Guide to Socialism, Capitalism, Sovietism, and Fascism, ch. 74 (1928)
A brave man is sometimes a desperado: a bully is always a coward.
Thomas Chandler Haliburton (1796-1865) Canadian politician, judge, humorist
Sam Slick’s Wise Saws and Modern Instances, Vol. 1 (1853)
[T.E. Lawrence] is one of those great men for whom one feels intensely sorry because he was nothing but a great man.
Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) English novelist, essayist and critic
Letter to Virginia Ocampo (12 Dec 1946)
“Would you like me to arrest you?” I asked. That’s an old police trick: If you just warn people they often just ignore you, but if you ask them a question then they have to think about it. Once they start to think about the consequences they almost always calm down, unless they’re drunk of course, or stoned, or aged between fourteen and twenty-one, or Glaswegian.
Ben Aaronovitch (b. 1964) British author
Moon Over Soho (2011)
It will not bother me in the hour of death to reflect that I have been ‘had for a sucker’ by any number of impostors: but it would be a torment to know that one had refused even one person in need. After all, the parable of the sheep and goats makes our duty perfectly plain, doesn’t it? Another thing that annoys me is when people say ‘Why did you give that man money? He’ll probably go and drink it.’ My reply is ‘But if I’d kept [it] I should probably have drunk it.’
C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) English writer, literary scholar, lay theologian [Clive Staples Lewis]
Letter to Mary Willis Shelburne (26 Oct 1962)
He who fasteth and doth no Good, saveth his Bread but loseth his Soul.
Thomas Fuller (1654-1734) English physician, preacher, aphorist, writer
Gnomologia: Adages and Proverbs, #2382 (1732)
(Source)
How many people have died because they could not abandon their baggage?
Robert A. Heinlein (1907-1988) American writer
Friday [Friday Jones] (1982)
It is folly to pretend that one ever wholly recovers from a disappointed passion. Such wounds always leave a scar. There are faces I can never look upon without emotion. There are names I can never hear spoken without almost starting.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882) American poet
Hyperion, Book 2, ch. 3 (1839)
Better perish than hate and fear, and twice rather perish than make oneself hated and feared — this must someday become the highest maxim for every single commonwealth.
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) German philosopher and poet
The Wanderer and His Shadow (1880)
There was much conversation, most of which sounded like the rest of it.
Sinclair Lewis (1885-1951) American novelist, playwright
Arrowsmith, ch. 14 (1925)
A good solution applied with vigor now is better than a perfect solution applied ten minutes later.
George S. Patton (1885-1945) American soldier
(Attributed)
Now I understand one of the important reasons for going to college and getting an education is to learn that the things you’ve believed in all your life aren’t true, and that nothing is what it appears to be.
Daniel F. Keyes (1927-2014) American author
Flowers for Algernon (novel) (1966)
Your position never gives you the right to command. It only imposes on you the duty of so living your life that others can receive your orders without being humiliated.
Dag Hammarskjöld (1905-1961) Swedish diplomat, author, UN Secretary-General (1953-61)
Markings (1955) [tr. Sjoberg & Auden (1964)]
If an autocracy does not rest on the army, which leads to the chaos of praetorianism, it must rely on ‘panem et circenses.’ Hence it has some of the worst faults of democracy, without its advantages.
William Ralph Inge (1860-1954) English prelate [Dean Inge]
“Our Present Discontents,” Outspoken Essays: First Series (1919)
Although men are accused of not knowing their own weakness, yet perhaps as few know their own strength. It is in men as in soils, where sometimes there is a vein of gold, which the owner knows not of.
Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) English writer and churchman
“Thoughts on Various Subjects” (1706)
(Source)
Fear for one’s daily bread destroys one’s character.
Franz Kafka (1883-1924) Czech-Austrian Jewish writer
In G. Janouch, “Conversations with Kafka” [tr. Rees] Encounter (Aug 1971)
When thinking about life, remember this: no amount of guilt can change the past, and no amount of anxiety can change the future.
(Other Authors and Sources)
Anonymous
CHAPLAIN: War is like love, it always finds a way.
Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956) German poet, playwright, director, dramaturgist
Mother Courage and Her Children, sc. 6 (1939)
Great men are rarely isolated mountain peaks; they are the summits of ranges.
Thomas Wentworth Higginson (1823-1911) American minister, author, abolitionist, soldier
“A Plea for Culture,” Atlantic Essays (1871)
We lie to ourselves, in order that we may still have the excuse of ignorance, the alibi of stupidity and incomprehension, possessing which we can continue with a good conscience to commit and tolerate the most monstrous crimes.
Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) English novelist, essayist and critic
“Words and Behavior,” The Olive Tree and Other Essays (1936)
Remember that you have only one soul; that you have only one death to die; that you have only one life, which is short and has to be lived by you alone; and there is only one Glory, which is eternal. If you do this, there will be many things about which you care nothing.
Teresa of Ávila (1515-1582) Spanish mystic, poet, philosopher, saint
“Maxims for Her Nuns”
In Complete Works St. Teresa of Avila, Vol. 3 (1963) [ed. Peers]
And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.
C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) English writer, literary scholar, lay theologian [Clive Staples Lewis]
The Last Battle, final words (1956)
My dad had once told me that the secret to a happy life was never to start something with a girl unless you were willing to follow wherever it leads. It’s the best piece of advice he’s ever given me and probably the reason I was born.
Ben Aaronovitch (b. 1964) British author
Rivers of London [Midnight Riot] (2011)
It must be a good thing to be good or ivrybody wudden’t be pretendin’ he was.
[It must be a good thing to be good, or everybody wouldn’t be pretending he was.]
Finley Peter Dunne (1867-1936) American humorist and journalist
Observations by Mr. Dooley, “Hypocrisy” (1902)
There is only one way of not hating those who do us wrong, and that is by doing them good.
Henri-Frédéric Amiel (1821-1881) Swiss philosopher, poet, critic
Journal (27 Nov 1880) [tr. Ward (1887)]
See Matthew.
Might was the measure of right.
[Mensuraque juris / Vis erat.]
Lucan (AD 39-65) Roman poet [Marcus Annaeus Lucanus]
Pharsalia, 1.175
(Source)
Referring to earlier eras of anarchy.
All of them perceived that American Democracy did not imply any equality of wealth, but did demand a wholesome sameness of thought, dress, painting, morals, and vocabulary.
Sinclair Lewis (1885-1951) American novelist, playwright
Babbitt, ch. 34 (1922)
I do not kill everyone with whom I have a difference of opinion and I would not want anyone reading this memoir to think that I do.
Robert A. Heinlein (1907-1988) American writer
Friday [Friday Jones] (1982)
I am afraid. Not of life, or death, or nothingness, but of wasting it as if I had never been.
Daniel F. Keyes (1927-2014) American author
Flowers for Algernon (novel) (1966)
Keep your thoughts positive because your thoughts become your words.
Keep your words positive because your words become your behavior.
