If this life be not a real fight, in which something is eternally gained for the universe by success, it is no better than a game of private theatricals from which one may withdraw at will. But it feels like a real fight.
William James (1842-1910) American psychologist and philosopher
“Is Life Worth Living?” The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy (1897)
Tomorrow, every Fault is to be amended;
but that Tomorrow never comes.Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) American statesman, scientist, philosopher, aphorist
Poor Richard’s Almanack (Jul 1756)
How shall we avert the dire calamities with which we are threatened? The answer comes from the graves of our fathers: By the frequent election of new men. Other help or hope for the salvation of free government there is none under heaven. If history does not teach this, we have read it all wrong.
Jeremiah S. Black (1810-1883) American statesman, jurist, lawyer
“The Third Term: Reasons Against It,” The North American Review (Mar 1880)
Popularity is a Crime from the Moment it is sought; it is only a Virtue where Men have it whether they will or no.
George Savile, Marquis of Halifax (1633-1695) English politician and essayist
“Of Ambition,” Political, Moral, and Miscellaneous Reflections (1750)
(Source)
Writers take words seriously — perhaps the last professional class that does — and they struggle to steer their own through the crosswinds of meddling editors and careless typesetters and obtuse and malevolent reviewers into the lap of the ideal reader.
John Updike (1932-2009) American writer
“Writers on Themselves,” New York Times (17 Aug 1986)
If you are rich and are worth your salt, you will teach your sons that though they may have leisure, it is not to be spent in idleness; for wisely used leisure merely means that those who possess it, being free from the necessity of working for their livelihood, are all the more bound to carry on some kind of non-remunerative work in science, in letters, in art, in exploration, in historical research-work of the type we most need in this country, the successful carrying out of which reflects most honor upon the nation.
Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) American politician, statesman, conservationist, writer, US President (1901-1909)
“The Strenuous Life,” speech, Hamilton Club, Chicago (10 Apr 1899)
(Source)
A classic is a book that doesn’t have to be written again.
Carl Van Doren (1885-1950) American writer
(Attributed)
(Source)
Quoted by Clifton Fadiman, in James Thurber, "Ave Atque Vale," Bermudian (Nov 1950)
He who loves is not ashamed before men of what he does for God, neither does he hide it through shame though the whole world should condemn it.
St. John of the Cross (1542-1591) Spanish theologian, mystic [b. Juan de Yepes]
Canticle of The Soul and The Bridegroom, Note to Stanza 29, part 4
Power corresponds to the human ability not just to act but to act in concert. Power is never the property of an individual; it belongs to a group and remains in existence only so long as the group keeps together.
Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) German-American philosopher, political theorist
On Violence, ch. 2 (1970)
If thare iz enny human being that i thoroughly loath, it iz the one who haz nothing tew boast ov but hiz money — a mere pimp tew hiz welth.
[If there is any human being that I thoroughly loathe, it is the one who has nothing to boast of but his money — a mere pimp to his wealth.]
Josh Billings (1818-1885) American humorist, aphorist [pseud. of Henry Wheeler Shaw]
Josh Billings: His Works, Complete (1873)
That public men publish falsehoods
Is nothing new. That America must accept
Like the historical republics corruption and empire
Has been known for years.
Be angry at the sun for setting
If these things anger you.Robinson Jeffers (1887-1962) American poet
“Be Angry at the Sun” (1941)
From this day forward, I no longer shall tinker with the machinery of death. For more than 20 years, I have endeavored — indeed, I have struggled — along with a majority of this Court, to develop procedural and substantive rules that would lend more than the mere appearance of fairness to the death penalty endeavor. Rather than continue to coddle the Court’s delusion that the desired level of fairness has been achieved and the need for regulation eviscerated, I feel morally and intellectually obligated simply to concede that the death penalty experiment has failed.
Harry Blackmun (1908-1999) US Supreme Court Associate Justice (1970-1994) [Harold Andrew Blackmun]
Callins v. James, 510 U.S. 1141 (1994) [dissent from denial of certiori]
The most frightful idea that has ever corroded human nature — the idea of eternal punishment.
John Morley (1838-1923) English statesman, journalist, writer [John, Viscount Morley]
Vauvenargues (1905)
The great issues of the day are not decided through speeches and majority resolutions — that was the great error of 1848 and 1849 — but through blood and iron.
[Nicht durch Reden und Majoritätsbeschlüsse werden die großen Fragen der Zeit entschieden — das ist der große Fehler von 1848 und 1849 gewesen — sondern durch Eisen und Blut.]
Otto von Bismarck (1815-1898) Prussian statesman
Speech, Budget Commission of the Prussian Diet (30 Sep 1862)Alternate translations :
- "It is not by speeches and majority vote that the great questions of our time will be decided — as that was error of 1848 and 1849 — but rather by iron and blood."
- "The great questions of the time are not decided by speeches and majority decisions — that was the error of 1848 and 1849 — but by iron and blood."
- "The great issues of the day are not decided through speeches and majority resolutions — that was the great error of 1848 and 1849 — but through blood and iron."
- "The great issues of the day are not decided through speeches and majority resolutions — that was the great error of 1848 and 1849 — but through blood and iron."
- "The great questions of the day will not be decided by speeches and the resolutions of majorities — that was the great mistake from 1848 to 1849 — but by blood and iron."
- "The great questions of the day will not be settled by means of speeches and majority decisions ... but by iron and blood."
I react to what is necessary. I would like to eschew any formula. There are some things where the government is absolutely inevitable, which we cannot get along without comprehensive state action. But there are many things — producing consumer goods, producing a wide range of entertainment, producing a wide level of cultural activity — where the market system, which independent activity is also important, so I react pragmatically. Where the market works, I’m for that. Where the government is necessary, I’m for that. I’m deeply suspicious of somebody who says, “I’m in favor of privatization,” or, “I’m deeply in favor of public ownership.” I’m in favor of whatever works in the particular case.
John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-2006) Canadian-American economist, diplomat, author
Interview with Brian Lamb, Booknotes, C-SPAN (13 Nov 1994)
(Source)
A nation that continues year after year to spend more on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom.
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman, civil rights leader, social activist, preacher
“Beyond Vietnam,” speech, Clergy and Laity Concerned, Riverside Church, New York City (4 Apr 1967)
(Source)
Reprinted (or the phrase repeated) in Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? (1967) and The Trumpet of Conscience (1968). See also this.
Patriotism is a lively sense of collective responsibility. Nationalism is a silly cock crowing on its own dunghill.
Richard Aldington (1892-1962) English writer and poet [b. Edward Godfree Aldington]
The Colonel’s Daughter, 1.6 (1931)
The test of intelligence [is] not how much we know how to do, but how we behave when we don’t know what to do. Similarly, any situation, any activity, that puts before us real problems, that we have to solve for ourselves, problems for which there are no answers in any book, sharpens our intelligence.
John Holt (1923-1985) American author and educator
How Children Learn, “Art, Math, and Other Things” (1967)
What higher obligation does a President have than to explain his intentions to the people and persuade them that the direction he wishes to go is right? Politics in a democracy is, at the end, an educational process.
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. (1917-2007) American historian, author, social critic
“A Clinton Card, So Far,” New York Times (11 Apr 1993)
Well aware that the opinions and belief of men depend not on their own will, but follow involuntarily the evidence proposed to their minds; that Almighty God hath created the mind free, and manifested his supreme will that free it shall remain by making it altogether insusceptible of restraint; that all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments, or burthens, or by civil incapacitations, tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and are a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, who being lord both of body and mind, yet chose not to propagate it by coercions on either, as was in his Almighty power to do, but to extend it by its influence on reason alone; that the impious presumption of legislators and rulers, civil as well as ecclesiastical, who, being themselves but fallible and uninspired men, have assumed dominion over the faith of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible, and as such endeavoring to impose them on others, hath established and maintained false religions over the greatest part of the world and through all time ….
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) American political philosopher, polymath, statesman, US President (1801-09)
“Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom,” Preamble (1776-06-18; enacted 1786-01-16)
(Source)
During final debate around the bill's passage:See Jefferson's discussion about a failed amendment to the preamble here.
- the first clause was struck, changing the beginning to "Whereas Almighty God ...."
