“Reeling and Writhing, of course, to begin with,” the Mock Turtle replied, “and then the different branches of Arithmetic — Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision.”
Lewis Carroll (1832-1898) English writer and mathematician [pseud. of Rev. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson]
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, ch. 9 (1865)
Passion and anger are the causes of acts of revenge. But there is a difference between revenge and punishment; the latter is inflicted in the interest of the sufferer, the former in the interest of him who inflicts it, that he may obtain satisfaction.
[διὰ θυμὸν δὲ καὶ ὀργὴν τὰ τιμωρητικά. διαφέρει δὲ τιμωρία καὶ κόλασις: ἡ μὲν γὰρ κόλασις τοῦ πάσχοντος ἕνεκά ἐστιν, ἡ δὲ τιμωρία τοῦ ποιοῦντος, ἵνα πληρωθῇ.]
Aristotle (384-322 BC) Greek philosopher
Rhetoric [Ῥητορική; Ars Rhetorica], Book 1, ch. 10, sec. 16-17 (1.10.16) / 1369b (350 BC) [tr. Roberts (1924)]
(Source)
(Source (Greek)). Alternate translations:In feeling and anger originate acts of revenge. Now punishment and revenge differ; for punishment is inflicted for the sake of him that suffers it; but revenge for the sake of him that deals it, in order that he may be satisfied.
[Source (1847)]Through the medium of anger and excited feeling arise acts of vengeance. Now, between revenge and punishment there is a difference; for punishment is for the sake of the sufferer, but revenge for that of the person inflicting it, in order that he may be satiated.
[tr. Buckley (1850)]The acts done through passion and anger are acts of retribution. There is a difference between retribution and chastisement; chastisement being inflicted for the sake of the patient, retribution for the satisfaction of the agent.
[tr. Jebb (1873)]Passion and anger are the causes of acts of revenge. But there is a difference between revenge and punishment; the latter is inflicted in the interest of the sufferer, the former in the interest of him who inflicts it, that he may obtain satisfaction.
[tr. Freese (1926)]Passion and anger are responsible for acts of retaliation. Retaliation and punishment are different: one punishes for the sake of the person being punished, but one retaliates for one's own sake, to obtain satisfaction.
[tr. Bartlett (2019)]
The rich are abstractly interesting to me because they are the only examples of unfettered human nature. In other words, rich people can do more of what they want than anyone else. A rich person behaves well because he’s a well-behaved person. Everyone else behaves well — at least to some people — because they have to: they have a boss. Being poor is like being a child. Being rich is like being an adult: you get to do whatever you want. Everyone is nice when they have to be; rich people are nice when they feel like it.
Fran Lebowitz (b. 1950) American journalist
Interview with James Atlas, “What They Look Like to the Rest of Us,” New York Times Magazine (19 Nov 1995)
(Source)
When the torrent sweeps the man against a boulder, you must expect him to scream, and you need not be surprised if the scream is sometimes a theory. Shelley, chafing at the Church of England, discovered the cure of all evils in universal atheism. Generous lads irritated at the injustices of society, see nothing for it but the abolishment of everything and Kingdom Come of anarchy. Shelley was a young fool; so are these cocksparrow revolutionaries. But it is better to be a fool than to be dead. It is better to emit a scream in the shape of a theory than to be entirely insensible to the jars and incongruities of life and take everything as it comes in a forlorn stupidity.
Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) Scottish essayist, novelist, poet
“Crabbed Age and Youth” (c. 1874)
Having gradually (and perhaps painfully) accumulated information to support a decision people become progressively loath to accept contrary evidence.
Norman F. Dixon (1922-2013) British cognitive psychologist, author, military engineer
On the Psychology of Military Incompetence, ch. 2 (1976)
Everything that frees our spirit without giving us control of ourselves is ruinous.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) German poet, statesman, scientist
The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe, 33 [tr. Saunders (1892)]
If a revolution destroys a systematic government, but the systematic patterns of thought that produced that government are left intact, then those patterns will repeat themselves in the succeeding government.
Robert Pirsig (1928-2017) American philosopher, writer
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, ch. 8 (1974)
My faith protects me. My Kevlar helps.
Jim Butcher (b. 1971) American author
Death Masks, ch. 33 [Michael Carpenter] (2003)
Count it the greatest sin to prefer life to honor, and for the sake of living to lose what makes life worth living.
[Summum crede nefas animam praeferre pudori et propter vitam vivendi perdere causas.]
Juvenal (c.55-127) Roman satirist [Decimus Junius Juvinalis]
Satires, Satire 8, l. 83
When you face the sun, the shadows always fall behind you.
Helen Keller (1880-1968) American author and lecturer
(Attributed)
Variant: "Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see the shadow." Keller experts at the American Federation for the Blind have been unable to find a source for this quotation.
The person who tries to live alone will not succeed as a human being. His heart withers if it does not answer another heart. His mind shrinks away if he hears only the echoes of his own thoughts and finds no other inspiration.
Pearl S. Buck (1892-1973) American writer
To My Daughters, With Love (1967)
Sexes. One has the look of a wound, the other of something skinned.
Joseph Joubert (1754-1824) French moralist, philosopher, essayist, poet
Pensées (1838) [ed. Auster (1983)]
Private property is a means, and neither its abolition nor its unrestricted right should be an end in itself.
Kenneth Ewart Boulding (1910-1993) American economist, educator, poet, philosopher
Principles of of Economic Policy (1958)
Following political campaigns to learn about economics is like following a magician to learn about physics.
Derek Thompson (b. 1986) American business journalist, editor
“Was Obama’s Recovery the Worst in Modern Times, or the Best in 20 Years?”, The Atlantic (14 Jun 2012)
(Source)
There’s no end to the list; there are millions of them! And all insane; each in his own way; insane as to his pet fad or opinion, but otherwise sane and rational. This should move us to be charitable towards one another’s lunacies. I recognize that in his special belief the Christian Scientist is insane, because he does not believe as I do; but I hail him as my mate and fellow, because I am as insane as he insane from his point of view, and his point of view is as authoritative as mine and worth as much. That is to say, worth a brass farthing. Upon a great religious or political question, the opinion of the dullest head in the world is worth the same as the opinion of the brightest head in the world — a brass farthing. How do we arrive at this? It is simple. The affirmative opinion of a stupid man is neutralized by the negative opinion of his stupid neighbor — no decision is reached; the affirmative opinion of the intellectual giant Gladstone is neutralized by the negative opinion of the intellectual giant Newman — no decision is reached. Opinions that prove nothing are, of course, without value any but a dead person knows that much. This obliges us to admit the truth of the unpalatable proposition just mentioned above — that, in disputed matters political and religious, one man’s opinion is worth no more than his peer’s, and hence it followers that no man’s opinion possesses any real value. It is a humbling thought, but there is no way to get around it: all opinions upon these great subjects are brass-farthing opinions.
Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
Christian Science, ch. 5 (1907)
(Source)
If you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a small chance of survival. There may even be a worse case: you may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.
Winston Churchill (1874-1965) British statesman and author
The Second World War, Vol. 1 “The Gathering Storm” (1948)
Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man’s sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true.
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman, civil rights leader, social activist, preacher
Strength to Love, ch. 5 “Loving Your Enemies,” sec. 2 (1963)
(Source)
Hell is paved with good intentions.
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) English writer, lexicographer, critic
Comment (14 Apr 1775)
In James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791). This is noted as a "proverbial sentence" even at that time. John Ray, in 1670, cited as a proverb, "Hell is paved with good intentions." Note that "The road to Hell ..." is not part of the quotation.
There is nothing more difficult to carry out, nor more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to handle, than to initiate a new order of things. For the reformer has enemies in all those who profit by the old order, and only lukewarm defenders in all those who would profit by the new order, this lukewarmness arising partly from fear of their adversaries, who have the laws in their favor; and partly from the incredulity of mankind, who do not truly believe in anything new until they have actual experience of it.
Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527) Italian politician, philosopher, political scientist
The Prince, ch. 6 (1513) [tr. Ricci (1903)]
Alt. trans.: "Nothing is more difficult to transact, nor more dubious to succeed, nor more dangerous to manage, than to make oneself chief to introduce new orders. Because the introducer has for enemies all those whom the old orders benefit, and has for lukewarm defenders all those who might benefit from the new orders. [tr. Codevilla]
Strive to be rich, not in possessions, but in courage and merit.