Keep your behavior positive because your behavior becomes your habits.
Keep your habits positive because your habits become your values.
Keep your values positive because your values become your destiny.Mohandas Gandhi (1869-1948) Indian philosopher and nationalist [Mahatma Gandhi]
(Attributed)
Never specifically cited, and attributed with variations in the language. Also attributed as a Chinese or Buddhist proverb.
Those that cannot think or take responsibility for themselves need, and clamor for, a leader.
Herman Hesse (1877-1962) German-born Swiss poet, novelist, painter
Reflections, #106 [ed. Michels (1974)]
LAFEW: Moderate lamentation is the right of the dead,
excessive grief the enemy to the living.William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
All’s Well That Ends Well, Act 1, sc. 1, l. 57ff (1.1.57-58) (1602?)
(Source)
History gives no countenance to the theory that popular governments are either more moral or more pacific than strong monarchies.
William Ralph Inge (1860-1954) English prelate [Dean Inge]
“Our Present Discontents,” Outspoken Essays: First Series (1919)
Adventure is something you seek for pleasure, or even for profit, like a gold rush or invading a country; for the illusion of being more alive than ordinarily, the thing you will to occur; but experience is what really happens to you in the long run; the truth that finally overtakes you.
Katherine Anne Porter (1890-1980) American journalist, essayist, author, political activist [b. Callie Russell Porter]
“St. Augustine and the Bullfight” (1955)
Laziness is the sin most willingly confessed to, since it implies talents greater than have yet appeared.
James Richardson (b. 1950) American poet
Vectors: Aphorisms and Ten-Second Essays (2001)
Make a careful list of all things done to you that you abhorred. Don’t do them to others, ever. Make another list of things done for you that you loved. Do them for others, always.
Dee W. Hock (b. 1929) American businessman
In M. Mitchell Waldrop, “Dee Hock on Management,” Fast Company (Oct/Nov 1996)
Who chatters to you will chatter about you.
(Other Authors and Sources)
Egyptian saying
The chief business of the nation, as a nation, is the setting up of heroes, mainly bogus.
H. L. Mencken (1880-1956) American writer and journalist [Henry Lewis Mencken]
“On Being an American” (1), Prejudices: Third Series (1922)
Men are contented to be laughed at for their wit, but not for their folly.
Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) English writer and churchman
“Thoughts on Various Subjects” (1706)
(Source)
ANDREA: The aim of science is not to open the door to infinite wisdom, but to set some limit on infinite error.
Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956) German poet, playwright, director, dramaturgist
Life of Galileo [Leben des Galilei], sc. 13 (1939)
Of what use is political liberty to those who have no bread?
Jean-Paul Marat (1743-1793) French physician, political theorist, scientist, journalist
Letter to Camille Desmoulins (24 Jun 1790)
The problem is that God gives men a brain and a penis, and only enough blood to run one at a time.
Robin Williams (1951-2014) American comedian and actor
(Attributed)
Every defendant is entitled to a trial in which his interests are vigorously and conscientiously advocated by an able lawyer. A proceeding in which the defendant does not receive meaningful assistance in meeting the forces of the state does not, in my opinion, constitute due process.
Thurgood Marshall (1908-1993) American lawyer, US Supreme Court Justice (1967-1991)
Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (1984) [Dissenting]
(Source)
We are very near to greatness: one step and we are safe: can we not take the leap?
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
Journal (1841-10-28)
Lying is done with words, and also with silence.
Adrienne Rich (1929-2012) American poet, essayist, feminist
“Women and Honor: Some Notes on Lying” (1975)
Now the trouble about trying to make yourself stupider than you really are is that you very often succeed.
C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) English writer, literary scholar, lay theologian [Clive Staples Lewis]
The Magician’s Nephew (1955)
A psychologist once asked a group of college students to jot down, in thirty seconds, the initials of the people they disliked. Some of the students taking the test could think of only one person. Others listed as many as fourteen. The interesting fact that came out of this bit of research was this: Those who disliked the largest number were themselves the most widely disliked. When we find ourselves continually disliking others, we ought to bring ourselves up short and ask ourselves the question: “What is wrong with me?”
James Keller (1900-1977) American Catholic priest, inspirational speaker, television personality
Three Minutes a Day (1950)
Somebody was screaming and I had to check it wasn’t me. It could have been me. I certainly wanted to scream, but I remembered that right then and there Leslie and I were the only coppers on the scene and the public doesn’t like it when the police start screaming; it contributes to an impression of things not being conducive to public calm.
Ben Aaronovitch (b. 1964) British author
Rivers of London [Midnight Riot] (2011)
When you’re good at something, you’ll tell everyone. When you’re great at something, they’ll tell you.
Walter Payton (1954-1999) American football player
(Attributed)
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly.
Robert A. Heinlein (1907-1988) American writer
Time Enough for Love [Lazarus Long] (1973)
Physicists and astronomers see their own implications in the world being round, but to me it means that only one-third of the world is asleep at any given time and the other two-thirds is up to something.
Dean Rusk (1909-1994) American politician and diplomat
Speech, American Bar Assoc., Atlanta (22 Oct 1964)
The men leaned back on their heels, put their hands in their trouser-pockets, and proclaimed their views with the booming profundity of a prosperous male repeating a thoroughly hackneyed statement about a matter of which he knows nothing whatever.
Sinclair Lewis (1885-1951) American novelist, playwright
Babbitt, ch. 8 (1922)
Grief is itself a med’cine.
William Cowper (1731-1800) English poet
“Charity,” l. 159 (1782)
Let no one say that he is a follower of Gandhi. It is enough that I should be my own follower. I know what an inadequate follower I am of myself, for I cannot live up to the convictions I stand for. You are no followers, but fellow students, fellow pilgrims, fellow seekers, fellow workers.
Mohandas Gandhi (1869-1948) Indian philosopher and nationalist [Mahatma Gandhi]
In Harijan (2 Mar 1940)
Democracy is a form of government which may be rationally defended, not as being good, but as being less bad than any other.
William Ralph Inge (1860-1954) English prelate [Dean Inge]
“Our Present Discontents,” Outspoken Essays: First Series (1919)
See Churchill.
PETRI: We cannot make peace with people we detest.
KIRK: Stop trying to kill each other. Then worry about being friendly.
John Meredyth Lucas (1919-2002) American screenwriter
Star Trek, 3×13 “Elaan of Troyius” (20 Dec 1968)
No one really starts anything new, Mrs Nemur. Everyone builds on other men’s failures. There is nothing really original in science. What each man contributes to the sum of knowledge is what counts.
Daniel F. Keyes (1927-2014) American author
Flowers for Algernon (novel) (1966)
A problem well stated is a problem half-solved.
Charles F. Kettering (1876-1958) American inventor, engineer, researcher, businessman
(Attributed)
Sometimes attributed to John Dewey.
Every life is allocated one hundred seconds of genius. They might be enough, if we could just be sure which ones they are.