- the phrase "and manifested his supreme will that free it shall remain by making it altogether insusceptible of restraint" was struck.
- the phrase "but to extend it by its influence on reason alone" was struck.
Love of money is the mother-city (metropolis) of all evils.
Bion of Borysthenes (c. 325-c. 250 BC) Greek philosopher, cynic, wit
In Stobaeus, Anthology, Book 3, 10.37 (c. 5th C)
See Bible, 1 Timothy 6:10
Beating up “intellectuals” is the last refuge of demagogues.
Anthony Lewis (1927-2013) American journalist, political critic, intellectual, writer
“The Czar’s New Clothes,” New York Times (14 Dec 1989)
After Johnson.
Analysts and policy makers alike tend to interpret information to support their own viewpoints.
Dean Rusk (1909-1994) American politician and diplomat
As I Saw It, ch. 35 (1990)
The poorest people in our country today, on the whole, are working every day. But they are earning wages so low that they cannot begin to function in the mainstream of the economic life of our nation. … We have thousands and thousands of people working on full-time jobs, with part-time incomes.
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman, civil rights leader, social activist, preacher
“Why We Must Go to Washington” (15 Jan 1968)
Beliefs are what divide people. Doubt unites them.
Peter Ustinov (1921-2004) English actor, author, director
(Attributed)
The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.
William James (1842-1910) American psychologist and philosopher
Principles of Psychology, ch. 22 (1890)
(Source)
To a wise man, the whole earth is open; for the native land of a good soul is the whole earth.
[Ἀνδρὶ σοφῶι πᾶσα γῆ βατή· ψυχῆς γὰρ ἀγαθῆς πατρὶς ὁ ξύμπας κόσμος.]
Democritus (c. 460 BC - c. 370 BC) Greek philosopher
Frag. 247 (Diels) [tr. Freeman (1948)]
(Source)
Diels citation: "247. (168 N.)"; collected in Joannes Stobaeus (Stobaios) Anthologium III, 40, 7. Alternate translations:
- "To a wise man the whole earth is accessible; for the home country of a good soul is the whole world." [tr. Barnes (1987)]
- "The whole earth is open to the wise person, for the entire universe is the country of a good soul." [@sentantiq (2019)]
- "The whole world is home to a wise man with an upright spirit." [Source]
- "The wise man belongs to all countries, for the home of a great soul is the whole world."
As was said at the outset of this chapter, the vice in being too sure for our purposes is the deposition to impose your beliefs and your forms of religious conduct on others. That attitude is the enemy of religious freedom. It is the remembered and hated form of oppression against which the First Amendment was drawn.
Marvin E. Frankel (1920-2002) American lawyer, judge, legal scholar
Faith and Freedom: Religious Liberty in America (1994)
Popularity? It is glory’s small change.
Victor Hugo (1802-1885) French writer
Ruy Blas, 3.5 (1838)
Customs and convictions change; respectable people are the last to know, or to admit, the change, and the ones most offended by fresh reflections of the facts in the mirror of art.
John Updike (1932-2009) American writer
The New Yorker (30 Jul 1990)
In the last analysis a healthy state can exist only when the men and women who make it up lead clean, vigorous, healthy lives; when the children are so trained that they shall endeavor, not to shirk difficulties, but to overcome them; not to seek ease, but to know how to wrest triumph from toil and risk.
Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) American politician, statesman, conservationist, writer, US President (1901-1909)
“The Strenuous Life,” speech, Hamilton Club, Chicago (10 Apr 1899)
(Source)
All things bright and beautiful,
All creatures great and small,
All things wise and wonderful,
The Lord God made them all.Cecil Frances Alexander (1818-1895) Irish hymn-writer and poet [nee Humphreys]
“All Things Bright and Beautiful”, l. 1-4
To know when to retreat; and to dare to do it.
Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington (1769-1852) Anglo-Irish soldier and statesman
(Attributed)
When asked the best attribute of a great general. Quoted in Sir William Fraser, Words on Wellington (1889).
All persons possessing any portion of power ought to be strongly and awfully impressed with an idea that they act in trust.
Edmund Burke (1729-1797) Anglo-Irish statesman, orator, philosopher
Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)
If we would all ov us take kare ov our own souls, and let our nabors alone, thare would be less time lost, and more souls saved.
[If we would all of us take care of our own souls, and let our neighbors alone, there would be less time lost and more souls saved.]
Josh Billings (1818-1885) American humorist, aphorist [pseud. of Henry Wheeler Shaw]
Josh Billings: His Works, Complete (1873)
I sadly smiling remember that the flower fades to make fruit, the fruit rots to make earth.
Robinson Jeffers (1887-1962) American poet
“Shine, Perishing Republic” (1939)
An upright minister asks, what recommends a man; a corrupt minister, who.
Charles Caleb "C. C." Colton (1780-1832) English cleric, writer, aphorist
Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Vol. 1, § 9 (1820)
(Source)
Referring to government ministers and office-holders.
Without an unfettered press, without liberty of speech, all the outward forms and structures of free institutions are a sham, a pretense — the sheerest mockery. If the press is not free; if speech is not independent and untrammelled; if the mind is shackled or made impotent through fear, it makes no difference under what form of government you live: you are a subject and not a citizen. Republics are not in and of themselves better than other forms of government except in so far as they carry with them and guarantee to the citizen that liberty of thought and action for which they were established.
William Edgar Borah (1865-1940) American attorney and politician
Speech, US Senate (19 Apr 1917)
People are always willing to follow advice when it accords with their own wishes.
Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington (1789-1849) Irish novelist [Lady Blessington, b. Margaret Power]
The Confessions of an Elderly Lady (1838)
The privileged have regularly invited their own destruction with their greed.
John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-2006) Canadian-American economist, diplomat, author
The Age of Uncertainty, ch. 10 (1977)
It is not enough to say ‘We must not wage war.’ It is necessary to love peace and sacrifice for it.
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman, civil rights leader, social activist, preacher
Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? ch. 6 (1967)
(Source)
The Senator from Wisconsin cannot frighten me by exclaiming, “My country, right or wrong.” In one sense I say so too. My country; and my country is the great American Republic. My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right.
Carl Schurz (1829-1906) German-American revolutionary, soldier, statesman, reformer
Speech, US Senate (29 Feb 1872)
Schurz expanded on the theme in a speech delivered to the Anti-Imperialistic Conference, Chicago (17 Oct 1899): "I confidently trust that the American people will prove themselves [...] too wise not to detect the false pride or the dangerous ambitions or the selfish schemes which so often hide themselves under that deceptive cry of mock patriotism: 'Our country, right or wrong!' They will not fail to recognize that our dignity, our free institutions and the peace and welfare of this and coming generations of Americans will be secure only as we cling to the watchword of true patriotism: 'Our country -- when right to be kept right; when wrong to be put right.'"
The subject of power is not a simple matter of which majority sits on which minority at any given time. Looking around the world today and back through history, we see the horrors to which interreligious conflicts can lead — Muslims versus Hindus, Orthodox Eastern Serbs and Croatian Roman Catholics against Bosnian Muslims, Catholics versus Protestants in much of Europe after the sixteenth century, not to omit our own lesser, but horrible, history of persecutions in colonial America and the martyrdom of Joseph Smith as well as a number of his Mormon followers. We see, too, the fragility of the lessons these oceans of blood should have taught. The powerless call out for tolerance. Achieving power, they may soon forget. The descendants of Rome’s Christian martyrs remember too well the role of the torturers rather than the agonies of their own ancestors.
Melvin Frank (1913-1988) American screenwriter, director
Faith and Freedom: Religious Liberty in America (1994)
My movements to the chair of Government will be accompanied by feelings not unlike those of a culprit, who is going to the place of his execution: so unwilling am I, in the evening of a life nearly consumed in public cares, to quit a peaceful abode for an Ocean of difficulties, without that competency of political skill, abilities, and inclination, which is necessary to manage the helm.
George Washington (1732-1799) American military leader, Founding Father, US President (1789-1797)
Letter to Henry Knox (1 Apr 1789)
To the Acting Secretary of War, just prior to Washington's assuming the Presidency.
A fair & honest narrative of the bad is a voucher for the truth of the good.