Agesilaus II (444-360 BC) King of Sparta [Agesilaos II]
(Attributed)
In Plutarch, "Sayings of the Spartans: Agesilaus" (31), Plutarch on Sparta [tr. Talbert (1988)]
Among the sayings & discourses imputed to [Jesus] by his biographers, I find many passages of fine imagination, correct morality, and of the most lovely benevolence: and others again of so much ignorance, so much absurdity, so much untruth, charlatanism, and imposture, as to pronounce it impossible that such contradictions should have proceeded from the same being. I separate therefore the gold from the dross; restore to him the former, & leave the latter to the stupidity of some, and roguery of others of his disciples. Of this band of dupes and impostors, Paul was the great Coryphaeus, and first corrupter of the doctrines of Jesus. These palpable interpolations and falsifications of his doctrines led me to try to sift them apart.
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) American political philosopher, polymath, statesman, US President (1801-09)
Letter to William Short (13 Apr 1820)
(Source)
On his personally abridged edition of the Bible.
Ignorance is not lack of intelligence, nor knowledge a proof of genius.
Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues (1715-1747) French moralist, essayist, soldier
Reflections and Maxims [Réflexions et maximes] (1746) [tr. Lee (1903)]
The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.
Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
(Spurious)
Frequently attributed to Twain, but undocumented in any of his writings. The origin of the phrase seems to be in a letter from Horace Walpole to Mary Berry (29 Jul 1789), attributing a quip to the English actor James Quin:Quin, being once asked if he had ever seen so bad a winter, replied, “Yes, just such an one last summer!” -- and here is its youngest brother!
Twain, in turn, mentioned the observation in a letter to Lucius Fairchild (28 Apr 1880), using it to denigrate Paris, France:For this long time I have been intending to congratulate you fervently upon your translation to -- to -- anywhere -- for anywhere is better than Paris. Paris the cold, Paris the drizzly, Paris the rainy, Paris the Damnable. More than a hundred years ago, somebody asked Quin, "Did you ever see such a winter in all your life before?" "Yes," said he, "last summer." I judge he spent his summer in Paris.
When "coldest winter ... summer" phrase first achieved popularity in that form (around 1900 or earlier), the targeted city was Duluth, Minnesota, followed by other cities in Minnesota and Wisconsin, before being grafted onto San Francisco and, again, Mark Twain.
More discussion about this quotation:
When one sees the number and variety of institutions which exist for the purposes of education, and the vast throng of scholars and masters, one might fancy the human race to be very much concerned about truth and wisdom. But here, too, appearances are deceptive. The masters teach in order to gain money, and strive, not after wisdom, but the outward show and reputation of it; and the scholars learn, not for the sake of knowledge and insight, but to be able to chatter and give themselves airs.
[Wenn man die Vielen und Mannigfaltigen Anstalten zum Lehren und Lernen un das so große Gedränge von Schülern und Meistern sieht, könnte man glauben, daß es dem Menschengeschlechte gar sehr um Einsicht und Wahrheit zu thun sei. Aber auch hier trügt der Schein. Jene lehren, um Geld zu verdienen und streben nicht nach Weisheit, sondern nach dem Schein und Kredit derselben: und Diese lernen nicht, um Kenntniß und Einsicht zu erlangen; sondern um schwätzen zu können nd sich ein Ansehn zu geben Alle dreißig Jahre nämlich tritt so ein sondern um schwätzen zu können und sich ein Ansehn zu geben.]
Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) German philosopher
Parerga and Paralipomena, Vol. 2, ch. 21 “On Learning and the Learned [Über Gelehrsamkeit und Gelehrte],” § 244 (1851) [tr. Saunders (1890)]
(Source)
(Source (German)). Alternate translation:When we see the different institutions for teaching and learning and the vast throng of pupil and masters, we might imagine that the human race was very much bent on insight and truth; but here appearances are deceptive. The masters teach in order to earn money and aspire not to wisdom, but to the semblance and reputation thereof; the pupils learn not to acquire knowledge and insight, but to be able to talk and chat and to give themselves airs.
[tr. Payne (1974)]
Ask your child what he wants for dinner only if he’s buying.
Fran Lebowitz (b. 1950) American journalist
Social Studies, “Parental Guidance” (1981)
I shall doubtless outlive some troublesome desires; but I am in no hurry about that; nor, when the time comes, shall I plume myself on the immunity just in the same way, I do not greatly pride myself on having outlived my belief in the fairy tales of Socialism. Old people have faults of their own; they tend to become cowardly, niggardly, and suspicious. Whether from the growth of experience or the decline of animal heat, I see that age leads to these and certain other faults; and it follows, of course, that while in one sense I hope I am journeying towards the truth, in another I am indubitably posting towards these forms and sources of error.
Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) Scottish essayist, novelist, poet
“Crabbed Age and Youth” (c. 1874)
There is something nearer to us than Scriptures, to wit, the Word in the heart from which all Scriptures come.
William Penn (1644-1718) English writer, philosopher, politician, statesman
(Attributed)
We feel safe, huddled within human institutions — churches, banks, madrigal groups — but these concoctions melt away at the basic moment. The self’s responsibility, then, is to achieve rapport if not rapture with the giant, cosmic other: to appreciate, let’s say, the walk back from the mailbox.
John Updike (1932-2009) American writer
Self-Consciousness: Memoirs, closing words (1989)
All revolutionary changes are unthinkable until they happen — and then they are understood to be inevitable.
Theodore Roszak (1933-2011) American historian and author
The Making of the Counter Culture, ch. 2 (1969)
Sometimes the most remarkable things seem commonplace. I mean, when you think about it, jet travel is pretty freaking remarkable. You get in a plane, it defies the gravity of an entire planet by exploiting a loophole with air pressure, and it flies across distances that would take months or years to cross by any means of travel that has been significant for more than a century or three. You hurtle above the earth at enough speed to kill you instantly should you bump into something, and you can only breathe because someone built you a really good tin can that seems tight enough to hold in a decent amount of air. Hundreds of millions of man-hours of work and struggle and research, blood, sweat, tears and lives have gone into the history of air travel, and it has totally revolutionized the face of our planet and societies. But get on any flight in the country, and I absolutely promise you that you will find someone who, in the face of all that incredible achievement, will be willing to complain about the drinks. The drinks, people.
No man ever became extremely wicked all at once.
[Nemo repente fuit turpissimus.]
Juvenal (c.55-127) Roman satirist [Decimus Junius Juvinalis]
Satires, Satire 2, l. 83
Alt. trans.: "No one ever became thoroughly bad all at once" or "No one's only corrupted overnight" or "No one reaches the depths of turpitude all at once."
Evil flows backward swelling its source.
Paul Eldridge (1888-1982) American educator, novelist, poet
“Lanterns in the Night,” Maxim 40, The Jewish Forum (Aug 1948)
We are lonesome animals. We spend all our life trying to be less lonesome. One of our ancient methods is to tell a story begging the listener to say — and to feel — “Yes, that’s the way it is, or at least that’s the way I feel it. You’re not as alone as you thought.”
John Steinbeck (1902-1968) American writer
(Attributed)
Quoted in George Plimpton (ed.) Writers at Work, Fourth Series (1981).
Too many moral busy-bodies have confuse impertinent with important.
Graham Ericsson (b. 1947) American writer, aphorist
Tangled Web (2004)
What I have been talking about is knowledge. Knowledge, perhaps, is not a good word for this. Perhaps one would rather say my image of the world. Knowledge has an implication of validity, of truth. What I am talking about is what I believe to be true; my subjective knowledge. It is this Image that largely governs my behavior. In about an hour I shall rise, leave my office, go to a car, drive down to my home, play with the children, have supper, perhaps read a book, go to bed. I can predict this behavior with a fair degree to accuracy because of the knowledge which I have: the knowledge that I have a home not far away, to which I am accustomed to go. The prediction, of course, may not be fulfilled. There may be an earthquake, I may have an accident with the car on the way home, I may get home to find that my family has been suddenly called away. A hundred and one things may happen. As each event occurs, however, it alters my knowledge structure or my image. And as it alters my image, I behave accordingly. The first proposition of this work, therefore, is that behavior depends on the image.
Kenneth Ewart Boulding (1910-1993) American economist, educator, poet, philosopher
The Image: Knowledge in Life and Society, ch. 1 (1956)
A writer who waits for ideal conditions under which to work will die without putting a word on paper.
E. B. White (1899-1985) American author, critic, humorist [Elwyn Brooks White]
Interview by George Plimpton and Frank H. Crowther, “E. B. White, The Art of the Essay No. 1,” Paris Review #48 (Fall 1969)
(Source)
The true saint goes in and out amongst the people and eats and sleeps with them and buys and sells in the market and marries and takes part in social intercourse, and never forgets God for a single moment.
Abu Said ibn Abi 'I-Khayr (AD 967-1049) Persian Sufi mystic and poet [a.k.a., Abusa'id Abolkhayr, Abū-Sa'īd Abul-Khayr, Sheikh Abusaeid or Abu Sa'eed]
(Attributed)
In Reynold A. Nicholson, Studies in Islamic Mysticism (1921).