James Richardson (b. 1950) American poet
Vectors: Aphorisms and Ten-Second Essays (2001)
When I was young, for two or three years the light faded out of the picture. I did my work. I sat in the House of Commons, but black depression settled on me. It helped me to talk to Clemmie about it. I don’t like standing near the edge of a platform whn an express train is passing through. I like to stand right back and if possible to get a pillar between me and the train. I don’t like to stand by the side of a ship and look down into the water. A second’s action would end everything. A few drops of desperation.
Winston Churchill (1874-1965) British statesman and author
Remark to Lord Moran (14 Aug 1944)
In Lord Moran, Churchill: Taken from the Diaries of Lord Moran, ch. 19 (1966)
It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.
Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
(Attributed)
The high sentiments always win in the end, the leaders who offer blood, toil, tears, and sweat always get more out of their followers than those who offer safety and a good time. When it comes to the pinch, human beings are heroic.
ANDREA: Science has only one commandment: contribution.
Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956) German poet, playwright, director, dramaturgist
Life of Galileo [Leben des Galilei], sc. 13 (1939)
Alt. trans.: "Science knows only one commandment -- contribute to science." [tr. Brenton (1980)]
The power of fortune is confessed only by the miserable; for the happy impute all their success to prudence or merit.
Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) English writer and churchman
“Thoughts on Various Subjects” (1706)
(Source)
When you are offended at any man’s fault, turn to yourself and study your own failings. Then you will forget your anger.
Epictetus (c.55-c.135) Greek (Phrygian) Stoic philosopher
(Attributed)
Discourage litigation. Persuade your neighbors to compromise whenever you can. Point out to them how the nominal winner is often a real loser — in fees, and expenses, and waste of time. As a peacemaker the lawyer has a superior opertunity [sic] of being a good man. There will still be business enough.
Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) American lawyer, politician, US President (1861-65)
“Notes on the Practice of Law” (1850?)
We cannot exist as a little island of well-being in a world where two-thirds of the people go to bed hungry every night.
Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962) First Lady of the US (1933-45), politician, diplomat, activist
Speech (8 Dec 1959)
If I had a dollar for every time I got distracted, I wish I had some ice cream.
Sig Lines
–
It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who, in the midst of the crowd, keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
“Self-Reliance,” Essays: First Series (1841)
There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.
Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881) English politician and author
(Attributed)
(Source)
Attributed by Mark Twain in "Chapters from My Autobiography" (Apr 1904), North American Review (7 Sep 1906): "Figures often beguile me, particularly when I have the arranging of them myself; in which case the remark attributed to Disraeli would often apply with justice and force: 'There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.'"
The phrase has not been found in any of Disraeli's works, and he is considered unlikely to be the originator. Variants of the phrase date back a century or more from Twain's reference. More discussion about this quotation here:
The whole lesson of my life has been that no ‘methods of stimulation’ are of any lasting use. They are indeed like drugs — a stronger dose is needed each time and soon no possible dose is effective. We must not bother about thrills at all. Do the present duty — bear the present pain — enjoy the present pleasure — and leave emotions and ‘experiences’ to look after themselves.
C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) English writer, literary scholar, lay theologian [Clive Staples Lewis]
Letter to Mrs. Ray Garrett (12 Sep 1960)
If you ask any police officer what the worst part of the job is, they will always say breaking bad news to relatives, but this is not the truth. The worst part is staying in the room after you’ve broken the news, so that you’re forced to be there when someone’s life disintegrates around them. Some people say it doesn’t bother them — such people are not to be trusted.
Ben Aaronovitch (b. 1964) British author
Rivers of London [Midnight Riot] (2011)
Men might not get all they work for in this world, but they must certainly work for all they get. If we ever get free from the oppressions and wrongs heaped upon us, we must pay for their removal. We must do this by labor, by suffering, by sacrifice, and if needs be, by our lives and the lives of others.
Frederick Douglass (1817-1895) American abolitionist, orator, writer
Speech on West India Emancipation (4 Aug 1857)
There is no honorable way to kill, no gentle way to destroy. There is nothing good in war — except its ending.
Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) American lawyer, politician, US President (1861-65)
(Spurious)
Sometimes actually attributed to Lincoln, it is actually a line written for a simulation of Lincoln by Arthur Heinemann for the TV episode Star Trek, 3x22 "Savage Curtain" (1969).
There are two insults which no human being will endure: The assertion that he hasn’t a sense of humor, and the doubly impertinent assertion that he has never known trouble.
Sinclair Lewis (1885-1951) American novelist, playwright
Main Street, ch. 31, sec. 2 (1920)
(Source)
He failed to realized that the public is bored by foreign affairs until a crisis arises; and that then it is guided by feelings rather than thoughts.
Harold Nicolson (1886-1968) English diplomat, author, diarist, politician
The Evolution of Diplomacy, 4.3 (1954)
A necessary quality for the attainment of individuality is the ability to tolerate some degree of loneliness in the sense of independent adherence to values that those around you will not support.
D. W. Harding (1906-1993) British psychologist and literary critic [Denys Clement Wyatt Harding]
Social Psychology and Individual Values (1953)
It is not written in the stars that I will always understand what is going on — a truism that I often find damnably annoying.
Robert A. Heinlein (1907-1988) American writer
Friday [Friday Jones] (1982)
If, after I depart this vale, you ever remember me and have thought to please my ghost, forgive some sinner and wink your eye at some homely girl.
H. L. Mencken (1880-1956) American writer and journalist [Henry Lewis Mencken]
“Epitaph,” Smart Set (3 Dec 1921)
The task of leadership is not to put greatness into humanity, but to elicit it, for the greatness is already there.
John Buchan (1875-1940) Scottish novelist, poet, and politician; Governor-General of Canada (1935 -1940)
Montrose and Leadership (1930)
Endow the Living — with the Tears —
You squander on the Dead.Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) American poet
“Endow the Living — with the Tears –” (1862)
SYDNEY: You don’t seem to realize that a poor person who is unhappy is in a better position than a rich person who is unhappy. Because the poor person has hope. He thinks money would help.
Jean Kerr (1922-2003) American author and playwright [b. Bridget Jean Collins]
Poor Richard, Act 1 (1965)
Like other idealisms, patriotism varies from a noble devotion to a moral lunacy.
William Ralph Inge (1860-1954) English prelate [Dean Inge]
“Our Present Discontents,” Outspoken Essays: First Series (1919)
What nobody tells people who are beginners, and I really wish someone had told this to me, is that […] all of us who do creative work, we get into it, and we get into because we have good taste. […] But you get into this thing […] and there’s a gap. For the first couple of years that you’re making stuff, what you’re making isn’t so good. It’s not that great. It’s really not that great. It’s trying to be good, it has ambition to be good, but it’s not quite that good. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, your taste is still killer. And your taste is good enough that you can tell that what you’re making is kind of a disappointment to you. That you can tell it’s still sort of crappy. A lot of people never get past that phase. A lot of people at that point, they quit. […] The thing I want to tell you is, everybody goes through that. […] It’s totally normal. And the most important possible thing you can do is do a lot of work. Do a huge volume of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week or every month you know you’re going to finish one story. […] Because it’s only by actually going through a volume of work that you’re going to catch up and close that gap. And the work you’re making will be as good as your ambitions. […] It’s going to take you awhile. It’s normal to take a while. You just have to fight your way through that.