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) American political philosopher, polymath, statesman, US President (1801-09)
Letter to Matthew Carey (19 Jun 1813)
(Source)
In the original, spelled "Mathew Carey"; in some sources, misidentified as "Matthew Carr."
Death is part of this life and not of the next.
Elizabeth Bibesco (1897-1945) Romanian-English writer
Haven (1951)
Males do not represent two discrete populations, heterosexual and homosexual. The world is not to be divided into sheeps and goats. Not all things are black nor all things white. It is a fundamental of taxonomy that nature rarely deals with discrete categories. Only the human mind invents categories and tries to force facts into separated pigeon-holes. The living world is a continuum in each and every one of its aspects. The sooner we learn this concerning human sexual behavior, the sooner we shall reach a sound understanding of the realities of sex.
Alfred Kinsey (1894-1956) American biologist, entomologist, zoologist, sex researcher
Sexual Behaviour in the Human Male (1948)
The public good is in nothing more essentially interested, than in the protection of every individual’s private rights.
William Blackstone (1723-1780) British jurist, judge, politician
Commentaries on the Laws of England, 9th ed., book 1, ch. 1, sec. 3, (1783)
Woe to you, when all men speak well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets.
The Bible (The New Testament) (AD 1st - 2nd C) Christian sacred scripture
Luke 6:26
I secretly understood: the primitive appeal of the hearth. Television is — its irresistible charm — a fire.
John Updike (1932-2009) American writer
Roger’s Version (1986)
On a child doing homework in front of the TV set.
There are many kinds of success in life worth having. It is exceedingly interesting and attractive to be a successful business man, or railroad man, or farmer, or a successful lawyer or doctor; or a writer, or a President, or a ranchman, or the colonel of a fighting regiment, or to kill grizzly bears and lions. But for unflagging interest and enjoyment, a household of children, if things go reasonably well, certainly makes all other forms of success and achievement lose their importance by comparison.
Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) American politician, statesman, conservationist, writer, US President (1901-1909)
An Autobiography, ch. 9 “Outdoors and Indoors” (1913)
People do not always argue because they misunderstand one another; they argue because they hold different goals.
William Hollingsworth "Holly" Whyte, Jr. (1917-1999) American sociologist, journalist, and civic planner
“Groupthink,” Fortune (Mar 1952)
A good many people find it comfortable for now, and sufficient, to extol, and propose to enforce, the values of what they call the Judeo-Christian tradition. Theirs is not a long view. Recall again the Islam is the fastest growing religion. It may or may not come to predominate. We can be nearly certain, however, that the current state of affairs will not endure. Today’s Protestant minority in the United States may thank its ancestors who fashioned decent places for minorities when they were the majority. Today’s power structure should be preserving that tradition. It is the essence of the Bill of Rights.
Marvin E. Frankel (1920-2002) American lawyer, judge, legal scholar
Faith and Freedom: Religious Liberty in America (1994)
There is but one just use of power, and it is to serve people.
George H. W. Bush (1924-2018) American politician, diplomat, US President (1989-1993)
Inaugural Address (20 Jan 1989)
If we giv up our minds tew little things we never shall be fit for big ones. I knew a man once who could ketch more flies with one swoop ov his hand than enny boddy else could, and he want good at ennything else.
[If we give up our minds to little things we never shall be fit for big ones. I knew a man once who could catch more flies with one swoop of his hand than anybody else could, and he wasn’t good at anything else.]
Josh Billings (1818-1885) American humorist, aphorist [pseud. of Henry Wheeler Shaw]
Josh Billings: His Works, Complete (1873)
O that our souls could scale a height like this,
A mighty mountain swept o’er by the bleak
Keen winds of heaven; and, standing on that peak
Above the blinding clouds of prejudice,
Would we could see all truly as it is;
The calm eternal truth would keep us meek.Robinson Jeffers (1887-1962) American poet
“A Hill-Top View” (1904)
When in doubt, win the trick.
Edmond Hoyle (1672-1769) Writer, esp. of card game rules and play.
“Twenty-four Rules for Learners,” Rule 12
The Free Exercise Clause at the very least was designed to guarantee freedom of conscience by prohibiting any degree of compulsion in matters of belief. It was offended by a burden on one’s religion. The Establishment Clause can be understood as designed in part to ensure that the advancement of religion comes only from the voluntary efforts of its proponents and not from support by the state. Religious groups are to prosper or perish on the intrinsic merit and attraction of their beliefs and practices.
Harry Blackmun (1908-1999) US Supreme Court Associate Justice (1970-1994) [Harold Andrew Blackmun]
Speech, National Archives, Washington, DC (23 Jun 1987)
In a virtuous community men of sense and principle will always be placed at the head of affairs. In a declining state of public morals men will be so blinded to their true interests as to put the incapable and unworthy at the helm. It is therefore vain to complain of the follies or crimes of a government. We must lay the hands on our own hearts and say, Here is the sin that makes the public sin.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
“The Individual and the State,” sermon, Second Church of Boston (1830-04-08)
A nuclear war does not defend a country and it does not defend a system. I’ve put it the same way many times; not even the most accomplished ideologue will be able to tell the difference between the ashes of capitalism and the ashes of communism.
John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-2006) Canadian-American economist, diplomat, author
“The Ashes of Capitalism and the Ashes of Communism,” interview (undated) with John M. Whiteley in Quest for Peace: an Introduction (1986)
With Selma and the voting rights bill one era of our struggle came to a close and a new era came into being. Now our struggle is for genuine equality, which means economic equality. For we know that it isn’t enough to integrate lunch counters. What does it profit a man to be able to eat at an integrated lunch counter if he doesn’t earn enough money to buy a hamburger and a coup of coffee?
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman, civil rights leader, social activist, preacher
Speech to Striking Sanitation Workers, Memphis, Tennessee (18 Mar 1968)King appears to have used the phrase on a number of occasions (I found references to a Birmingham sit-in and to 1965), but the above is the one case, a few weeks before his death, that I was able to pin down.
Other (earlier) versions one finds quoted and paraphrased:
- "It does no good to be able to eat at a lunch counter if you can't afford to buy a hamburger."
- "It doesn't do much good when you can sit at a lunch couner but you can't afford to buy a hamburger."
- "What good does it do to be able to eat at a lunch counter if you can't buy a hamburger?"
You might as well praise a man for not robbing a bank.
Robert Tyre "Bobby" Jones, Jr. (1902-1971) American amateur golfer, lawyer
(Attributed)
On penalizing himself a stroke in a national championship golf match. Jones had driven his ball into the woods where, out of sight of the others, he'd accidently moved it while setting up his next shot. He lost the match by that stroke.
The manifest object of the men who framed the institutions of this country, was to have a State without religion, and a Church without politics — that is to say, they meant that one should never be used as an engine for any purpose of the other, and that no man’s rights in one should be tested by his opinions about the other. As the Church takes no note of men’s political differences, so the State looks with equal eye on all the modes of religious faith. … Our fathers seem to have been perfectly sincere in their belief that the members of the Church would be more patriotic, and the citizens of the State more religious, by keeping their respective functions entirely separate.
Jeremiah S. Black (1810-1883) American statesman, jurist, lawyer
Speech (1856)
A leader is one who, out of madness or goodness, volunteers to take upon himself the woe of the people. There are few men so foolish, hence the erratic quality of leadership in the world.
John Updike (1932-2009) American writer
The Coup (1978)
A gossip is one who talks to you about others; a bore is one who talks to you about himself; and a brilliant conversationalist is one who talks to you about yourself.
Lisa Kirk (1925-1990) American actress and singer
Quoted in the Cholly Knickerbocker society column, New York Journal American (9 Mar 1954)
(Source)
In that Heart paper at that time, Cholly Knickerbocker was the pen name for Igor Cassini.
I am tolerant of all creeds. Yet if any sect suffered itself to be used for political objects I would meet it by political opposition. In my view church and state should be separate, not only in form, but fact. Religion and politics should not be mingled.
Millard Fillmore (1800-1874) US President (1850-1853)
Speech (1856)
There is nothing new about poverty. What is new is that we now have the techniques and the resources to get rid of poverty. The real question is whether we have the will.