Since Luther’s time there has been a conviction, more or less rooted, that a man may by an intellectual process think out a religion for himself, and that as the highest of all duties he ought to do so.
Walter Bagehot (1826-1877) British businessman, essayist, journalist
Physics and Politics, Part 5, ch. 1 “The Age of Discussion” (1872)
(Source)
Anyone who angers you, conquers you.
Sister Elizabeth Kenny (1886-1952) Australian nurse
(Attributed)
Attributed by her to her own mother.
That fellow seems to me to possess but one idea, and that is a wrong one.
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) English writer, lexicographer, critic
Comment (1770)
(Source)
In James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791). Attributed by Rev. Dr. Maxwell while Boswell was out of town. Johnson was "speaking of a dull tiresome fellow, whom he chanced to meet."
My country ’tis of thee
Sweet land of felony
Of thee I sing —
Land where my father fried
Young witches and applied
Whips to the Quaker’s hide
And made him spring.H. L. Mencken (1880-1956) American writer and journalist [Henry Lewis Mencken]
“A Rational Anthem,” Black Beatles in Amber (1892)
See original.
A Scholar is a man with this inconvenience, that when you ask him his opinion on any matter, he must go home and look up his manuscripts to know.
Men are more prone to revenge Injuries, than to requite Kindnesses.
Thomas Fuller (1654-1734) English physician, preacher, aphorist, writer
Gnomologia: Adages and Proverbs, #3389 (1732)
(Source)
Rome is a very loony city in every respect. One needs but spend an hour or two there to realize that Fellini makes documentaries.
Fran Lebowitz (b. 1950) American journalist
Metropolitan Life, “A World View” (1974)
To hold the same views at forty as we held at twenty is to have been stupefied for a score of years, and take rank, not as a prophet, but as an unteachable brat, well birched and none the wiser. It is as if a ship captain should sail to India from the Port of London; and having brought a chart of the Thames on deck at his first setting out, should obstinately use no other for the whole voyage.
Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) Scottish essayist, novelist, poet
“Crabbed Age and Youth”
Our blight is ideologies — they are the long-expected Antichrist!
Carl Jung (1875-1961) Swiss psychologist
The Tibetan Book of the Dead, introduction (1938)
In my head there is a permanent opposition-party; and whenever I take any step or come to any decision — though I may have given the matter mature consideration — it afterward attacks what I have done, without, however, being each time necessarily in the right. This is, I suppose, only a form of rectification on the part of the spirit of scrutiny; but it often reproaches me when I do not deserve it.
[In meinem Kopfe giebt es eine stehende Oppositionspartei, die gegen Alles, was ich, wenn auch mit reiflicher Überlegung, gethan, oder beschlossen habe, nachträglich polemisirt, ohne jedoch darum jedesmal Recht zu haben. Sie ist wohl nur eine Form des berichtigenden Prüfungsgeistes, macht mir aber oft unverdiente Vorwürfe.]
Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) German philosopher
Parerga and Paralipomena, Vol. 2, ch. 26 “Psychological Observations [Psychologische Bemerkungen],” § 345 (1851) [tr. Saunders (1890)]
(Source)
(Source (German)). Alternate translation:There is in my mind a standing opposition party which subsequently attacks everything I have done or decided, even after mature consideration, yet without its always being right on that account. It is, I suppose, only a form of the corrective spirit of investigation; but it often casts an unmerited slur on me.
[tr. Payne (1974)]
The more violence, the less revolution.
Barthelemy de Ligt (1883-1938) Dutch anarcho-pacifist and antimilitarist
(Attributed)
Quoted in Aldous Huxley, "Social Reform and Violence," Ends and Means (1937).
Paranoid? Probably. But just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean that there isn’t an invisible demon about to eat your face.
Jim Butcher (b. 1971) American author
Storm Front, ch. 1 (2000)
It is difficult not to write satire.
[Difficile est saturam non scribere.]
Juvenal (c.55-127) Roman satirist [Decimus Junius Juvinalis]
Satires, Satire 1, l. 30.
A man has sinned enough if he neglects to feed those in need.
Muhammad (570-632) Arabian merchant, prophet, founder of Islam [Mohammed]
Fiqh-us-Sunnah, Vol. 3, #100
Th’ feller that agrees with ever’thing you say is either a fool er he is gettin’ ready t’skin you.
[The fellow that agrees with everything you say is either a fool or he is getting ready to skin you.]
Frank McKinney "Kin" Hubbard (1868-1930) American caricaturist and humorist
Back Country Folks (1913)
I have been gradually coming under the conviction, disturbing for a professional theorist, that there is no such thing as economics – there is only social science applied to economic problems.
Kenneth Ewart Boulding (1910-1993) American economist, educator, poet, philosopher
A Reconstruction of Economics, Introduction (1950)
Half myself mocks the other half.
Joseph Joubert (1754-1824) French moralist, philosopher, essayist, poet
Pensées (1838) [ed. Auster (1983)]
Show me an absurdity in Religion, I will undertake to show you a hundred in Political Laws and Institutions.
Edmund Burke (1729-1797) Anglo-Irish statesman, orator, philosopher
A Vindication of Natural Society (1756)
Saints and poets are hills touched with the dawn while the valley is in darkness.
Austin O'Malley (1858-1932) American ophthalmologist, professor of literature, aphorist
Thoughts of a Recluse (1898)
(Source)
If you wish to keep your private affairs secret, keep your servants well paid.
Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) French emperor, military leader
(Attributed)
Quoted in In the Words of Napoleon, tr. Daniel Savage Gray (1977).
A fit of anger is as fatal to dignity as a dose of arsenic is to life.
J. G. Holland (1819-1881) American novelist, poet, editor [Josiah Gilbert Holland; pseud. Timothy Titcomb]
(Attributed)
Quoted in The Literary News (Feb 1882).
It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives. The act of dying is not of importance, it lasts so short a time.
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) English writer, lexicographer, critic
Comment (26 Oct 1769)
In James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791)
Fools and obstinate men make lawyers rich.
(Other Authors and Sources)
English saying
Toward the end of the book (the time is 1914) Demian says to his friend Sinclair: “… The new is beginning and for those who cling to the old the new will be horrible. What will you do?” The right answer would be: “Assist the new without sacrificing the old.”
Thomas Mann (1875-1955) German writer, critic, philanthropist, Nobel laureate [Paul Thomas Mann]
Introduction (1947) to Hermann Hesse, Demian: The Story of Emile Sinclair’s Youth (1919) [tr. Roloff and Lebeck (1965)]
He is not genteel, handsome, witty, brave, good-humored, but he is rich, rich, rich, rich, rich — that one word contradicts everything you can say against him.
Henry Fielding (1707-1754) English novelist, dramatist, satirist
The Miser, 3.7 (1733)
But the greatest of all the Reformers of the depraved religion of his own country, was Jesus of Nazareth. Abstracting what is really his from the rubbish in which it is buried, easily distinguished by its lustre from the dross of his biographers, and as separable from that as the diamond from the dung hill, we have the outlines of a system of the most sublime morality which has ever fallen from the lips of man: outlines which it is lamentable he did not live to fill up. Epictetus & Epicurus give us laws for governing ourselves, Jesus a supplement of the duties & charities we owe to others. The establishment of the innocent and genuine character of this benevolent Moralist, and the rescuing it from the imputation of imposture, which has resulted from artificial systems,* invented by Ultra-Christian sects, unauthorized by a single word ever uttered by him, is a most desirable object, and one to which Priestley has successfully devoted his labors and learning. It would in time, it is to be hoped, effect a quiet euthanasia of the heresies of bigotry and fanaticism which have so long triumphed over human reason, and so generally & deeply afflicted mankind; but this work is to be begun by winnowing the grain from the chaff of the historians of his life.
* e.g. The immaculate conception of Jesus, his deification, the creation of the world by him, his miraculous powers, his resurrection & visible ascension, his corporeal presence in the Eucharist, the Trinity, original sin, atonement, regeneration, election, orders of Hierarchy, Etc.
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) American political philosopher, polymath, statesman, US President (1801-09)
Letter to William Short (31 Oct 1819)
(Source)
It is of no use to possess a lively wit if it is not of the right proportion: the perfection of a clock is not to go fast, but to be accurate.
Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues (1715-1747) French moralist, essayist, soldier
Reflections and Maxims [Réflexions et maximes] (1746) [tr. Lee (1903)]
(Source)
I wouldn’t call myself an optimist, but if your message is just “life sucks and then you die (or worse, keep living),” then I’m out. I don’t need shiny happy bunnies hopping in endless fields to amuse me — but I do need something richer than a steady, bleak despair as a daily reading diet.