Ira Glass (b. 1959) American report, radio personality, producer
“This American Life,” Public Radio International (Aug 2009)
(Source)
Administrivia: A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Words
I’m trying an experiment. While I love the text format for quotations (it’s searchable, if nothing else), the fact is that the “hot” (and “cool”) thing in online quotations is the visual quotation / meme. I’m playing with a few tools to do this (there are a lot of online resources) to see if it’s a sustainable effort — i.e., if i can do them painlessly enough that I will do them on a regular basis (say, one each day).
I don’t plan on getting fancy — image of the person in the background, simple formatting, probably minimal citation. You can see an example here. I wish there were an easy way to include the link to the quote in the image, but that hand-transcribing of URLs is a pain in the neck for readers; a simple “wist.info” bug will have to suffice.
Feedback is welcome.
MARIAN: No, please, not tonight. Maybe tomorrow.
HAROLD: Oh, my dear little librarian. You pile up enough tomorrows, and you’ll find you are left with nothing but a lot of empty yesterdays.
Meredith Willson (1902-1984) American composer, songwriter, flutist, conductor, playwright
The Music Man (1957)
The political leaders with whom we are familiar generally aspire to be superstars rather than heroes. The distinction is crucial. Superstars strive for approbation; heroes walk alone. Superstars crave consensus; heroes define themselves by the judgment of a future they see it as their task to bring about. Superstars seek success in a technique for eliciting support; heroes pursue success as the outgrowth of their inner values.
Henry Kissinger (1923-2024) German-American diplomat
“With Faint Praise,” New York Times Book Review (16 Jul 1995)
Most People return small Favors, acknowledge middling ones, and repay great ones with Ingratitude.
Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) American statesman, scientist, philosopher, aphorist
Poor Richard’s Almanack (Apr 1751)
Patience is not very different from courage. It just takes longer.
James Richardson (b. 1950) American poet
Vectors: Aphorisms and Ten-Second Essays, # 54 (2001)
The whole fun of living is trying to make something better.
Charles F. Kettering (1876-1958) American inventor, engineer, researcher, businessman
(Attributed)
Teach us, good Lord, to serve you as you deserve; to give and not to count the cost; to fight and not to heed the wounds; to toil and not to seek for rest; to labor and not to ask for any reward, save that of knowing that we do your will.
St. Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556) Basque noble, priest, theologian [Ignazio Loiolakoa]
Prayer of St Ignatius Loyola
The precepts of the law are these: to live honestly, to injure no one, and to give everyone his due.
Justinian I (c. 482-565) Byzantine emperor [Justinian the Great]
Code of Justinian (533)
PELAGEA VLASOVA: Don’t be afraid of death so much as an inadequate life.
Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956) German poet, playwright, director, dramaturgist
The Mother (1930)
Well, by God, I’m hungry. … My guts is yellin’ bloody murder.
John Steinbeck (1902-1968) American writer
The Grapes of Wrath, ch. 9 (1939)
Vision is the art of seeing things invisible.
Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) English writer and churchman
“Thoughts on Various Subjects” (1706)
(Source)
When I was introduced to art school, everybody was 20, 22, and 25 years old. Many of them had graduated from college. So there I was, and I was about half their height. And I looked at these guys and I thought, “I can’t compete with these birds!” So at the end of the first week I went home. I was so disillusioned. I was a failure at 15. So my uncle, who lived with us occasionally, came up and he said, “You look awful. You look like something the dog had under the front porch. What’s the matter?” “I can’t compete with these guys at school. They draw like Leonardo da Vinci. I’ll never catch up with them.” I felt like it was the end of the world for me. I could draw a little bit. But I couldn’t keep up with the big guys. So I suddenly blurted out and I said, “You can’t make a racehorse out of a pig!” And my uncle looked at me very gently, and he patted me on the knee, and he said, “No. But you can make a very fast pig.” And I realized that’s what it was really all about. I could only be as good as I could be, whatever my limits were. And I learned a second thing: creative work is never competitive.
Chuck Jones (1912-2002) American animator, screenwriter, producer, and director
Interview with Tom Sito, Archive of American Television (17 Jun 1998)
(Source)
Every man of action has a strong dose of egotism, pride, hardness, and cunning. But all those things will be forgiven him, indeed, they will be regarded as high qualities, if he can make of them the means to achieve great ends.
Charles de Gaulle (1890-1970) French statesman and soldier
The Edge of the Sword, “Of Prestige” (2) (1934) [tr. Hopkins (1960)]
A single lie destroys a whole reputation for integrity.
[Piérdese con sola una mentira todo el crédito de la entereza.]
Baltasar Gracián y Morales (1601-1658) Spanish Jesuit priest, writer, philosopher
The Art of Worldly Wisdom [Oráculo Manual y Arte de Prudencia], § 181 (1647) [tr. Jacobs (1892)]
(Source)
(Source (Spanish)). Alternate translations:By one single lie, a man loses all his good name.
[Flesher ed. (1685)]A whole reputation for uprightness may be ruined with a single lie.
[tr. Fischer (1937)]A single lie can destroy your reputation for honesty.
[tr. Maurer (1992)]
The world is a great sculptor’s shop. We are the statues and there is a rumor going round the shop that some of us are some day going to come to life.
C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) English writer, literary scholar, lay theologian [Clive Staples Lewis]
Mere Christianity, rev. ed., 4.1 (1952)
“You put a spell on the dog,” I said as we left the house.
“Just a small one,” said Nightingale.
“So magic is real,” I said. “Which makes you a … what?”
“A wizard.”
“Like Harry Potter?”
Nightingale sighed. “No,” he said. “Not like Harry Potter.”
“In what way?”
“I’m not a fictional character,” said Nightingale.Ben Aaronovitch (b. 1964) British author
Rivers of London [Midnight Riot] (2011)
The legitimate object of government, is to do for a community of people, whatever they need to have done, but can not do, at all, or can not, so well do, for themselves — in their separate, and individual capacities. In all that the people can individually do as well for themselves, government ought not to interfere.
The desirable things which the individuals of a people can not do, or can not well do, for themselves, fall into two classes: those which have relation to wrongs, and those which have not. Each of these branch off into an infinite variety of subdivisions. The first — that in relation to wrongs — embraces all crimes, misdemeanors, and non-performance of contracts. The other embraces all which, in its nature, and without wrong, requires combined action, as public roads and highways, public schools, charities, pauperism, orphanage, estates of the deceased, and the machinery of government itself.
From this it appears that if all men were just, there still would be some, though not so much, need of government.
Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) American lawyer, politician, US President (1861-65)
Fragment (1 Jul 1854?)
(Source)
In Roy P. Basler (ed.), Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. Vol. 2 (1953). The date, by Nicolay and Hay, is deemed arbitrary.
We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and these interests it is our duty to follow.
Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784-1865) British statesman, Prime Minister (1855-58, 1859-65) [Lord Palmerston]
Speech, House of Commons (1 Mar 1848)
If individuality has no play, society does not advance; if individuality breaks out of all bounds, society perishes.
T. H. Huxley (1825-1895) English biologist [Thomas Henry Huxley]
“Administrative Nihilism” (1871)
The coldest depth of Hell is reserved for people who abandon kittens.
Robert A. Heinlein (1907-1988) American writer
Friday [Friday Jones] (1982)
Carol herself was an uneasy and dodging agnostic. When she ventured to Sunday School and heard the teachers droning that the genealogy of Shamsherai was a valuable ethical problem for children to think about; when she experimented with the Wednesday prayer-meeting and listened to store-keeping elders giving unvarying weekly testimony in primitive erotic symbols and such gory Chaldean phrases as “washed in the blood of the lamb” and “a vengeful God…” then Carol was dismayed to find the Christian religion, in America, in the twentieth century, as abnormal as Zoroastrianism — without the splendor.
But when she went to church suppers a felt the friendliness, saw the gaiety with which the sisters served cold ham and scalloped potatoes; when Mrs. Champ Perry cried to her, on an afternoon call, ‘”My dear, if you just knew how happy it makes you to come into abiding grace,” then Carol found the humanness behind the sanguinary and alien theology.
Sinclair Lewis (1885-1951) American novelist, playwright
Main Street (1920)
SYDNEY: Even though a number of people have tried, no one has yet found a way to drink for a living.
Jean Kerr (1922-2003) American author and playwright [b. Bridget Jean Collins]
Poor Richard, Act 1 (1965)
The Lord has redeemed all of us, all of us, with the Blood of Christ: all of us, not just Catholics. Everyone! “Father, the atheists?” Even the atheists. Everyone! And this Blood makes us children of God of the first class. We are created children in the likeness of God and the Blood of Christ has redeemed us all. And we all have a duty to do good. And this commandment for everyone to do good, I think, is a beautiful path towards peace. If we, each doing our own part, if we do good to others, if we meet there, doing good, and we go slowly, gently, little by little, we will make that culture of encounter: We need that so much. We must meet one another doing good. “But I don’t believe, Father, I am an atheist!” But do good: We will meet one another there.
Francis I (b. 1936) Argentinian Catholic Pope (2013- ) [b. Jorge Mario Bergoglio]
Homily (22 May 2013)
(Source)
Leaders I feel should guide as far as they can — and then vanish. Their ashes should not choke the fire they have lit.
H.G. Wells (1866-1946) British writer [Herbert George Wells]
Experiment in Autobiography, ch. 9, sec. 2 “The Samurai — In Utopia and in the Fabian Society (1905-1909)” (1934)
(Source)
Variant: "Leaders should lead as far as they can and then vanish. Their ashes should not choke the fire they have lit."
Between grief and nothing I will take grief.
William Faulkner (1897-1962) American novelist
The Wild Palms (1939)
Human nature is at once sublime and horrible, holy and satanic. Apart from the accumulation of knowledge and experience, which are external and precarious acquisitions, there is no proof that we have changed much since the first stone age.
William Ralph Inge (1860-1954) English prelate [Dean Inge]
“Our Present Discontents,” Outspoken Essays: First Series (1919)
Let us not be afraid to help each other — let us never forget that government is ourselves and not an alien power over us. The ultimate rulers of our democracy are not a President and Senators and Congressmen and Government officials but the voters of this country.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882-1945) American lawyer, politician, statesman, US President (1933-1945)
Speech, Marietta, Ohio (8 Jul 1938)
(Source)
It was involuntary. They sank my boat.
John F. Kennedy (1917-1963) US President (1961-63)
(Attributed)
When asked how he became a war hero. In A. Schlesinger, Jr., A Thousand Days, 4.9 (1965)
Men are more ready to repay an injury than a benefit because gratitude is a burden and revenge a pleasure.
Tacitus (c.56-c.120) Roman historian, orator, politician [Publius or Gaius Cornelius Tacitus]
(Attributed)
In Machiavelli, The Discourses, 1.29 (1517) [tr. Detmold (1940)]
What you fear to believe, your children will believe.
James Richardson (b. 1950) American poet
Vectors: Aphorisms and Ten-Second Essays, #340 (2001)
An inventor fails 999 times, and if he succeeds once, he’s in. He treats his failures simply as practice shots.
Charles F. Kettering (1876-1958) American inventor, engineer, researcher, businessman
(Attributed)
Today’s so-called “conservatives” don’t even know what the word means. They think I’ve turned liberal because I believe a woman has a right to an abortion. That’s a decision that’s up to the pregnant woman, not up to the pope or some do-gooders or the Religious Right. It’s not a conservative issue at all.
Barry Goldwater (1909-1998) American politician
Interview, Los Angeles Times (1994)
We should never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was “legal” and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was “illegal.”
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman, civil rights leader, social activist, preacher
Letter from Birmingham Jail (16 Apr 1963)
(Source)
No man was ever more than about nine meals away from crime or suicide.
Eric Sevareid (1912-1992) American journalist [Arnold Eric Sevareid]
“A New Kind of Leadership,” speech, Conference on Vision Care, Washington, DC (26 Apr 1974)
For more discussion of this and other closely parallel quotations, see: There Are Only Nine Meals Between Mankind and Anarchy – Quote Investigator.
POLLY PEACHUM: The law is simply and solely made for the exploitation of those who do not understand it or of those who, for naked need, cannot obey it.
Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956) German poet, playwright, director, dramaturgist
Die Dreigroschenoper [The Three-Penny Opera], Act 3, sc. 1 (1928)
Alt. trans.: "The law was made for one thing alone, for the exploitation of those who don't understand it, or are prevented by naked misery from obeying it."
I have one word to say upon the subject of profound writers, who are grown very numerous of late; and I know very well the judicious world is resolved to list me in that number. I conceive therefore, as to the business of being profound, that it is with writers as with wells — a person with good eyes may see to the bottom of the deepest, provided any water be there: and often when there is nothing in the world at the bottom besides dryness and dirt, though it be but a yard and a-half under-ground, it shall pass, however, for wondrous deep upon no wiser reason than because it is wondrous dark.
Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) English writer and churchman
A Tale of a Tub (1704)
Thou canst not prevent the birds from flying above they head, but thou canst prevent their building their nests in thy hair.
Martin Luther (1483-1546) German religious reformer
Letter to Hieronymous Weller (1530)
(Source)
On temptation, attributed to "a wise oracle."
The more lies are told, the more important it becomes for the liars to justify themselves by deep moral commitments to high-sounding objectives that mask the pursuit of money and power.