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman, civil rights leader, social activist, preacher
Sermon, Passion Sunday, National Cathedral, Washington (31 Mar 1968)
There is no question but that if Jesus Christ, or a great prophet from another religion, were to come back today, he would find it virtually impossible to convince anyone of his credentials despite the fact that the vast evangelical machine on American television is predicated on His imminent return among us sinners.
Peter Ustinov (1921-2004) English actor, author, director
In The Independent (25 Feb 1989)
Genius, in truth, means little more than the faculty of perceiving in an unhabitual way.
William James (1842-1910) American psychologist and philosopher
Principles of Psychology, ch. 19 (1890)
Friendship arises out of mere Companionship when two or more of the companions discover that they have in common some insight or interest or even taste which the others do not share and which, till that moment, each believed to be his own unique treasure (or burden). The typical expression of opening Friendship would be something like, “What? You too? I thought I was the only one.”
C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) English writer, literary scholar, lay theologian [Clive Staples Lewis]
The Four Loves, ch. 3 “Friendship” (1960)
Power multiplies flatterers, and flatterers multiply our delusions by hiding us from ourselves.
Charles Caleb "C. C." Colton (1780-1832) English cleric, writer, aphorist
Lacon, 2.25 (1824)
It iz a darned sight eazier tew find six men who kan tell exactly how a thing ought tew be did than tew find one who will do it.
[It is a darned sight easier to find six men who can tell exactly how a thing ought to be done than to find one who will do it.]
Josh Billings (1818-1885) American humorist, aphorist [pseud. of Henry Wheeler Shaw]
Everybody’s Friend, Or; Josh Billing’s Encyclopedia and Proverbial Philosophy of Wit and Humor, “Puddin and Milk” (1874)
(Source)
What is character but the determination of incident? What is incident but the illustration of character?
Henry James (1843-1916) American writer
“The Art of Fiction,” Longman’s Magazine (4 Sep 1884)
(Source)
Great men are but life-sized. Most of them, indeed, are rather short.
Max Beerbohm (1872-1956) English parodist, caricaturist, wit, writer [Sir Henry Maximilian Beerbohm]
“A Point To Be Remembered by Very Eminent Men” (1918)
(Source)
The fact is that the work which improves the condition of mankind, the work which extends knowledge and increases power and enriches literature, and elevates thought, is not done to secure a living. It is not the work of slaves, driven to their task either by the lash of a master or by animal necessities. It is the work of men who perform it for their own sake, and not that they may get more to eat or drink, or wear, or display. In a state of society where want is abolished, work of this sort could be enormously increased.
Henry George (1839-1897) American economist
Progress and Poverty (1879)
He knows nothing, and he thinks he knows everything. That points clearly to a political career.
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) British playwright and critic
Major Barbara, ch. 3 (1905)
The myth that holds that the great corporation is the puppet of the market, the powerless servant of the consumer, is, in fact one of the devices by which its power is perpetuated.
John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-2006) Canadian-American economist, diplomat, author
The Age of Uncertainty, ch. 9 (1977)
The curse of poverty has no justification in our age. It is socially as cruel and blind as the practice of cannibalism at the dawn of civilization, when men ate each other because they had not yet learned to take food from the soil or to consume the abundant animal life around them. The time has come for us to civilize ourselves by the total, direct and immediate abolition of poverty.
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman, civil rights leader, social activist, preacher
Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community? ch. 5 “Where We Are Going?” (1967)
(Source)
Write drunk, edit sober.
Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) American writer
(Attributed)
The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain.
Dolly Parton (b. 1946) American singer
(Attributed)
The presidency is always too strong when we dislike the incumbent. Its limitations are bemoaned, however, when we believe the incumbent is striving valiantly to serve the public interest as we define it.
Thomas E. Cronin (b. 1940) American political scientist
The State of the Presidency, 2nd ed., ch. 1 (1980)
After the satisfaction of doing what is right, the greatest is that of having what we do approved by those whose opinions deserve esteem.
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) American political philosopher, polymath, statesman, US President (1801-09)
Letter to William Phillips (22 Jul 1779)
(Source)
To regret your sins of commission as much as your sins of omission is to prove yourself a most unworthy sinner.
Elizabeth Bibesco (1897-1945) Romanian-English writer
Haven (1951)
I believe the road to hell is paved with adverbs, and I will shout it from the rooftops. To put it another way, they’re like dandelions. If you have one on your lawn, it looks pretty and unique. If you fail to root it out, however, you find five the next day … fifty the day after that … and then, my brothers and sisters, your lawn is totally, completely, and profligately covered with dandelions. By then you see them for the weeds they really are, but by then it’s — GASP!! — too late.
Literally and truly, one cannot get on well in the world without money. To be in want of it, is to pass through life with little credit or pleasure; it is to live out of the world, or to be despised if you come into it …; it is to be scrutinized by strangers, and neglected by friends; it is to be a thrall to circumstances, an exile in one’s own country.
William Hazlitt (1778-1830) English writer
Table Talk, “On the Want of Money” (1822)
Politicians only get to the top because they have no qualifications to detain them at the bottom.
Peter Ustinov (1921-2004) English actor, author, director
(Attributed)Ustinov apparently used the phrase several times, with slight variations.
- As quoted above, in International Celebrity Register (1959) [ed. Cleveland Amory]
- Also appears in Ustinov's article, "Politics and the Arts", The Atlantic, Vol. 218 (1966)
- "People who reach the top of the tree are only those who haven't got the qualifications to detain them at the bottom." -- Interview with David Frost (1969)
- "I believe those who rise to the top of the political tree just didn’t have the qualifications to detain them at the bottom." (Source)
COSMO: I cannot kill my friend. [To his henchmen] Kill my friend.
Phil Alden Robinson (b. 1950) American screenwriter, director, producer
Sneakers (1992) [with Lawrence Lasker, Walter Parkes]
An act has no ethical quality whatever unless it be chosen out of several all equally possible.
William James (1842-1910) American psychologist and philosopher
Principles of Psychology, ch. 9 (1890)
(Source)
Easy reading is damn hard writing.
Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) American writer
(Attributed)
Also attributed to others, including Ernest Hemingway. The reference to Hawthorne can be dated back to Maya Angelou in "The Art of Fiction," Paris Review, #116, Interview with George Plimpton (1990):Nathaniel Hawthorne says, "Easy reading means damn hard writing."Per Wikiquote, Angelou put it differently previously, in Conversations With Maya Angelou (1989) [ed. Jeffrey M. Elliot]:I think it's Alexander Pope who says, "Easy writing is damn hard reading," and vice versa, easy reading is damn hard writing.
Which first clause may refer in turn not to Pope but Richard Brinsley, Clio's Protest, or the Picture Varnished (1771, pub. 1819):You write with ease, to show your breeding, But easy writing's curst hard reading.
And what is this smile of the world, to win which we are bidden to sacrifice our moral manhood; this frown of the world, whose terrors are more awful than the withering up of truth and the slow going out of light within the souls of us?
John Morley (1838-1923) English statesman, journalist, writer [John, Viscount Morley]
On Compromise, ch. 4 (1877)
That a marriage ends is less than ideal; but all things end under heaven, and if temporality is held to be invalidating, then nothing real succeeds.
John Updike (1932-2009) American writer
Too Far To Go, foreword (1979)
Practical equality of opportunity for all citizens, when we achieve it, will have two great results. First, every man will have a fair chance to make of himself all that in him lies; to reach the highest point to which his capacities, unassisted by special privilege of his own and unhampered by the special privilege of others, can carry him, and to get for himself and his family substantially what he has earned. Second, equality of opportunity means that the commonwealth will get from every citizen the highest service of which he is capable. No man who carries the burden of the special privileges of another can give to the commonwealth that service to which it is fairly entitled.
Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) American politician, statesman, conservationist, writer, US President (1901-1909)
“The New Nationalism,” speech, Osawatomie, Kansas (31 Aug 1910)
We succeed in enterprises which demand the positive qualities we possess, but we excel in those which can also make use of our defects.
Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) French writer, diplomat, politician
Democracy in America (1835)
Substitute “damn” every time you’re inclined to write “very”; your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.
Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
(Attributed)
Was there ever any domination which did not appear natural to those who possessed it?