DeAnna Knippling (contemp.) American writer
“How Dark Is Too Dark? A Personal Observation” (4 Sep 2013)
(Source)
A learned blockhead is a greater blockhead than an ignorant one.
Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) American statesman, scientist, philosopher, aphorist
Poor Richard (1734 ed.)
(Source)
Revenge, at first though sweet,
Bitter ere long, back on itself recoils.John Milton (1608-1674) English poet
Paradise Lost, 9.171 (1667)
They don’t talk about money — at least not more than anyone else. What they really talk about is work. The thing about rich people who’ve made it themselves is that they work more than anyone else I know. They work almost all the time. And they talk about their work, because that’s what they do all the time. The average person doesn’t want to work on weekends; the average person doesn’t want to work after work. People who make a lot of money work at 2 o’clock in the morning.
Fran Lebowitz (b. 1950) American journalist
Interview with James Atlas, “What They Look Like to the Rest of Us,” New York Times Magazine (19 Nov 1995)
(Source)
On what the rich talk about.
Youth is wholly experimental.
Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) Scottish essayist, novelist, poet
“Letter to a Young Gentleman,” Scribner’s Magazine (Sep 1888)
(Source)
Take her lips in your mouth:
Be a man, kiss her, heart and soul.
No sugar is as sweet as she,
Only wine is delicious like her.Suleiman I, the Magnificent (1494-1566) Sultan of the Ottoman Empire (1520-1566) [also Süleyman, Muhibbi]
Poem
(Source)
Sometimes given as "No dessert is as sweet as she".
There is a deep disorder in our society which comes not from the machinations of our enemies and from the adversities of the human condition, but from within ourselves.
Walter Lippmann (1889-1974) American journalist and author
The Public Philosophy, 1.1 (1955)
Waste no time with revolutions that do not remove the causes of your complaints but simply change the faces of those in charge.
Francesco Guicciardini (1483-1540) Italian historian and statesman
Remembrances, C.50 (1530) [tr. Domandi (1965)]
There is a primal reassurance in being touched, in knowing that someone else, someone close to you, wants to be touching you. There is a bone-deep security that goes with the brush of a human hand, a silent, reflex-level affirmation that someone is near, that someone cares.
Jim Butcher (b. 1971) American author
White Night, ch. 24 (2008)
The complaint is frequently heard that people want “facts”, not “theories”. The complaint may be justified in protest against theories which have no basis in fact, but usually it arises from a misunderstanding of the true relationships of facts and theories. Theories without facts may be barren, but facts without theories are meaningless. It is only “theory” — i.e., a body of principles — which enables us to approach the bewildering complexity and chaos of fact, select the facts significant for our purposes, and interpret the significance.
Kenneth Ewart Boulding (1910-1993) American economist, educator, poet, philosopher
Economic Analysis (1941)
But remember, there are two ways to dehumanize someone: by dismissing them, and by idolizing them.
David Wong (b. 1975) American writer, humorist, editor [pseud. for Jason Pargin]
“5 Ways Modern Men Are Trained to Hate Women,” Cracked.com (27 Mar 2012)
(Source)
This hitteth the naile on the hed.
John Heywood (1497?-1580?) English playwright and epigrammist
Proverbes, Part 2, ch. 11 (1546)
(Source)
Putting trust in people will produce trustworthy people. That is the foremost of the many reasons against the widespread and routine use of lie detector tests. Management through fear and intimidation is not the way to promote honesty and protect security.
George Shultz (b. 1920) American economist, statesman, and businessman
Speech, Washington (9 Jan 1989)
It seems that there is something spiritual in wine.
Joseph Joubert (1754-1824) French moralist, philosopher, essayist, poet
Pensées [Thoughts], 1805 entry (1938 ed.) [tr. Auster (1983)]
(Source)
This entry does not show up in traditional collections of the Pensées (English or French), but from the full 2-volume Les Carnets, ed. Andre Beaunier.
I have indeed now and then a little compunction in reflecting that I spend time so idly; but another reflection comes to relieve me, whispering, “You know that the soul is immortal; why then should you be such a niggard of a little time, when you have a whole eternity before you?” So, being easily convinced, and, like other reasonable creatures, satisfied with a small reason, when it is in favor of doing what I have a mind to do, I shuffle the cards again, and begin another game.
Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) American statesman, scientist, philosopher, aphorist
Letter to Mary Hewson (6 May 1786)
(Source)
DICKINSON: Mr. Jefferson, Mr. Lee, Mr. Hopkins, Dr. Franklin, why have you joined this — incendiary little man, this BOSTON radical? This demagogue, this MADMAN?
ADAMS: Are you calling me a madman, you, you — you FRIBBLE!
FRANKLIN: Easy, John.
ADAMS: You cool, considerate men — you hang to the rear on every issue so that if we should go under, you’ll still remain afloat!
DICKINSON: Are you calling me a coward?
ADAMS: Yes — coward!
DICKINSON: Madman!
ADAMS: Landlord!
DICKINSON: LAWYER!
[A brawl breaks out]
Peter Stone (1930-2003) American writer for theater, television, movies
1776, play (1969) [with Sherman Edwards]
When I feed the hungry, they call me a saint. When I ask why they have no food, they call me a Communist.
[Quando dou comida aos pobres chamam-me de santo. Quando pergunto por que eles são pobres chamam-me de comunista.]
Hélder Câmara (1909-1999) Brazilian Catholic Archbishop, social and political activist
(Attributed)
On serving the poor in Brazil. In Abp. John R. Quinn, letter to the New York Times (31 Mar 1991)
They are so pleased to find out other people’s secrets. It distracts public attention from their own.
Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) Irish poet, wit, dramatist
An Ideal Husband, Act 2 (1895)
Anger is an expensive luxury in which only men of a certain income can indulge.
George William Curtis (1824-1892) American essayist, editor, reformer, orator
Prue and I, ch. 4 “Titbottom’s Spectacles” (1856)
(Source)
We stood talking for some time together of Bishop Berkeley’s ingenious sophistry to prove the non-existence of matter, and that every thing in the universe is merely ideal. I observed, that though we are satisfied his doctrine is not true, it is impossible to refute it. I shall never forget the alacrity with which Johnson answered, striking his foot with mighty force against a large stone, till he rebounded from it, “I refute it thus.”
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) English writer, lexicographer, critic
Comment (6 Aug 1763)
In James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791).
I think you may judge of a man’s character by the persons whose affection he seeks. If you find a man seeking only the affection of those who are great, depend upon it he is ambitious and self-seeking; but when you observe that a man seeks the affection of those who can do nothing for him, but for whom he must do everything, you know that he is not seeking himself, but that pure benevolence sways his heart.
Charles Spurgeon (1834-1892) British Baptist preacher, author [Charles Haddon (C.H.) Spurgeon]
Sermon (15 Jun 1876)
(Source)
A predecessor to the sentiment usually attributed to Paul Eldridge.
The Reformer is a savior or a rebel, … depending largely upon whether he succeeds or fails.
Elbert Hubbard (1856-1915) American writer, businessman, philosopher
The Note Book of Elbert Hubbard [ed. E. Hubbard II] (1927)
Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me. They possess and enjoy early, and it does something to them, makes them soft where we are hard, and cynical where we are trustful, in a way that, unless you were born rich, it is very difficult to understand. They think, deep in their hearts, that they are better than we are because we had to discover the compensations and refuges of life for ourselves.
F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940) American writer [Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald]
“The Rich Boy,” Part 1, Red Book (1926-01/02)
(Source)
Reprinted in All the Sad Young Men (1926). Sometimes incorrectly cited to The Great Gatsby (1925).
Some men look at Constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, & deem them, like the ark of the covenant, too sacred to be touched. they ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human, and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment. I knew that age well: I belonged to it, and labored with it. it deserved well of it’s country. it was very like the present, but without the experience of the present: and 40. years of experience in government is worth a century of book-reading: and this they would say themselves, were they to rise from the dead.
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) American political philosopher, polymath, statesman, US President (1801-09)
Letter (1816-07-12) to “Henry Tompkinson” (Samuel Kercheval)
(Source)
It is good to be firm by temperament and pliant by reflection.
Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues (1715-1747) French moralist, essayist, soldier
Reflections and Maxims [Réflexions et maximes] (1746) [tr. Lee (1903)]
There are conditions of blindness so voluntary that they become complicity.
It is the vice of scholars to suppose that there is no knowledge in the world but that of books.
William Hazlitt (1778-1830) English writer
“On the Conduct of Life,” Literary Remains (1836)
A people always minds its rulers best
When it is neither humored nor oppressed.Solon (c. 638 BC - 558 BC) Athenian statesman, lawmaker, poet
In Plutach, “Poplicola and Solon Compared,” Parallel Lives [tr. Dryden (1693)]
Life is something to do when you can’t get to sleep.