Bertram M. Gross (1912-1997) American social scientist, academic, bureaucrat
Friendly Fascism: The New Face of Power in America, ch. 9 (1980)
Heaven will solve our problems, but not, I think, by showing us subtle reconciliations between all our apparently contradictory notions. The notions will all be knocked from under our feet. We shall see that there never was any problem.
C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) English writer, literary scholar, lay theologian [Clive Staples Lewis]
A Grief Observed (1961)
Sometimes I wonder whether if I’d been the one that went for coffee and not Leslie May my life would have been much less interesting and certainly much less dangerous. Could it have been anyone, or was it destiny? When I’m considering this I find it helpful to quote the wisdom of my father, who once told me, “Who knows why the fuck anything happens?”
Ben Aaronovitch (b. 1964) British author
Rivers of London [Midnight Riot] (2011)
Don’t wait for a light to appear at the end of the tunnel, stride down there … and light the bloody thing yourself.
Sara Henderson (1936-2005) Australian pastoralist and author
The Strength in Us All (1994)
There can be no greater error than to expect or calculate upon real favors from nation to nation. It is an illusion which experience must cure, which a just pride ought to discard.
George Washington (1732-1799) American military leader, Founding Father, US President (1789-1797)
Farewell Address (17 Sep 1796) [with A. Hamilton]
It is not by wearing down into uniformity all that is individual in themselves, but by cultivating it and calling it forth, within the limits imposed by the rights and interests of others, that human beings become a noble and beautiful object of contemplation; and as the works partake the character of those who do them, by the same process human life also becomes rich, diversified, and animating, furnishing more abundant aliment to high thoughts and elevating feelings, and strengthening the tie which binds every individual to the race, by making the race infinitely better worth belonging to. In proportion to the development of his individuality, each person becomes more valuable to himself, and is therefore capable of being more valuable to others
John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) English philosopher and economist
On Liberty, ch. 3 “Of Individuality, as One of the Elements of Well-Being” (1859)
Why do men with little souls have to have big weapons?
Robert A. Heinlein (1907-1988) American writer
Friday [Friday Jones] (1982)
The doctor asserted, “Sure religion is a fine influence — got to have it to keep the lower classes in order — fact, it’s the only thing that appeals to a lot of these fellows and makes ’em respect the rights of property. And I guess this theology is O.K.; lot of wise old coots figured it out, and they knew more about it than we do.” He believed in the Christian religion, and never thought about it; he believed in the church, and seldom went near it; he was shocked by Carol’s lack of faith, and wasn’t quite sure what was the nature of the faith that she lacked.
Sinclair Lewis (1885-1951) American novelist, playwright
Main Street (1920)
The Lord created us in His image and likeness, and we are the image of the Lord, and He does good and all of us have this commandment at heart: do good and do not do evil. All of us. “But, Father, this is not Catholic! He cannot do good.” Yes, he can. He must. Not can: must! Because he has this commandment within him. Instead, this “closing off” that imagines that those outside, everyone, cannot do good is a wall that leads to war and also to what some people throughout history have conceived of: killing in the name of God. That we can kill in the name of God. And that, simply, is blasphemy. To say that you can kill in the name of God is blasphemy.
Francis I (b. 1936) Argentinian Catholic Pope (2013- ) [b. Jorge Mario Bergoglio]
Homily (22 May 2013)
(Source)
Things said or done long years ago,
Or things I did not do or say
But thought that I might say or do,
Weigh me down, and not a day
But something is recalled,
My conscience or my vanity appalled.William Butler Yeats (1865-1939) Irish poet and dramatist
“Vacillation,” st. 4 (1932), The Winding Stair and Other Poems (1933)
(Source)
You learn to know a pilot in a storm.
Seneca the Younger (c. 4 BC-AD 65) Roman statesman, philosopher, playwright [Lucius Annaeus Seneca]
Moral Essays, “On Providence” (4.5) [tr. Basore (1928)]
Beneath the dingy uniformity of international fashions in dress, man remains what he has always been — a splendid fighting animal, a self-sacrificing hero, and a bloodthirsty savage.
William Ralph Inge (1860-1954) English prelate [Dean Inge]
“Our Present Discontents,” Outspoken Essays: First Series (1919)
I feel about airplanes the way I feel about diets. It seems to me that they are wonderful things for other people to go on.
Jean Kerr (1922-2003) American author and playwright [b. Bridget Jean Collins]
“Mirror, Mirror on the Wall,” The Snake Has All the Lines (1958)
Out of the crooked timber of humanity no straight thing was ever made.
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) German philosopher
“Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose [Idee zu einer allgemeinen Geschichte in weltbürgerlicher Absicht]” (1784)
The hero saves us. Praise the hero! Now, who will save us from the hero?
Cato the Elder (234-149 BC) Roman politician and orator [Marcus Portius Cato]
Speech in the Roman Senate
It may be the devil or it may be the Lord
But you’re gonna have to serve somebody.Bob Dylan (b. 1941) American singer, songwriter
“Gotta Serve Somebody” (1979)
Even at the movies, we laugh together, we weep alone.
James Richardson (b. 1950) American poet
Vectors: Aphorisms and Ten-Second Essays (2001)
If I want to stop a research program I can always do it by getting a few experts to sit in on the subject, because they know right away that it was a fool thing to try in the first place.
Charles F. Kettering (1876-1958) American inventor, engineer, researcher, businessman
(Attributed)
You must remember that some things that are legally right are not morally right.
Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) American lawyer, politician, US President (1861-65)
(Attributed)
Remark to potential client (1840s?), refusing his case involving a $600 claim against a widow with six children. In F. Brown, The Every-Day Life of Abraham Lincoln, 2.6 (1887).
There is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation. There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize. There is a failure here that topples all our success. The fertile earth, the straight tree rows, the sturdy trunks, and the ripe fruit. And children dying of pellagra must die because a profit cannot be taken from an orange. And coroners must fill in the certificate — died of malnutrition — because the food must rot, must be forced to rot.
In the eyes of the people there is the failure; and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.
John Steinbeck (1902-1968) American writer
The Grapes of Wrath, ch. 25 (1939)
The essence of leadership is to get others to do something because they think you want it done and because they know it is worth while doing — that is what we are talking about.
Dwight David Eisenhower (1890-1969) American general, US President (1953-61)
Speech, Republican Campaign Picnic, Gettysburg (12 Sep 1956)
Pride, ill nature, and want of sense, are the three great sources of ill manners.
Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) English writer and churchman
A Treatise on Good Manners and Good Breeding (1754)
Ya got trouble, folks!
Right here in River City.
Trouble with a capital “T”
And that rhymes with “P”
And that stands for pool!Meredith Willson (1902-1984) American composer, songwriter, flutist, conductor, playwright
“(Ya Got) Trouble,” The Music Man (1957)
Perseverance is the hard work you do after you get tired of doing the hard work you already did.