John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) English philosopher and economist
The Subjection of Women, ch. 1 (1869)
I don’t kno az i want tew bet enny money, and giv odds, on the man, who iz alwus anxious tew pray out loud, every chance he kan git.
[I don’t know as I want to bet any money, and give odds, on the man, who is always anxious to pray out loud, every chance he can get.]
Josh Billings (1818-1885) American humorist, aphorist [pseud. of Henry Wheeler Shaw]
Josh Billings: His Works, Complete (1873)
The advantage, the luxury, as well as the torment and responsibility of the novelist, is that there is no limit to what he may attempt as an executant — no limit to his possible experiments, efforts, discoveries, successes.
Henry James (1843-1916) American writer
“The Art of Fiction,” Longman’s Magazine (4 Sep 1884)
(Source)
The first problem for all of us, men and women, is not to learn, but to unlearn. We are filled with the popular wisdom of several centuries just past, and we are terrified to give it up. Patriotism means obedience, age means wisdom, woman means submission, black means inferior: these are preconceptions embedded so deeply in our thinking that we honestly may not know that they are there.
Gloria Steinem (b. 1934) American feminist, journalist, activist
“The First Problem for All of Us, Men and Women, Is to Unlearn,” New York Times (26 Aug 1971)
Let us remember that all reforms are interdependent, and that whatever is done to establish one principle on a solid basis, strengthens all. Reformers who are always compromising, have not yet grasped the idea that truth is the only safe ground to stand upon.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902) American social activist, abolitionist, woman's suffragist
The Woman’s Bible, Part 1, Introduction (1895)
How would it be possible, if salvation were ready to our hand, and could without great labour be found, that it should be by almost all men neglected? But all things excellent are as difficult as they are rare.
Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) Dutch philosopher
Ethics, Part 5 “Of the Power of the Understanding, or of Human Freedom”, Prop. 42, note (1677)
(Source)
Believe in fate, but lean forward where fate can see you.
Quentin Crisp (1908-1999) English writer and raconteur [b. Denis Pratt]
(Attributed)
The most successful politician is he who says what everybody else is thinking most often and in the loudest voice.
Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) American politician, statesman, conservationist, writer, US President (1901-1909)
(Attributed)
Often attributed, but rarely sourced. It appears to be first quoted as a personal anecdote by Alfred George Gardiner, The Pillars of Society (1927)
The man who is admired for the ingenuity of his larceny is almost always rediscovering some earlier form of fraud. The basic forms are all known, have all been practiced. The manners of capitalism improve. The morals may not.
John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-2006) Canadian-American economist, diplomat, author
The Age of Uncertainty, ch. 2 (1977)
Communism reduces men to a cog in the wheel of the state. The communist may object, saying that in Marxian theory the state is an “interim reality” that will “wither away” when the classless society emerges. True — in theory; but it is also true that, while the state lasts, it is an end in itself. Man is a means to that end. He has no inalienable rights. His only rights are derived from, and conferred by, the state. Under such a system the fountain of freedom runs dry.
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman, civil rights leader, social activist, preacher
Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? (1967)
(Source)
A Wounded Deer — leaps highest —
Answers are a luxury enjoyed only every now and then. So early on, learn to love the questions themselves.
Neil deGrasse Tyson (b. 1958) American astrophysicist, author, orator
Comment on “I am Neil deGrasse Tyson — Ask Me Anything” (1 Mar 2012)
(Source)
Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did, and it never will.
Frederick Douglass (1817-1895) American abolitionist, orator, writer
Letter to Gerrit Smith (30 Mar 1849)
I don’t beleave in fighting; i am solemly aginst it; but if a man gits teu fighting, i am also solemly aginst hiz gitting licked. After a fight iz once opened, all the virtew thare iz in it iz tew lick the other party.
[I don’t believe in fighting; I am solemnly against it; but if a man gets to fighting, I am also solemnly against his getting licked. After a fight is once opened, all the virtue there is in it is to lick the other party.]
Josh Billings (1818-1885) American humorist, aphorist [pseud. of Henry Wheeler Shaw]
Everybody’s Friend, Or; Josh Billing’s Encyclopedia and Proverbial Philosophy of Wit and Humor, ch. 148 “Affurisms: Ink Brats” (1874)
(Source)
The only obligation to which in advance we may hold a novel without incurring the accusation of being arbitrary, is that it be interesting.
Henry James (1843-1916) American writer
“The Art of Fiction,” Longman’s Magazine (4 Sep 1884)
(Source)
My experience in life is that it is not divided up into genres; it’s a horrifying, romantic, tragic, comical, science-fiction cowboy detective novel. You know, with a bit of pornography if you’re lucky.
There isn’t a bit of philanthropy in it. Anything that won’t sell, I don’t want to invent, because anything that won’t sell hasn’t reached the acme of success. Its sale is proof of utility, and utility is success.
Thomas Edison (1847-1931) American inventor and businessman
Interview, New York World (1888)
(Source)
A politician should have three hats: one for throwing in the ring, one for talking through, and one for pulling rabbits out of if elected.
Carl Sandburg (1878-1967) American poet, biographer
(Attributed)
Few things are so immutable as the addiction of political groups to the ideas by which they have once won office.
John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-2006) Canadian-American economist, diplomat, author
The Affluent Society, ch. 13, sec. 4 (1958)
We must honestly admit that capitalism has often left a gulf between superfluous wealth and abject poverty, has created conditions permitting necessities to be taken from the many to give luxuries to the few, and has encouraged small-hearted men to become cold and conscienceless so that, like Dives before Lazarus, they are unmoved by suffering, poverty-stricken humanity. The profit motive, when it is the sole basis of an economic system, encourages cutthroat competition and selfish ambition that inspire men to be more I-centered than thou-centered.
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman, civil rights leader, social activist, preacher
Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? (1967)
(Source)
You have to accept whatever comes and the only important thing is that you meet it with courage and with the best you have to give.
Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962) First Lady of the US (1933-45), politician, diplomat, activist
(Attributed)
For me, I am driven by two main philosophies, know more today about the world than I knew yesterday. And along the way, lessen the suffering of others. You’d be surprised how far that gets you.
Neil deGrasse Tyson (b. 1958) American astrophysicist, author, orator
Comment on “I am Neil deGrasse Tyson — Ask Me Anything” (1 Mar 2012)
(Source)
Often shortened as "I am driven by two main philosophies: know more about the world than I knew yesterday, and lessen the suffering of others. You'd be surprised how far that gets you."
Being president is like running a cemetery; you’ve got a lot of people under you and nobody’s listening.
William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton (b. 1946) American politician, US President (1993-2001)
Speech, Galesburg, Illinois (Jan 1995)
If ever you find yourself environed with difficulties and perplexing circumstances out of which you are at a loss how to extricate yourself, do what is right, and be assured that that will extricate you the best out of the worst situations. Though you cannot see when you take one step what will be the next, yet follow truth, justice and plain dealing, and never fear their leading you out of the labyrinth in the easiest manner possible. The knot which you thought a Gordian one will untie itself before you. Nothing is so mistaken as the supposition that a person is to extricate himself from a difficulty by intrigue, by chicanery, by dissimulation, by trimming, by an untruth, by an injustice. This increases the difficulties tenfold; and those who pursue these methods get themselves so involved at length that they can turn no way but their infamy becomes more exposed.
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) American political philosopher, polymath, statesman, US President (1801-09)
Letter to Peter Carr (19 Aug 1785)
(Source)
Our losses should frequently be put on the credit side.
Elizabeth Bibesco (1897-1945) Romanian-English writer
Haven (1951)
He that is valiant and dares fight, though drubbed, can lose no honor by ‘t.
Samuel Butler (1612-1680) English poet, satirist, painter, philosopher [Hudibras Butler]
“Hudibras,” Part 1, canto 3
(Source)
What gets measured, gets managed.
Peter F. Drucker (1909-2005) Austrian-American business consultant
(Attributed)
Frequently cited, but not sourced. Cf. Lord Kelvin.
The value of an idea has nothing whatever to do with the sincerity of the man who expresses it.
Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) Irish poet, wit, dramatist
“Oscariana” (1909)
I think “taste” is a social concept and not an artistic one. I’m willing to show good taste, if I can, in somebody else’s living room, but our reading life is too short for a writer to be in any way polite. Since his words enter into another’s brain in silence and intimacy, he should be as honest and explicit as we are with ourselves.