Fran Lebowitz (b. 1950) American journalist
“Mars: Living in a Small Way,” Metropolitan Life (1974)
There is no foreign land; it is the traveller only that is foreign, and again, by a flash of recollection, lights up the contrasts of the earth.
Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) Scottish essayist, novelist, poet
The Silverado Squatters, “With the Children of Israel,” sec. 3 (1883)
(Source)
Melancholy sees the worst of things, — things as they may be, and not as they are. It looks upon a beautiful face, and sees but a grinning skull.
Christian Nestell Bovee (1820-1904) American epigrammatist, writer, publisher
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought, Vol. 2 (1862)
Everything in me calls out to be revised, amended, reeducated.
André Gide (1869-1951) French author, Nobel laureate
Journal (19 Jan 1916) [tr. O’Brien (1948)]
A revolution is not necessarily progessive. It may very well be regressive, in deliberate reaction to progressive movements of the time or to reforms enacted by the government.
James H. Meisel (1900-1991) German-American political scientist, author
Counter-Revolution: How Revolutions Die, ch. 1 (1966)
What, after all, has maintained the human race on this old globe, despite all the calamities of nature and all the tragic failings of mankind, if not faith in new possibilities and courage to advocate them?
Jane Addams (1860-1935) American reformer, suffragist, philosopher, author
Peace and Bread in Time of War, ch. 7 “Personal Reactions During War” (1922)
(Source)
Economic problems have no sharp edges. They shade off imperceptibly into politics, sociology, and ethics. Indeed, it is hardly an exaggeration to say that the ultimate answer to every economic problem lies in some other field.
Kenneth Ewart Boulding (1910-1993) American economist, educator, poet, philosopher
The Economics of Peace (1945)
There is iconoclasm in the excessively intellectual, and they delight in destroying their dearest moral or sentimental idols, the better to prove their strength.
Paul Bourget (1852-1935) French critic, poet, novelist
Cosmopolis, ch. 4 “Approaching Danger” (1892)
An agreement between two men to do what both agree is wrong.
Edward Gascoyne-Cecil (1867-1918) British soldier and colonial administrator
Letter (3 Sep 1911)
Defining "compromise".
What is surprising is that so many ordinary American citizens tolerate without protest the most shameless invasion of their privacy. … A man’s sex life, political views, and childhood relationship with his mother are his own business, and nobody else’s. The proper response about such matters is a loud, positive: “IT’S NONE OF YOUR LOUSY BUSINESS.”
Stewart Alsop (1914-1974) American newspaper columnist and political analyst
“It’s None of Your Lousy Business,” Saturday Evening Post (13 Jun 1964)
In every kind of debauch there enters much coldness of soul. It is a conscious and voluntary abuse of pleasure.
[Il entre, dans toute espèce de débauche, beaucoup de froideur d’àme; elle est un abus réfléchi et volontaire du plaisir.]
Joseph Joubert (1754-1824) French moralist, philosopher, essayist, poet
Pensées [Thoughts], ch. 5 “Des Passions et des Affections de l’Âme [On the Soul],” ¶ 13, 1805 entry (1850 ed.) [tr. Auster (1983)]
(Source)
(Source (French)). Alternate translations:Into every kind of excess there enters much coldness of soul; it is a thoughtful and voluntary abuse of pleasure.
[tr. Calvert (1866), ch. 5]There is much coldness of soul in every kind of excess; -- it is the deliberate and voluntary abuse of pleasure.
[tr. Lyttelton (1899), ch. 4, ¶ 11]There is an element of callousness in every kind of dissipation; it is a deliberate, willful abuse of pleasure.
[tr. Collins (1928), ch. 5]
I have ever let others enjoy their religious Sentiments, without reflecting on them for those that appeared to me insupportable and even absurd. All Sects here, and we have a great Variety, have experienced my Good will in assisting them with Subscriptions for building their new Places of Worship, and as I have never opposed any of their Doctrines I hope to go out of the World in Peace with them all.
Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) American statesman, scientist, philosopher, aphorist
Letter to Ezra Stiles (9 Mar 1790)
(Source)
DICKINSON: Don’t forget that most men with nothing would rather protect the possibility of becoming rich than face the reality of being poor.
Peter Stone (1930-2003) American writer for theater, television, movies
1776 (play, 1969) [with Sherman Edwards]
Many people genuinely do not wish to be saints, and it is probable that some who achieve or aspire to sainthood have never felt much temptation to be human beings.
George Orwell (1903-1950) English writer [pseud. of Eric Arthur Blair]
“Reflections on Gandhi” (Jan 1949)
Three may keep a Secret, if two of them are dead.
Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) American statesman, scientist, philosopher, aphorist
Poor Richard (1735 ed.)
(Source)
If a donkey bray at you, don’t bray at him.
George Herbert (1593-1633) Welsh priest, orator, poet.
(Attributed)
Often attributed to Herbert, but not found in his works. Elsewhere listed simply as a proverb.
Men hate more steadily than they love.
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) English writer, lexicographer, critic
Comment (15 Sep 1777)
In James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791)
He who knows how to suffer everything can dare everything.
[Qui sait tout souffrir peut tout oser.]
Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues (1715-1747) French moralist, essayist, soldier
Reflections and Maxims [Réflexions et maximes] (1746) [tr. Lee (1903)]
Rule 1, on page 1 of the book of war, is: “Do not march on Moscow”. Various people have tried it, Napoleon and Hitler, and it is no good. That is the first rule. I do not know whether your Lordships will know Rule 2 of war. It is: “Do not go fighting with your land armies in China”. It is a vast country, with no clearly defined objectives.
Bernard Montgomery (1887-1976) British military leader
Speech, House of Lords (30 May 1962)
(Source)
The desire of acquiring the comforts of the world haunts the imagination of the poor, and the dread of losing them that of the rich.
Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) French writer, diplomat, politician
Democracy in America, 2.2.10 (1840) [tr. Reeve and Bowen (1862)]
I must ever believe that religion substantially good which produces an honest life, and we have been authorised by one, whom you and I equally respect, to judge of the tree by it’s fruit. Our particular principles of religion are a subject of accountability to our god alone. I enquire after no man’s, and trouble none with mine: nor is it given to us in this life to know whether your’s or mine, our friend’s or our foe’s are exactly the right.
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) American political philosopher, polymath, statesman, US President (1801-09)
Letter to Miles King (26 Sep 1814)
(Source)
No sagacious man will long retain his sagacity if he lives exclusively among reformers and progressive people, without periodically returning into the settled system of things, to correct himself by a new observation from that old standpoint.
Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) American writer
The Blithedale Romance, ch. 16 “Leave-Takings” (1852)
(Source)
All the property that is necessary to a Man, for the Conservation of the Individual and the Propagation of the Species, is his natural Right, which none can justly deprive him of: But all Property superfluous to such purposes is the Property of the Publick, who, by their Laws, have created it, and who may therefore by other laws dispose of it, whenever the Welfare of the Publick shall demand such Disposition. He that does not like civil Society on these Terms, let him retire and live among Savages. He can have no right to the benefits of Society, who will not pay his Club towards the Support of it.
Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) American statesman, scientist, philosopher, aphorist
Letter to Robert Morris (25 Dec 1783)
(Source)
One man prefers the Republic because it pays better than Bulgaria. Another because it has laws to keep him sober and his daughter chaste. Another because the Woolworth Building is higher than the cathedral at Chartres. Another because, living here, he can read the New York Evening Journal. Another because there is a warrant out for him somewhere else. Me, I like it because it amuses me to my taste. I never get tired of the show. It is worth every cent it costs.
H. L. Mencken (1880-1956) American writer and journalist [Henry Lewis Mencken]
“On Being an American,” Prejudices: Third Series (1922)
Rulers who destroy men’s freedom commonly begin by trying to retain its forms. … They cherish the illusion that they can combine the prerogatives of absolute power with the moral authority that comes from popular assent.
Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) French writer, diplomat, politician
The Old Regime and the French Revolution, 2.3 (1836) [tr. Gilbert (1955)]
Another difference between rich people and poor people is that rich people can have what they want, whereas we usually can’t. When I was a kid growing up in New Jersey, we’d come into New York and go to F.A.O. Schwarz. I must have been 14 years old before I realized that F.A.O. Schwarz wasn’t a museum. I was once in a museum with a rich man who after about 20 minutes said he wanted to leave because it was too irritating to see things that he couldn’t buy. To us the world is a museum; to them it’s a store.