Newt Gingrich (b. 1943) American politician [Newton Leroy Gingrich]
Renewing American Civilization, Lecture 2 “Personal Strength” (1993)
The best liar is he who makes the smallest amount of lying go the longest way.
Samuel Butler (1835-1902) English novelist, satirist, scholar
The Way of All Flesh, ch. 39 (1903)
There isn’t a way things should be. There’s just what happens, and what we do.
Remember, though we struggle against things because we are afraid of them, it is often the other way round — we get afraid because we struggle. Are you struggling, resisting? Don’t you think Our Lord says to you ‘Peace, child, peace. Relax. Let go. Underneath are the everlasting arms. Let go, I will catch you. Do you trust me so little?’ Of course, this may not be the end. Then make it a good rehearsal.
C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) English writer, literary scholar, lay theologian [Clive Staples Lewis]
Letter to Mary Willis Shelburne (17 Jun 1963)
Discussing the closeness of death.
No matter how unpredictable the future may be, we don’t win freedom through security systems, cryptography, interrogations and spot searches. We win freedom by having the courage and the conviction to live every day freely and to act as a free society, no matter how great the threats are on the horizon.
Cory Doctorow (b. 1971) Canadian-British blogger, journalist, activist, author
Little Brother (2008)
If crisis management requires cold and even brutal measures to show determination, it also imposes the need to show the opponent a way out. Grandstanding is good for the ego but bad for foreign policy. […] Many wars have started because no line of retreat was left open.
Whatever crushes individuality is despotism, by whatever name it may be called and whether it professes to be enforcing the will of God or the injunctions of men.
John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) English philosopher and economist
On Liberty, ch. 3 “Of Individuality, as One of the Elements of Well-Being” (1859)
(Source)
Unless you intend to kill him immediately thereafter, never kick a man in the balls. Not even symbolically. Or perhaps especially not symbolically.
Robert A. Heinlein (1907-1988) American writer
Friday [Friday Jones] (1982)
In the manner of one who has just beheld a two-headed calf they repeated that they had “never heard such funny ideas!” They were staggered to learn that a real tangible person, living in Minnesota, and married to their own flesh-and-blood relation, could apparently believe that divorce may not always be immoral; that illegitimate children do not bear any special and guaranteed form of curse; that there are ethical authorities outside of the Hebrew Bible; that men have drunk wine yet not died in the gutter; that the capitalistic system of distribution and the Baptist wedding-ceremony were not known in the Garden of Eden; that mushrooms are as edible as corn-beef hash; that the word “dude” is no longer frequently used; that there are Ministers of the Gospel who accept evolution; that some persons of apparent intelligence and business ability do not always vote the Republican ticket straight; that it is not a universal custom to wear scratchy flannels next the skin in winter; that a violin is not inherently more immoral than a chapel organ; that some poets do not have long hair; and that Jews are not always pedlers or pants-makers.
“Where does she get all them the’ries?” marveled Uncle Whittier Small; while Aunt Bessie inquired, “Do you suppose there’s many folks got notions like hers? My! If there are,” and her tone settled the fact that there were not, “I just don’t know what the world’s coming to!”
SPOCK: Physical reality is consistent with universal laws. Where the laws do not operate, there is no reality.
Gene L. Coon (1924-1973) American screenwriter and television producer
Star Trek, 3×06 “Spectre of the Gun” (25 Oct 1968) [writing as Lee Cronin]
You never can tell when you do an act
Just what the result will be;
But with every deed you are sowing a seed,
Though the harvest you may not see.Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850-1919) American author and poet.
“You Never Can Tell,” Custer And Other Poems (1896)
(Source)
Be the chief but never the lord.
Lao-tzu (604?-531? BC) Chinese philosopher, poet [also Lao-tse, Laozi]
The Way of Life, ch. 10 [tr. Blakney (1955)]
Public services have, to use the economist’s word, a strong redistributional effect. And this effect is strongly in favor of those with lower incomes. Those who clamor the loudest for public economy are those for whom public services do the least. Tax reduction that curtails or limits public services has a double effect in comforting the comfortable and afflicting the poor.
The most important thing about me is that I am a Catholic. It’s a superstructure within which you can work, like a sonnet.
Jean Kerr (1922-2003) American author and playwright [b. Bridget Jean Collins]
Interview, Time (14 Apr 1961)
I need some encouragement. I need to ask myself, “What would an Apollo astronaut do?” He’d drink three whiskey sours, drive his Corvette to the launchpad, then fly to the moon in a command module smaller than my Rover. Man those guys were cool.
Andy Weir (b. 1972) American programmer and writer
The Martian (2011)
No man is a hero to his valet.
Anne-Marie Bigot de Cornuel (1605-1694) French wit and aphorist
Lettres de Mlle Aïssé, 12.13 (1728)
See Goethe.
All things are artificial, for nature is the art of God.
Thomas Browne (1605-1682) English physician and author
Religio Medici, Part 1, sec.16 (1642) [ed. Symonds (1886)]
(Source)
Harder to laugh at the comedy if it’s about you, harder to cry at the tragedy if it isn’t.
James Richardson (b. 1950) American poet
Vectors: Aphorisms and Ten-Second Essays (2001)
If you have always done it that way, it is probably wrong.
Charles F. Kettering (1876-1958) American inventor, engineer, researcher, businessman
(Attributed)
Trading privacy for security is stupid enough; not getting any actual security in the bargain is even more stupid.
Cory Doctorow (b. 1971) Canadian-British blogger, journalist, activist, author
Little Brother (2008)
No law is stronger than is the public sentiment where it is to be enforced.
Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) American lawyer, politician, US President (1861-65)
Letter to John J. Crittenden (22 Dec 1859)
He that feeds the hungry feeds God also.
The Talmud (AD 200-500) Collection of Jewish rabbinical writings
(Unreferenced)
The job of getting people really wanting to do something is the essence of leadership. And one of the things a leader needs occasionally is the inspiration he gets from the people he leads. The old tactical textbooks say that the commander always visits his troops to inspire them to fight. I for one soon discovered that one of the reasons for my visiting the front lines was to get inspiration from the young American soldier. I went back to my job ashamed of my own occasional resentments or discouragements, which I probably — at least I hope I concealed them.
Dwight David Eisenhower (1890-1969) American general, US President (1953-61)
Speech, Republican State Chairmen, Denver (10 Sep 1955)
Pedantry is properly the over-rating of any kind of knowledge we pretend to.
Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) English writer and churchman
A Treatise on Good Manners and Good Breeding (1754)
The voice of passion is better than the voice of reason.
The passionless cannot change history.Czesław Miłosz (1911-2004) Polish-Lithuanian poet, essayist, diplomat
“The Child of Europe” (1946)
(Source)
Great works are performed not by strength but by perseverance.
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) English writer, lexicographer, critic
The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia, ch. 13 (1759)
I do not mind lying, but I hate inaccuracy.