John Updike (1932-2009) American writer
Interview, New York Times Book Review (10 Apr 1977)
No man should receive a dollar unless that dollar has been fairly earned. Every dollar received should represent a dollar’s worth of service rendered — not gambling in stocks, but service rendered. The really big fortune, the swollen fortune, by the mere fact of its size acquires qualities which differentiate it in kind as well as in degree from what is possessed by men of relatively small means. Therefore, I believe in a graduated income tax on big fortunes, and in another tax which is far more easily collected and far more effective — a graduated inheritance tax on big fortunes, properly safeguarded against evasion and increasing rapidly in amount with the size of the estate.
Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) American politician, statesman, conservationist, writer, US President (1901-1909)
“The New Nationalism,” speech, Osawatomie, Kansas (31 Aug 1910)
(Source)
I do not think there is any thrill that can go through the human heart like that felt by the inventor as he sees some creation of the brain unfolding to success … Such emotions make a man forget food, sleep, friends, love, everything.
Nikola Tesla (1856-1943) Serbian-American inventor, physicist, engineer, futurist
In Cleveland Moffitt, “A Talk With Tesla,” Atlanta Constitution (7 Jun 1896)
Here is the secret: A man is a very small thing whilst he works by and for himself but an immense and omnipotent worker as soon as he puts himself right with the law of nature. … It is as when you come to a conflagration with your fire engine — no matter how good the machine, you will make but a feeble spray, whilst you draw from your own tub. But once you get your hose … dipped in the river, or in the harbor, and you can ump as long as the sea holds out.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
Journal (1855)
"Notebook WO Liberty"
“Familiarity breeds kontempt.” This only applies tew men, not tew hot bukwheat slapkakes, well buttered and sugared.
[“Familiarity breeds contempt.” This only applies to men, not to hot buckwheat slapcakes, well buttered and sugared.]
Josh Billings (1818-1885) American humorist, aphorist [pseud. of Henry Wheeler Shaw]
Josh Billings: His Works, Complete (1873)
See Apuleius.
It is art that makes life, makes interest, makes importance, for our consideration and application of these things, and I know of no substitute whatever for the force and beauty of its process.
Henry James (1843-1916) American writer
Letter to H.G. Wells (10 July 1915)
Administrivia: A new way to show sources and context
One of the things I pride myself on with WIST is doing my Googley best to provide citations for all my quotations. Often, when I have to research the sources of a quote, I end up with an online copy of the original, primary text.That’s useful information, both to “prove” the quotation is real, and to provide context to it. (Not to mention providing fodder for future research for good quote.)
In the past, I’ve simply added a note at the bottom of the quotation (in the “more” text in WordPress, for those interested in the technicalities) saying something like “Full text“, with text being a hyperlink to that source material — a web page, a news article, a Gutenberg archive, or, increasingly often, a Google Book.
I’ve now added custom field in WIST (using a WordPress custom field, for those technically interested) to store the “source” hyperlink info. This will tuck up right under the citation, showing as “(Source)”, which should improve some of the formatting and take up a scosh less space on the page. It will only show up if I have a source / context hyperlink to put in, and, in general, will only point to primary materials.
Obviously I have some thousands of the “Full text” notes in WIST, and I won’t be methodically going in and changing them over. But over time, as I update quote, review/update authors, etc., I’ll convert them to the new style.
Let me know what you think, if you have a strong impression one way or another.
Forgive me for noting that conservatives seem to believe that the rich will work harder if we give them more, and the poor will work harder if we give them less.
E. J. Dionne, Jr. (b. 1952) American journalist and political commentator [Eugene Joseph Dionne, Jr.]
“Can this campaign be constructive?” Washington Post (3 Jun 2012)
(Source)
I often say that when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meagre and unsatisfactory kind; it may be the beginning of knowledge, but you have scarcely, in your thoughts, advanced to the stage of science, whatever the matter may be.
William Thomson, Lord Kelvin (1824-1907) Scottish physicist
“Electrical Units of Measurement,” lecture (3 May 1883)
Being in politics is like being a football coach. You have to be smart enough to understand the game and dumb enough to think it’s important.
Eugene McCarthy (1916-2005) American politician, poet, activist
Comment (1968)
People of privilege will always risk their complete destruction rather than surrender any material part of their advantage. Intellectual myopia, often called stupidity, is no doubt a reason.
John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-2006) Canadian-American economist, diplomat, author
The Age of Uncertainty, Chapter 1, (1977)
On the one hand we are called to play the good Samaritan on life’s roadside; but that will be only an initial act. One day the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be beaten and robbed as they make their journey through life. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman, civil rights leader, social activist, preacher
“A Time to Break Silence,” speech, Clergy and Laity Concerned meeting, Riverside Church, New York City (4 Apr 1967)
(Source)
This address was reworked the following year into his book, Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?, ch. 6, "The World House," sec. 3 (1968), in a slightly altered form:We are called to play the good Samaritan on life's roadside; but that will be only an initial act. One day the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be beaten and robbed as they make their journey through life. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it understands that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.
In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly,
But westward, look, the land is bright.Arthur Hugh Clough (1819-1861) English poet
“Say Not The Struggle Naught Availeth” (1849)
Stupidity is not my strong suit.
Paul Valéry (1871-1945) French poet, critic, author, polymath
Monsieur Teste (1919)
Within the first few months I discovered that being a President is like riding a tiger. A man has to keep riding or be swallowed. The fantastically crowded nine months of 1945 taught me that a President either is constantly on top of events or, if he hesitates, events will soon be on top of him. I never felt I could let up for a single moment.
Harry S Truman (1884-1972) US President (1945-1953)
Memoirs: Years of Trial and Hope, Opening Words (1956)
I may have erred at times — no doubt I have erred; this is the law of human nature. For honest errors, however, indulgence may be hoped.
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) American political philosopher, polymath, statesman, US President (1801-09)
Letter to the Gentlemen of the Senate (Feb 1801)
(Source)
On retiring as President of the Senate (Vice President) as he approached his inauguration as President. This is sometimes mis-cited as being part of a letter to Thomas Lomax (25 Feb 1801).
We are bound to those we love by their imperfections — their perfections help us to explain them to others.
Elizabeth Bibesco (1897-1945) Romanian-English writer
Haven (1951)
As to ecclesiastical parties; we may observe, that, in all ages of the world, priests have been enemies to liberty; and it is certain, that this steady conduct of theirs must have been founded on fixed reasons of interest and ambition. Liberty of thinking, and of expressing our thoughts, is always fatal to priestly power, and to those pious frauds, on which it is commonly founded; and, by an infallible connexion, which prevails among all kinds of liberty, this privilege can never be enjoyed, at least has never yet been enjoyed, but in a free government.
David Hume (1711-1776) Scottish philosopher, economist, historian, empiricist
“Of the Parties of Great Britain,” Essays, Political and Moral, vol. 1 (1741)
(Source)
Si l’Etat est fort, il nous ecrase, s’il est faible, nous perissons.
[If the state is strong, it crushes us. If it is weak, we perish.]
Paul Valéry (1871-1945) French poet, critic, author, polymath
Reflections on the World Today [Regards sur le monde actuel], “Fluctuations sur la liberté” (1931)Alt trans.:
- "If power is too strong, it overwhelms us, if it is too weak, we perish."
- "If the state is strong, we are annihilated; if it is weak, we perish."
- "When the state is strong it will crush us, when it is weak, we perish."
This administration today, here and now, declares unconditional war on poverty in America.
Lyndon B. Johnson (1908-1973) American politician, educator, US President (1963-69)
Speech (1964-01-08), “State of the Union,” Joint Session of Congress, Washington, D. C.
(Source)
COSMO: There’s a war out there, old friend. A world war. And it’s not about who’s got the most bullets. It’s about who controls the information. What we see and hear, how we work, what we think — it’s all about the information!
Phil Alden Robinson (b. 1950) American screenwriter, director, producer
Sneakers (1992) [with Lawrence Lasker, Walter Parkes]
Habit is thus the enormous fly-wheel of society, its most precious conservative agent. It alone is what keeps us all within the bounds of ordinance, and saves the children of fortune from the envious uprisings of the poor.