Fran Lebowitz (b. 1950) American journalist
Interview with James Atlas, “What They Look Like to the Rest of Us,” New York Times Magazine (19 Nov 1995)
(Source)
An idea springs out of his forehead fully formed, with no warning. This is how all the best ideas arrive. Ideas that he patiently cultivates from tiny seeds always fail to germinate or else grow up into monstrosities. Good ideas are just there all of a sudden, like angels in the Bible. You cannot ignore them just because they are ridiculous.
Neal Stephenson (b. 1959) American novelist
Cryptonomicon, ch. 98 “Crib” (1999)
You rule the Scripture, not the Scripture you.
John Dryden (1631-1700) English poet, dramatist, critic
The Hind and the Panther, 2.769 (1687)
Almost all men are over-anxious. No sooner do they enter the world than they lose that taste for natural and simple pleasures so remarkable in early life. Every hour do they ask themselves what progress they have made in the pursuit of wealth or honor; and on they go as their fathers went before them, till, weary and sick at heart, they look back with a sigh of regret to the golden time of their childhood.
Samuel Rogers (1763-1855) English poet
Italy, “Foreign Travel” (1822-28)
Political revolutions … do not often accomplish anything of genuine value; their one undoubted effect is simply to throw out one gang of thieves and put in another. After a revolution, of course, the successful revolutionists always try to convince doubters that they have achieved great things, and usually they hang any man who denies it.
H. L. Mencken (1880-1956) American writer and journalist [Henry Lewis Mencken]
“Matters of State: Le Contrat Social,” Prejudices: Third Series (1922)
In his own way each man must struggle, lest the moral law become a far-off abstraction utterly separated from his active life.
Jane Addams (1860-1935) American reformer, suffragist, philosopher, author
Twenty Years at Hull-House, ch. 4 “The Snare of Preparation” (1910)
(Source)
Quoting her notebook (Sep 1882).
As Boileau said, “La réalité n’est pas toujours vraisemblable.” Reality is not always probable, or likely. But if you’re writing a story, you have to make it as plausible as you can, because if not, the reader’s imagination will reject it.
Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) Argentine writer
Discussion published in the Columbia University Forum (1971)
(Source)
Often quoted without the first sentence, referring to Boileau, making it seem as if it is purely Borges' statement.
Incomprehensible jargon is the hallmark of a profession.
Kingman Brewster, Jr. (1919-1988) American educator, diplomat
Speech, British Institute of Management (13 Dec 1977)
I don’t like to talk much with people who always agree with me. It is amusing to coquette with an echo for a little while, but one soon tires of it.
Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) Scottish essayist and historian
(Attributed)
Attributed in Tryon Edwards, A Dictionary of Thoughts (1891).
I don’t like to write anything down on paper that I would not say to myself.
Joseph Joubert (1754-1824) French moralist, philosopher, essayist, poet
Pensées [Thoughts], 1806 entry [tr. Auster (1983)]
(Source)
I could not find an analog in other translations of the Pensées.
As to Jesus of Nazareth, my Opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think the System of Morals and his Religion as he left them to us, the best the World ever saw, or is likely to see; but I apprehend it has received various corrupting Changes, and I have with most of the present Dissenters in England, some Doubts as to his Divinity: tho’ it is a Question I do not dogmatise upon, having never studied it, and think it needless to busy myself with it now, when I expect soon an Opportunity of knowing the Truth with less Trouble. I see no harm however in its being believed, if that Belief has the good Consequence as probably it has, of making his Doctrines more respected and better observed, especially as I do not perceive that the Supreme takes it amiss, by distinguishing the Believers, in his Government of the World, with any particular Marks of his Displeasure.
Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) American statesman, scientist, philosopher, aphorist
Letter to Ezra Stiles (9 Mar 1790)
(Source)
Most collectors of verses and sayings proceed as though they were eating cherries and oysters, choosing the best first, and ending by eating them all.
[La plupart des faiseurs de recueils de vers ou de bons mots ressemblent à ceux qui mangent des cerises ou des huitres, choisissant d’abord les meilleurs, et finissant par tout manger.]
Nicolas Chamfort (1741-1794) French writer, epigrammist (b. Nicolas-Sébastien Roch)
Products of Perfected Civilization [Produits de la Civilisation Perfectionée], Part 1 “Maxims and Thoughts [Maximes et Pensées],” ch. 1, ¶ 2 (1795) [tr. Merwin (1969)]
(Source)
(Source (French)). Alternate translations:Most of those who make collections of verse or epigram are like men eating cherries or oysters: they choose out the best at first, and end by eating all.
[tr. Mathers (1926)]The majority of compilers of verse and sayings are like eaters of cherries and oysters, who pick out the best first and end by eating all.
[tr. Pearson (1973)]Most authors of collections of poetry or epigrams proceed as though they were eating cherries or oysters. They start out by selecting the best, but wind up swallowing everything.
[tr. Dusinberre (1992)]Most compilers of anthologies of poetry or of epigrams are like people eating cherries or oysters: they start by picking out the best and easting the lot.
[tr. Parmée (2003), ¶ 3]Most compilers of verse or of bon mots resemble people who eat cherries or oysters, at first choosing the best ones, and finishing by eating everything.
[tr. Sinicalchi]
Let’s all join th’ good roads movement an’ mend our own ways.
Frank McKinney "Kin" Hubbard (1868-1930) American caricaturist and humorist
Abe Martin’s Primer (1914)
The advantage of the rich over the poor could not and cannot be maintained by anything but violence.
Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) Russian novelist and moral philosopher
The Kingdom of God Is Within You, 12.1 (1893) [tr. Maude (1936)]
The Christian priesthood, finding the doctrines of Christ levelled to every understanding, and too plain to need explanation, saw, in the mysticisms of Plato, materials with which they might build up an artificial system which might, from it’s indistinctness, admit everlasting controversy, give employment for their order, and introduce it to profit, power & pre-eminence. The doctrines which flowed from the lips of Jesus himself are within the comprehension of a child; but thousands of volumes have not yet explained the Platonisms engrafted on them: and for this obvious reason that nonsense can never be explained.
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) American political philosopher, polymath, statesman, US President (1801-09)
Letter to John Adams (5 Jul 1814)
(Source)
The thought of death deceives us; for it causes us to neglect to live.
Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues (1715-1747) French moralist, essayist, soldier
Reflections and Maxims [Réflexions et maximes] (1746) [tr. Lee (1903)]
Every form of addiction is bad, no matter whether the narcotic be alcohol or morphine or idealism.
Carl Jung (1875-1961) Swiss psychologist
Memories, Dreams, Reflections [Erinnerungen, Träume, Gedanken], ch. 12 [ed. A. Jaffe (1962)]
People smell all kinds of ways before they have burned, but only one way afterwards.
Neal Stephenson (b. 1959) American novelist
Cryptonomicon, ch. 89 “Slaves” (1999)
Rulers always try to draw as many citizens as possible into as much participation as possible in the crimes they commit.
Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) Russian novelist and moral philosopher
The Kingdom of God Is Within You, 12.3 (1893) [tr. Maude (1936)]
But, most of all, the Great Society is not a safe harbor, a resting place, a final objective, a finished work. It is a challenge constantly renewed, beckoning us toward a destiny where the meaning of our lives matches the marvelous products of our labor.
Lyndon B. Johnson (1908-1973) American politician, educator, US President (1963-69)
Speech (1964-05-22), Graduation, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
(Source)
If you want to go fast, go alone.
If you want to go far, go together.(Other Authors and Sources)
African proverb
I give this advice to you, do not be miserable before the time, since those troubles which you have feared as if already overhanging, perhaps will never come, certainly have not yet come.
Seneca the Younger (c. 4 BC-AD 65) Roman statesman, philosopher, playwright [Lucius Annaeus Seneca]
Moral Letters to Lucilius [Epistulae morales ad Lucilium], letter 13, sec. 4
All political revolutions, not affected by foreign conquest, originate in moral revolutions. The subversion of established institutions is merely one consequence of the previous subversion of established order.
John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) English philosopher and economist
“A Few Observations on the French Revolution” (1833)
Heaven and hell seem out of proportion to me: the actions of men do not deserve so much.
[El infierno y el paraíso me parecen desproporcionados. Los actos de los hombres no merecen tanto.]
Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) Argentine writer
(Attributed)
Quoted in Pilar Bravo and Mario Paoletti, ed., Borges Verbal (1999).
My principle is to do whatever is right, and leave consequences to him who has the disposal of them.
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) American political philosopher, polymath, statesman, US President (1801-09)
Letter to George Logan (3 Oct 1813)
(Source)
A man always is to be himself the judge of how much of his mind he will show to other men; even to those he would have work along with him. There are impertinent inquiries made: your rule is to leave the inquirer uninformed on that matter; not, if you can help it, misinformed; but precisely as dark as he was!
Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) Scottish essayist and historian
“The Hero as King,” On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History (1841)
When you write easily, you always think you have more talent than you really do.
[Quand on écrit avec facilité, on croit toujours avoir plus de talent qu’on n’en a.]
Joseph Joubert (1754-1824) French moralist, philosopher, essayist, poet
Pensées [Thoughts], ch. 23 “Des Qualités de l’Écrivain [Of the Qualities of Writers]” ¶ 45 (1804 entry) (1850 ed.) [tr. Auster (1983)]
(Source)
(Source (French)). Alternate translations:He who writes with ease always thinks that he has more talent than he really has.
[tr. Calvert (1866), ch. 15]When anyone writes with ease, he always believes himself to have more talent than he has.
[tr. Lyttelton (1899), ch. 22, ¶ 13]The fluent author always seems to have more talent than he has.
[tr. Collins (1928), ch. 22]
Here is my Creed: I believe in one God, Creator of the Universe. That He governs it by his Providence. That he ought to be worshipped. That the most acceptable Service we can render to him, is doing Good to his other Children. That the Soul of Man is immortal, and will be treated with Justice in another Life respecting its Conduct in this. These I take to be the fundamental Principles of all sound Religion, and I regard them as you do, in whatever Sect I meet with them.
Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) American statesman, scientist, philosopher, aphorist
Letter to Ezra Stiles (9 Mar 1790)
(Source)
Yes, from the mountain of eternity we shall look down, and behold the whole plain spread before us. Down here we get lost and confused in the devious valleys that run off from the roots of the hills everywhere, and we cannot make out where the streams are going, and what there is behind that low shoulder of the hill yonder. But when we get to the summit peak and look down, it will all shape itself into one consistent whole, and we shall see it all at once.
Thomas Boston (1676-1732) Scottish clergyman
(Attributed)
(Source)
In Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895). Note that all online transcriptions of this quotation show "rdots" rather than "roots" (see image in the Source).
It is easier to make a saint out of a libertine than out of a prig.
George Santayana (1863-1952) Spanish-American poet and philosopher [Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruíz de Santayana y Borrás]
The Life of Reason or The Phases of Human Progress, Vol. 3 “Reason in Religion,” ch. 11 “Spirituality and Its Corruptions” (1905-06)
(Source)
If you would keep your Secret from an enemy, tell it not to a friend.
Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) American statesman, scientist, philosopher, aphorist
Poor Richard’s Almanack (Aug 1741)
If a small thing has the power to make you angry, does that not indicate something about your size?
Sydney J. Harris (1917-1986) Anglo-American columnist, journalist, author
(Attributed)
The highest panegyric, therefore, that private virtue can receive, is the praise of servants.
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) English writer, lexicographer, critic
The Rambler, #68 (10 Nov 1750)
(Source)
Nothing is lasting but change; nothing perpetual but death.
Ludwig Börne (1786-1837) German-Jewish political writer and satirist. [b. Loeb Baruch]
(Attributed)
Quoted by Heinrich Heine in The Journey to the Harz (1824). Sometimes attributed to Börne's Denkrede auf Jean Paul (1826)
The successful change agent makes sure that the old guard isn’t frightened at the prospect of change.
Warren Bennis (1925-2014) American scholar, business consultant, author
Why Leaders Can’t Lead, ch. 22 (1989)
I’ve been poor and I’ve been rich. And believe me, rich is best.
Sophie Tucker (1887-1966) American singer, comedian, actress, radio personality [b. Sonya Kalish]
(Attributed)
I believe, with the Quaker preacher, that he who steadily observes those moral precepts in which all religions concur, will never be questioned, at the gates of heaven, as to the dogmas in which they all differ. That on entering there, all these are left behind us, and the Aristideses & Cato’s, the Penns & Tillotsons, Presbyterians and Papists, will find themselves united in all principles which are in concert with the reason of the supreme mind.
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) American political philosopher, polymath, statesman, US President (1801-09)
Letter to William Canby (18 Sep 1813)
(Source)
The moderation of great men only sets a limit to their vices. The moderation of weak men is mediocrity.
[La modération des grands hommes ne borne que leurs vices. La modération des faibles est médiocrité.]
Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues (1715-1747) French moralist, essayist, soldier
Reflections and Maxims [Réflexions et maximes] (1746) [tr. Lee (1903)]
Mistakes are, after all, the foundations of truth, and if a man does not know what a thing is, it is at least an increase in knowledge if he knows what it is not.
Carl Jung (1875-1961) Swiss psychologist
Aion (1951)
Every nation, like every individual, walks in a vain show — else it could not live with itself — but I never got over the wonder of a people who, having extirpated the aboriginals of their continent more completely than any modern race had ever done, honestly believed that they were a godly little New England community, setting examples to brutal mankind.
Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) English writer
Something of Myself, ch. 15 (1937)
Rulers who have adopted the religion favored by the most numerous, or at any rate the most vigorous, section of their subjects have generally prospered, whether actuated by religious sincerity or by political cynicism.
Arnold Toynbee (1889-1975) English historian
A Study of History (1934-1961) [abr. D. C. Somervell, 1.562 (1965)]
I pray that when historians write the story of this time in our lives, that it may be recorded that this President tried, tried to lead his Nation, tried to lead his Nation with justice and with compassion and with courage — and there was faith and there was firmness in his heart.
May it further be written that the people of the United States cast out their doubts, took great pride in their achievements, and bravely made of this land and this world a brighter, happier place for all mankind.
This is our choice. This is our decision. Let us all be greatly determined that this society shall survive and this society shall succeed. And what it should be will be for all time to come.Lyndon B. Johnson (1908-1973) American politician, educator, US President (1963-69)
Speech (1964-09-28), Convocation, Brown University
(Source)
Chester nods all the way through this, but does not rudely interrupt Randy as a younger nerd would. Your younger nerd takes offense quickly when someone near him begins to utter declarative sentences, because he reads into it an assertion that he, the nerd, does not already know the information being imparted. But your older nerd has more self confidence, and besides, understands that frequently people need to think out loud. And highly advanced nerds will furthermore understand that uttering declarative sentences whose contents are already known to all present is part of the social process of making conversation and therefore should not be construed as aggression under any circumstances.
Neal Stephenson (b. 1959) American novelist
Cryptonomicon, ch. 72 “Seattle” (1999)
As a man is, so he sees.
William Blake (1757-1827) English poet, mystic, artist
Letter to Rev. D. Trusler (23 Aug 1799)
Therefore, two bad habits must be forbidden, both the fear of the future and the memory of by-gone trouble; the latter no longer belongs to me, the former, not yet.
Seneca the Younger (c. 4 BC-AD 65) Roman statesman, philosopher, playwright [Lucius Annaeus Seneca]
Moral Letters to Lucilius [Epistulae morales ad Lucilium], letter 78, sec. 14
Every revolution has its counterrevolution — that is a sign the revolution is for real.
C. Wright Mills (1916-1962) American sociologist, academic, author [Charles Wright Mills]
Listen, Yankee: The Revolution in Cuba, ch. 3 (introduction) (1960)
If the underdog were always right, one might quite easily try to defend him. The trouble is that very often he is but obscurely right, sometimes only partially right, and often quite wrong; but perhaps he is never so altogether wrong and pig-headed and utterly reprehensible as he is represented to be by those who add the possession of prejudices to the other almost insuperable difficulties of understanding him.
Jane Addams (1860-1935) American reformer, suffragist, philosopher, author
Twenty Years at Hull-House, ch. 17 (1910)
Being conservative is a way of being skeptic.
[Ser conservador es una forma de ser escéptico.]
Most Americans don’t live their lives solely as Democrats or Republicans or conservatives or liberals. Most Americans live their lives that are just a little bit late for something they have to do. Often it’s something they do not want to do, but they do it. Impossible things get done every day that are only made possible by the little, reasonable compromises.
The creed that accepts, as the foundation of morals, Utility, or the Greatest-happiness Principle, holds that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness.
John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) English philosopher and economist
Utilitarianism, ch. 2 (1863)
“If everyone minded their own business,” the Duchess said, in a hoarse growl, “the world would go round a deal faster than it does.”
Lewis Carroll (1832-1898) English writer and mathematician [pseud. of Rev. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson]
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, ch. 6 (1865)
Misery is almost always the result of thinking.
Joseph Joubert (1754-1824) French moralist, philosopher, essayist, poet
Pensées [Thoughts], ch. 5 “Des Passions et des Affections de l’Âme [On the Soul],” (1850 ed.) [tr. Collins (1928)]
(Source)
I could not find an analog in other translations of the Pensées, or in the published French.