Samuel Butler (1835-1902) English novelist, satirist, scholar
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler, ch. 19 [ed. Festing-Jones] (1907)
If you don’t turn your life into a story, you just become a part of someone else’s story.
Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents (2001)
The golden apple of selfhood, thrown among the false gods, became an apple of discord because they scrambled for it. They did not know the first rule of the holy game, which is that every player must by all means touch the ball and then immediately pass it on. To be found with it in your hands is a fault: to cling to it, death. But when it flies to and fro among the players too swift for eye to follow, and the great master Himself leads the revelry, giving Himself eternally to His creatures in the generation, and back to Himself in the sacrifice, of the Word, then indeed the eternal dance ‘makes heaven drowsy with the harmony’. All pains and pleasures we have known on earth are early initiations in the movements of that dance: but the dance itself is strictly incomparable with the sufferings of this present time. As we draw nearer to its uncreated rhythm, pain and pleasure sink almost out of sight. There is joy in the dance, but it does not exist for the sake of joy. It does not even exist for the sake of good, or of love. It is Love Himself, and Good Himself, and therefore happy. It does not exist for us, but we for it.
C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) English writer, literary scholar, lay theologian [Clive Staples Lewis]
The Problem of Pain (1940)
There are leaders and there are those who lead. Leaders hold a position of power or authority, but those who lead inspire us. Whether they’re individuals or organizations, we follow those who lead, not because we have to, but because we want to. We follow those who lead, not for them, but for ourselves.
Simon Sinek (b. 1973) British-American author and motivational speaker
“How great leaders inspire action,” TED Talk (Sep 2009)
(Source)
The most perilous moment is often when an adversary is seemingly prepared to retreat and then is jolted into new defiance by an assault on his self-esteem.
Henry Kissinger (1923-2024) German-American diplomat
Years of Upheaval, ch. 12 (1982)
Though all men be made of one metal, yet they be not cast all in one mold.
John Lyly (c. 1553-1606) was an English writer [also Lilly or Lylie]
Euphues: The Anatomy of Wit, “Euphues” (1579)
A man who is happy at home doesn’t lie awake nights worrying about the hereafter.
Robert A. Heinlein (1907-1988) American writer
Job: A Comedy of Justice (1984)
It has not yet been recorded that any human being has gained a very large or permanent contentment from meditation upon the fact that he is better off than others.
Sinclair Lewis (1885-1951) American novelist, playwright
Main Street (1920)
There is (usually) no crime in performing a jerk maneuver, or acting like a jerk. Everyone can, and has, acted like a jerk from time to time. It’s a regrettable but natural part of the human experience. But most people have the good sense to understand that acting like a jerk should not be a lifestyle choice, and that if you make it one, people will respond to you based on your choices.
John Scalzi (b. 1969) American writer
“Being a Jerk About the Hugos: Not as Effective a Strategy as You Might Think”, Whatever (blog) (24 Aug 2015)
(Source)
If you really want to judge the character of a man, look not at his great performances. Every fool may become a hero at one time or another. Watch a man do his most common actions; these are indeed the things which will tell you the real character of a great man.
Vivekananda (1863-1902) Indian Hindu monk, spiritual reformer, nationalist [b. Narendra Nath Datta]
Swami Vivekananda on Universal Ethics and Moral Conduct [ed. Swami Ranganathananda (1965)]
One should never forbid what one lacks the power to prevent.
Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) French emperor, military leader
(Attributed)
An aphorism he frequently used. See Sophocles.
Even the protective functions of the state are most important for those in the lower income brackets. Lethal serum and poison drugs do, one gathers, work rather democratically on rich and poor alike. But many of us could probably survive a certain amount of exploitation in our prescriptions, fraud in our food packaging, mendacity in our dental advertising, or thimblerigging in our securities. We live in parts of cities where epidemics are less likely. The family that struggles to make ends meet, the widow with life-insurance money around loose, the dwellers in urban tenements need the protection of an alert FTC, FDA, SEC, and Public Health Service.
Man is the only animal that learns by being hypocritical. He pretends to be polite and then, eventually, he becomes polite.
Jean Kerr (1922-2003) American author and playwright [b. Bridget Jean Collins]
Finishing Touches, Act 1 (1973)
It reminds me of growing up in Chicago and having to shovel snow. I’ll give my dad credit; he never claimed it was to build character or teach me the value of hard work. “Snowblowers are expensive,” he used to say. “You’re free.” Once, I tried to appeal to my mom. “Don’t be such a wuss,” she suggested.
Andy Weir (b. 1972) American programmer and writer
The Martian (2011)
When ye build yer triumphal arch to yer conquerin’ hero, Hinnisssey, build it out of bricks so the people will have somethin’ convanient to throw at him as he passes through.
Finley Peter Dunne (1867-1936) American humorist and journalist
“Fame”
Nature is but a name for an effect,
Whose cause is God.William Cowper (1731-1800) English poet
The Task, 6.123 (1785)
If a couple could see themselves twenty years later they might not recognize their love, but they would recognize their argument.
James Richardson (b. 1950) American poet
Vectors: Aphorisms and Ten-Second Essays, # 20 (2001)
(Source)
In America we can say what we think, and even if we can’t think, we can say it anyhow.
Charles F. Kettering (1876-1958) American inventor, engineer, researcher, businessman
(Attributed)
Find out just what any people will quietly submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.
Frederick Douglass (1817-1895) American abolitionist, orator, writer
Speech on West India Emancipation (4 Aug 1857)
The great can protect themselves, but the poor and humble require the arm and shield of the law.
Andrew Jackson (1767-1845) American politician, general, US President (1829-1837)
Letter to John Quincy Adams (26 Aug 1821)
Hunger makes a thief of any man.
Pearl S. Buck (1892-1973) American writer
The Good Earth, ch. 15 (1931)
Government can do a great deal to aid the settlement of labor disputes without allowing itself to be employed as an ally of either side. Its proper role in industrial strife is to encourage the process of mediation and conciliation.
Dwight David Eisenhower (1890-1969) American general, US President (1953-61)
State of the Union Message (2 Feb 1953)
Yet malice never was his aim;
He lashed the vice but spared the name.
No individual could resent,
Where thousands equally were meant.Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) English writer and churchman
“Verses on the Death of Dr. Swift,” l. 459 (1731)
Liquor doesn’t make you feel better. Just makes you not so worried about feeling bad.
James S. A. Corey (contemp.) American writer [pen name of Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck]
Leviathan Wakes, ch. 42 (2011) [with Ty Franck]
(Source)
You see, fellow-soldiers, that perseverance is more prevailing than violence, and that many things which cannot be overcome when they are together, yield themselves up when taken little by little.
Quintus Sertorius (c. 123-72 BC) Roman statesman and general
In Plutarch, Parallel Lives, “Sertorius,” sec. 16 [Dryden ed. (1693)]
(Source)
Alt. trans.: "You see, fellow-soldiers, that perseverance is worth more than energy, and that many things that cannot be overcome when they are together, yield themselves up when taken little by little."