William James (1842-1910) American psychologist and philosopher
Principles of Psychology, ch. 4 (1890)
(Source)
Once we had wooden chalices and golden priests, now we have golden chalices and wooden priests.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
“The Preacher,” lecture, Cambridge (1879-05-05)
(Source)
As to the presidency, the two happiest days of my life were those of my entrance upon the office and my surrender of it.
Martin Van Buren (1782-1862) US President, 1837-41
(Attributed)
We use ideas merely to justify our evil, and speech merely to conceal our ideas.
Voltaire (1694-1778) French writer [pseud. of Francois-Marie Arouet]
Le Chapon et al Poularde, ch. 14 (1766)
The refusal to rest content, the willingness to risk excess on behalf of one’s obsessions, is what distinguishes artists from entertainers, and what makes some artists adventurers on behalf of us all.
John Updike (1932-2009) American writer
In Studies in J. D. Salinger : Reviews, Essays, and Critiques of The Catcher in the Rye and other Fiction, ed. M. Laser and N. Fruman (1963)
On J. D. Saliger, from a review of Salinger's Franny and Zooey.
In our complex industrial civilization of today the peace of righteousness and justice, the only kind of peace worth having, is at least as necessary in the industrial world as it is among nations. There is at least as much need to curb the cruel greed and arrogance of part of the world of capital, to curb the cruel greed and violence of part of the world of labor, as to check a cruel and unhealthy militarism in international relationships.
Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) American politician, statesman, conservationist, writer, US President (1901-1909)
Nobel Peace Prize Lecture, Oslo (5 May 1910)
(Source)
HOLMES: I’m not a psychopath, Anderson, I’m a high-functioning sociopath, do your research.
Steven Moffat (b. 1961) Scottish television writer, producer
Sherlock, “A Study in Pink” (2010) [with Mark Gatiss]
The painter should not paint what he sees, but what will be seen.
Paul Valéry (1871-1945) French poet, critic, author, polymath
Mauvaises Pensées et Autres (1941)
The lust for power is not rooted in strength but in weakness.
Erich Fromm (1900-1980) American psychoanalyst and social philosopher
Escape from Freedom, 5.1 (1941)
Dangers are sum like a kold bath, very dangerous while you stand stripped on the bank, but often not only harmless, but invigorating, if you pitch into them.
[Dangers are some like a cold bath ….]
Josh Billings (1818-1885) American humorist, aphorist [pseud. of Henry Wheeler Shaw]
Josh Billings: His Works, Complete (1873)
People talk about the conscience, but it seems to me one must just bring it up to a certain point and leave it there. You can let your conscience alone if you’re nice to the second housemaid.
Henry James (1843-1916) American writer
The Awkward Age, Book 6, ch. 3 [Mrs. Brookenham] (1899)
(Source)
Pizza is like a lady’s breasts. There’s good pizza. And there’s great pizza. But there isn’t bad pizza.
Richard Jeni (1957-2007) American comedian
(Attributed)
Brothers and sisters, do not slander one another. Anyone who speaks against a brother or sister or judges them speaks against the law and judges it. When you judge the law, you are not keeping it, but sitting in judgment on it. There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the one who is able to save and destroy. But you—who are you to judge your neighbor?
The Bible (The New Testament) (AD 1st - 2nd C) Christian sacred scripture
James 4:11-12 (NIV)
Alt. trans. (KJV): "Speak not evil one of another, brethren. He that speaketh evil of his brother, and judgeth his brother, speaketh evil of the law, and judgeth the law: but if thou judge the law, thou art not a doer of the law, but a judge. There is one lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy: who art thou that judgest another? "
If you want to succeed in politics, you must keep your conscience well under control.
David Lloyd George (1863-1945) Welsh politician, statesman, UK Prime Minister (1916-22)
Comment to Lord Riddell
Frequently attributed, but not cited. Also sometimes attributed to William Gladstone.
The study of money, above all other fields in economics, is the one in which complexity is used to disguise truth or to evade truth, not to reveal it.
John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-2006) Canadian-American economist, diplomat, author
Money: Whence It Came, Where It Went, ch. 1 (1975)
Truth is found neither in traditional capitalism nor in classical communism. Each represents a partial truth. Capitalism fails to see the truth in collectivism. Communism fails to see the truth in individualism. Capitalism fails to realize that life is social. Communism fails to realize that life is personal.
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman, civil rights leader, social activist, preacher
Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? (1967)
(Source)
You have enemies? Good. That means you stood up for something, sometime in your life.
Winston Churchill (1874-1965) British statesman and author
(Attributed)
The great principles of right and wrong are legible to every reader; to pursue them requires not the aid of many counsellors. The whole art of government consists in the art of being honest. Only aim to do your duty, and mankind will give you credit where you fail.
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) American political philosopher, polymath, statesman, US President (1801-09)
“A Summary View of the Rights of British America” (1774-06)
(Source)
Addressed to King George III.
We learn nothing by being right.
Elizabeth Bibesco (1897-1945) Romanian-English writer
Haven (1951)
Would the boy you were be proud of the man you are?
Lawrence J. Peter (1919-1990) American educator, management theorist
(Attributed)
The poor man’s conscience is clear; yet he is ashamed. … He feels himself out of the sight of others, groping in the dark. Mankind takes no notice of him: he rambles and wanders unheeded. In the midst of a crowd, at church, in the market … he is in as much obscurity as he would be in a garret or a cellar. He is not disapproved, censured, or reproached: he is only not seen. … To be wholly overlooked, and to know it, are intolerable.
John Adams (1735-1826) American lawyer, Founding Father, statesman, US President (1797-1801)
Discourses on Davila, ch. 5 (1790)
A bad fittin’ suit never wears out.
Frank McKinney "Kin" Hubbard (1868-1930) American caricaturist and humorist
Abe Martin’s Almanac for 1909 (1908)
Full text.
COSMO: What’s wrong with this country Marty? Money. You taught me that. Evil defense contractors had it, noble causes did not. Politicians are bought and sold like so much chattel. Our problems multiplied. Pollution, crime, drugs, poverty, disease, hunger, despair; we throw gobs of money at them! The problems always get worse. Why is that? Because money’s most powerful ability is to allow bad people to continue doing bad things at the expense of those who don’t have it.
Phil Alden Robinson (b. 1950) American screenwriter, director, producer
Sneakers (1992) [with Lawrence Lasker, Walter Parkes]
Pretend what we may, the whole man within us is at work when we form our philosophical opinions. Intellect, will, taste, and passion co-operate just as they do in practical affairs; and lucky it is if the passion be not something as petty as a love of personal conquest over the philosopher across the way.
William James (1842-1910) American psychologist and philosopher
“The Sentiment of Rationality” (1882)
Hope is the power of being cheerful in circumstances which we know to be desperate.
Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936) English journalist and writer
Heretics, ch. 12 “Paganism and Mr. Lowes Dickenson” (1905)
Full text.
Important principles may, and must, be inflexible.
Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) American lawyer, politician, US President (1861-65)
Speech, Washington, DC (11 Apr 1865).
His last public address.
Ideas won’t keep. Something must be done about them.
Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947) English mathematician and philosopher
Dialogues of Alfred North Whitehead, 28 Apr 1939 (1954)
Do not praise an undeserving man because of his riches.
Bias of Priene (fl. c. 650) Greek philosopher
In Diogenes Laërtius, The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers (c. 230) [tr. Yonge]
Our aim is to recognize what Lincoln pointed out: The fact that there are some respects in which men are obviously not equal; but also to insist that there should be an equality of self-respect and of mutual respect, an equality of rights before the law, and at least an approximate equality in the conditions under which each man obtains the chance to show the stuff that is in him when compared to his fellows.
Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) American politician, statesman, conservationist, writer, US President (1901-1909)
State of the Union address (3 Dec 1907)
Better be cheated in the price than in the quality of goods.
[Más vale ser engañado en el precio que en la mercadería.]
Baltasar Gracián y Morales (1601-1658) Spanish Jesuit priest, writer, philosopher
The Art of Worldly Wisdom [Oráculo Manual y Arte de Prudencia], § 157 (1647) [tr. Jacobs (1892)]
(Source)
(Source (Spanish)). Alternate translations:It is better to be deceived in the Price, than in the Commodity.