The charges we bring against others often come home to ourselves; we inveigh against faults which are as much ours as theirs; and so our eloquence ends by telling against ourselves.
St. Jerome (c. 347-419) Roman Christian priest, theologian, historian, translator [Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymus]
Letter 125
As strong, as deep, as wide as is the sea,
Though by the wind made restless as the wind,
By billows fretted and by rocks confined,
So strong, so deep, so wide my love for thee.Francis William Bourdillon (1852-1921) English poet
“Sonnet II” (1874)
The virtues of society are the vices of the saint. The terror of reform is the discovery that we must cast away our virtues, or what we have always esteemed such, into the same pit that has consumed our grosser vices.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
“Circles,” Essays: First Series (1841)
(Source)
Secrecy necessarily breeds suspicion.
Louis Brandeis (1856-1941) American lawyer, activist, Supreme Court Justice (1916-39)
Letter to Cyrus Adler (10 Aug 1915)
Take this remark from Richard poor and lame,
Whate’er’s begun in anger ends in shame.Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) American statesman, scientist, philosopher, aphorist
Poor Richard (1734 ed.)
(Source)
If you are idle, be not solitary; if you are solitary, be not idle.
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) English writer, lexicographer, critic
Letter to James Boswell (27 Oct 1779)
In James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791)
The productivity of work is not the responsibility of the worker but of the manager.
Peter F. Drucker (1909-2005) Austrian-American business consultant
Managing in Turbulent Times, ch. 1 “Managing the Fundamentals” (1980)
(Source)
Eager souls, mystics and revolutionaries, may propose to refashion the world in accordance with their dreams; but evil remains, and so long as it lurks in the secret places of the heart, Utopia is only the shadow of a dream.
Vernon Parrington (1871-1929) American historian
Main Currents in American Thought, Vol. 2 “The Romantic Revolution, 1800–1860,” Part 4, ch. 2 “Nathaniel Hawthorne” (1927)
(Source)
Rich in rubles, rich in sorrows; poor in rubles, richer in sorrows.
(Other Authors and Sources)
Russian proverb
If nature has made any one thing less susceptible, than all others, of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an Idea; which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the reciever cannot dispossess himself of it. it’s peculiar character too is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who recieves an idea from me, recieves instruction himself, without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, recieves light without darkening me.
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) American political philosopher, polymath, statesman, US President (1801-09)
Letter to Isaac McPherson (13 Aug 1813)
(Source)
It is proof of a narrow mind when things worthy of esteem are distinguished from things worthy of love. Great minds naturally love whatever is worthy of their esteem.
Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues (1715-1747) French moralist, essayist, soldier
Reflections and Maxims [Réflexions et maximes] (1746) [tr. Lee (1903)]
One must be a god to be able to tell successes from failures without making a mistake.
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860-1904) Russian playwright and writer
Letter (Nov 1888)
(Source)
Alt. trans.: "You have to be a god to distinguish the successes from the failures without making a mistake."
My country, ’tis of thee,
Sweet land of liberty,
Of thee I sing;
Land where my fathers died,
Land of the pilgrims’ pride,
From ev’ry mountainside
Let freedom ring!Samuel Francis Smith (1808-1895) American Baptist minister, journalist, author
“My Country ‘Tis of Thee” (1831)
(Source)
We need supermen to rule us — the job is so vast and the need for wise judgment is so urgent. But, alas, there are no supermen. Those who rule us are like you and me. It is a frightening situation.
Brooks Atkinson (1894-1984) American drama critic and journalist
Once Around the Sun, “January 27” (1951)
(Source)
This Administration has declared unconditional war on poverty and I have come here this morning to ask all of you to enlist as volunteers. Members of all parties are welcome to our tent. Members of all races ought to be there. Members of all religions should come and help us now to strike the hammer of truth against the anvil of public opinion again and again until the ears of this Nation are open, until the hearts of this Nation are touched, and until the conscience of America is awakened.
Lyndon B. Johnson (1908-1973) American politician, educator, US President (1963-69)
Speech (1964-05-09), Convention of Amalgamated Clothing Workers, New York
(Source)
The “sir, yes sir” business, which would probably sound like horseshit to any civilian in his right mind, makes sense to Shaftoe and to the officers in a deep and important way. … Having now experienced all the phases of military existence except for the terminal ones (violent death, court-martial, retirement), he has come to understand the culture for what it is: a system of etiquette within which it becomes possible for groups of men to live together for years, travel to the ends of the earth, and do all kinds of incredibly weird shit without killing each other or completely losing their minds in the process.
Neal Stephenson (b. 1959) American novelist
Cryptonomicon, ch. 11 “Nightmare” (1999)
A person who publishes a book appears willfully in public with his pants down.
Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950) American poet
(Attributed)
He grieves more than necessary who grieves before it is necessary.
Seneca the Younger (c. 4 BC-AD 65) Roman statesman, philosopher, playwright [Lucius Annaeus Seneca]
Moral Letters to Lucilius [Epistulae morales ad Lucilium], letter 98, sec. 8
The responsibility for insurrections rests in the last analysis upon the unimaginative greed and endless stupidity of the dominant classes. […] Confronted with the deep insurgency of labor what do capitalists and their spokesmen do? They resist every demand, submit only after a struggle, and prepare a condition of war to the death.
Walter Lippmann (1889-1974) American journalist and author
A Preface to Politics, ch. 9 (1914)
Private beneficence is totally inadequate to deal with the vast numbers of the city’s disinherited.
Jane Addams (1860-1935) American reformer, suffragist, philosopher, author
Twenty Years at Hull-House, ch. 14 (1910)
The flattery of posterity is not worth much more than contemporary flattery, which is worth nothing.
Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) Argentine writer
“Dead Men’s Dialogue,” Dreamtigers (1960)
Mourn not the dead that in the cool earth lie —
Dust unto dust —
The calm, sweet earth that mothers all who die
As all men must;Mourn not your captive comrades who must dwell —
Too strong to strive —
Within each steel-bound coffin of a cell,
Buried alive;But rather mourn the apathetic throng —
The cowed and the meek —
Who see the world’s great anguish and its wrong
And dare not speak!Ralph Chaplin (1887-1961) American writer, artist and labor activist
“Mourn Not the Dead” in Bars and Shadows: The Prison Poems of Ralph Chaplin (1922)
Work for yourself by working for the good of all.
Elbert Hubbard (1856-1915) American writer, businessman, philosopher
An American Bible [ed. Alice Hubbard] (1918)
Anyone can carry his burden, however hard, until nightfall. Anyone can do his work, however hard, for one day. Anyone can live sweetly, patiently, lovingly, purely, till the sun goes down. And this is all that life really means.
Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) Scottish essayist, novelist, poet
(Attributed)
Attributed by Senator Sam Ervin in his last newsletter, Senator Sam Ervin Says (2 Jan 1975). Unverified.
When a man tells you that he got rich through hard work, ask him: “Whose?”
Don Marquis (1878-1937) American journalist and humorist
(Attributed)
Every man is not ambitious, or courteous, or passionate; but every man has pride enough in his composition to feel and resent the least slight and contempt. Remember, therefore, most carefully to conceal your contempt, however just, wherever you would not make an implacable enemy. Men are much more unwilling to have their weaknesses and their imperfections known, than their crimes; and if you hint to a man that you think him silly, ignorant, or even ill-bred, or awkward, he will hate you more and longer, than if you tell him plainly, that you think him a rogue.
Lord Chesterfield (1694-1773) English statesman, wit [Philip Dormer Stanhope]
Letter to his son, #161 (5 Sep 1748)
(Source)
They are not all Saints who use Holy Water.
Thomas Fuller (1654-1734) English physician, preacher, aphorist, writer
Gnomologia: Adages and Proverbs, #4956 (1732)
(Source)
How can we expect somebody else to keep our secret if we cannot keep it ourselves?
François VI, duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680) French epigrammatist, memoirist, noble
Réflexions ou sentences et maximes morales [Maxims], #584 (1665-1678) [tr. Tancock (1959)]
There was never an angry man that thought his anger unjust.
François de Sales (1567-1622) French bishop, saint, writer [a.k.a. Francis de Sales, b. François de Boisy]
Introduction to the Devout Life (1609)
That observation which is called knowledge of the world will be found much more frequently to make men cunning than good.
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) English writer, lexicographer, critic
The Rambler, #4 (31 Mar 1750)
(Source)
The country’s 24 hour political pundit perpetual panic conflictinator did not cause our problems but its existence makes solving them that much harder. The press can hold its magnifying up to our problems, bringing them into focus, illuminating issues heretofore unseen — or they can use that magnifying glass to light ants on fire, and then perhaps host a week of shows on the sudden, unexpected, dangerous flaming ant epidemic. If we amplify everything we hear nothing.