[Flesher ed. (1685)]Far better to be cheated in the price, than in the goods.
[tr. Fischer (1937)]Better to be cheated by the price than by the merchandise.
[tr. Maurer (1992)]
To have doubted one’s own first principles is the work of a civilized man.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (1841-1935) American jurist, Supreme Court Justice
“Ideals and Doubts,” Illinois Law Review (May 1915)
Nothing discloses real character like the use of power. It is easy for the weak to be gentle. Most people can bear adversity. But if you wish to know what a man really is, give him power. This is the supreme test. It is the glory of Lincoln that, having almost absolute power, he never abused it, except upon the side of mercy.
Robert Green Ingersoll (1833-1899) American lawyer, agnostic, orator
“Abraham Lincoln,” Lecture (1894)
(Source)
Ingersoll used the final phrase here frequently about Lincoln, e.g., in The Liberty of Man, Woman, and Child, an 1877 lecture, he wrote: "Abraham Lincoln was, in my judgment, in many respects, the grandest man ever president of the United States. Upon his monument these words should be written: 'Here sleeps the only man in the history of the world, who, having been clothed with almost absolute power, never abused it, except on the side of mercy.'"
The phrase "But if you wish to know what a man really is, give him power" is often attributed, without citation, to Lincoln.
The lion and the lamb may, possibly, sumtime lay down in this world together for a fu minnits, but when the lion kums tew git up, the lamb will be missing.
[The lion and the lamb may, possibly, sometime lay down in this world together for a few minutes, but when the lion comes to get up, the lamb will be missing.]
Josh Billings (1818-1885) American humorist, aphorist [pseud. of Henry Wheeler Shaw]
Everybody’s Friend, Or; Josh Billing’s Encyclopedia and Proverbial Philosophy of Wit and Humor, ch. 134 “Affurisms: Slips of the Pen” (1874)
(Source)
A reference (using the more common phrasing) to Isaiah 11:6.
A tradition is kept alive only by something being added to it.
Henry James (1843-1916) American writer
“Robert Louis Stevenson,” Century Magazine (April 1888)
The secret of happiness is not discovered in the absence of trials, but in the midst of them.
Ted Nace (b. 1956) American writer, publisher, environmentalist
(Attributed)
It is only a sentimental half-truth that the best things in life are free; while they may be, it is equally true that we need the money to buy the time to enjoy them.
Sydney J. Harris (1917-1986) Anglo-American columnist, journalist, author
Pieces of Eight, ch. 4 (1982)
A conservative Republican is one who doesn’t believe anything new should be tried for the first time. A liberal Republican is one who does believe something should be tried for the first time — but not now.
Mort Sahl (1927-2021) Canadian-American comedian, actor, social satirist
In The Milwaukee Sentinel, “Marilyn Dons Snappy Garters” (8 Apr 1958)
Full text.
Among all the world’s races, some obscure Bedouin tribes possibly apart, Americans are the most prone to misinformation. This is not the consequence of any special preference for mendacity, although at the higher levels of their public administration that tendency is impressive. It is rather that so much of what they themselves believe is wrong.
John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-2006) Canadian-American economist, diplomat, author
“The United States,” New York magazine (15 Nov 1971)
A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth.
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman, civil rights leader, social activist, preacher
Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? (1967)
(Source)
The world is like a game in which there are both honest and dishonest players, so that a prince who plays in this game must learn how to cheat, not in order to do it, but in order not to be the dupe of others.
Frederick II (1712-1786) King of Prussia (a.k.a. Frederick the Great)
Anti-Machiavel, ch. 18 (1740) [tr. Sonnino (1981)]
Price is what you pay. Value is what you get.
Warren Buffett (b. 1930) American investor and financier
“About Investing: Know the Difference Between Price and Value,” Warren Buffett Speaks, comp. J. Lowe (1997)
When the President does it, that means that it’s not illegal.
Richard M. Nixon (1913-1994) American politician, writer, US President (1967-74)
Interview with David Frost (20 May 1977)
Not every defeat of authority is a gain for individual freedom, nor every judicial rescue of a convict a victory for liberty.
Robert H. Jackson (1892-1954) US Supreme Court Justice (1941-54), lawyer, jurist, politician
“The Task of Maintaining Our Liberties: The Role of the Judiciary,” speech, Boston (24 Aug 1953)
(Source)
Dinner address at the American Bar Association Diamond Jubilee dinner. Reprinted in the American Bar Association Journal (Nov 1953) [citation 39 A.B.A. J. 961 (1953)].
The image of ourselves in the minds of others is the picture of a stranger we shall never see.
Elizabeth Bibesco (1897-1945) Romanian-English writer
Haven (1951)
True religion does not draw men out of the world but enables them to live better in it and excites their endeavors to mend it.
William Penn (1644-1718) English writer, philosopher, politician, statesman
No Cross, No Crown (1682)
Written while a prisoner in the Tower of London (1668-69).
Science is like sex: sometimes something useful comes out, but that is not the reason we are doing it.
Richard Feynman (1918-1988) American physicist
(Attributed)
Many variations can be found for this quotation (none of them with citation); the word "Science" and "Physics" are often interchanged:As noted here, Frank Oppenheimer (a colleague of Feynman's) was quoted saying, "There's a lot of practical fruits to understanding, but it's like sex. There are practical fruits to sex, but nobody would say that's why you do it, normally." Feynman and Oppenheimer may well have collaborated on the general phrasing, or taken it from one another.
- "Science is like sex, it has its practical purposes, but that's not why we do it."
- "Science is like sex. Sometimes something useful comes out, but that is not why we are doing it."
- Physics is like sex. Sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it."
A pessimist is a man who looks both ways before crossing a one-way street.
Lawrence J. Peter (1919-1990) American educator, management theorist
Peter’s Quotations (1977)
JULIET: If you need me, just call. You know how to dial, don’t you? You just put your finger in the hole and make tiny little circles.
Steve Martin (b. 1945) American comedian, actor, writer, producer, musician
Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid (1982) [with Carl Reiner, George Gipe]
Romeo wants Juliet as the filings want the magnet; and if no obstacles intervene he moves towards her by as straight a line as they. But Romeo and Juliet, if a wall be built between them, do not remain idiotically pressing their faces against its opposite sides like the magnet and the filings with the card. Romeo soon finds a circuitous way, by scaling the wall or otherwise, of touching Juliet’s lips directly. With the filings the path is fixed; whether it reaches the end depends on accidents. With the lover it is the end which is fixed, the path may be modified indefinitely.
William James (1842-1910) American psychologist and philosopher
The Principles of Psychology, ch. 1 “The Scope of Psychology” (1890)
Full text.
No sinner is ever saved after the first twenty minutes of a sermon.
Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
Hannibal Courier-Post (6 Mar 1835)
Do not think of knocking out another person’s brains because he differs in opinion from you. It would be as rational to knock yourself on the head because you differ from yourself ten years ago.
The instinct of conventionality, the horror of uncertainty, and vested interests, all militate against the acceptance of a new idea.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
“Individual Liberty and Public Control,” Atlantic (1917-07)
Seek to please all the citizens, even though
Your house may be in an ungracious city.
For such a course will favour win from all:
But haughty manners oft produce destruction.Bias of Priene (fl. c. 650) Greek philosopher
In Diogenes Laërtius, The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers (c. 230) [tr. Yonge]
A heavy progressive tax upon a very large fortune is in no way such a tax upon thrift or industry as a like would be on a small fortune. No advantage comes either to the country as a whole or to the individuals inheriting the money by permitting the transmission in their entirety of the enormous fortunes which would be affected by such a tax; and as an incident to its function of revenue raising, such a tax would help to preserve a measurable equality of opportunity for the people of the generations growing to manhood.
Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) American politician, statesman, conservationist, writer, US President (1901-1909)
State of the Union address (3 Dec 1907)
Being young is greatly overestimated … any failure seems so total. Later on you realize you can have another go.
Mary Quant (b. 1934) Welsh fashion designer
Interview in The Observer (5 May 1996)
A man who fears suffering is already suffering from what he fears.
Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) French essayist
(Attributed)
