In politics, again, it is almost a commonplace, that a party of order or stability, and a party of progress or reform, are both necessary elements of a healthy state of political life. […] Each of these modes of thinking derives its utility from the deficiencies of the other; but it is in a great measure the opposition of the other that keeps each within the limits of reason and sanity.
John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) English philosopher and economist
On Liberty, ch. 2 “Of the Liberty of Thought and Discussion” (1859)
(Source)
There is an insistent tendency among serious social scientists to think of any institution which features rhymed and singing commercials, intense and lachrymose voices urging highly improbable enjoyment, caricatures of the human esophagus in normal and impaired operation, and which hints implausibly at opportunities for antiseptic seduction as inherently trivial. This is a great mistake. The industrial system is profoundly dependent on commercial television and could not exist in its present form without it.
John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-2006) Canadian-American economist, diplomat, author
The New Industrial State, ch. 18, sec. 5 (1967)
Nonviolence is the answer to the crucial political and moral questions of our time: the need for man to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to oppression and violence. Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman, civil rights leader, social activist, preacher
Nobel Prize acceptance speech, Stockholm, Sweden (11 Dec 1964)
Force can command obedience, but prestige removes even the idea of disobedience.
Gustave LeBon (1841-1931) German psychologist
Aphorisms of Present Times, 1.8 (1913) [tr. Widener (1979)]
The press in our free country is reliable and useful not because of its good character but because of its great diversity. As long as there are many owners, each pursuing his own brand of truth, we the people have an opportunity to arrive at the truth and to dwell in the light. The multiplicity of ownership is crucial. It’s only when there are a few owners, or, as in a government-controlled press, one owner, that truth becomes illusive and the light fails.
E. B. White (1899-1985) American author, critic, humorist [Elwyn Brooks White]
Letter to W. B. Jones (30 Jan 1976)
The second office of the government is honorable & easy, the first is but a splendid misery.
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) American political philosopher, polymath, statesman, US President (1801-09)
Letter (1797-05-13) to Elbridge Gerry
(Source)
On the vice-presidency and presidency of the United States. Written after he had lost to John Adams, who became President and him Vice-President.
There is no such thing as an achieved liberty; like electricity, there can be no substantial storage and it must be generated as it is enjoyed, or the lights go out.
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)].
It is easier to be generous than to be just.
Elizabeth Bibesco (1897-1945) Romanian-English writer
Haven (1951)
The press, like fire, is an excellent servant, but a terrible master.
James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851) American novelist
“On the Press,” The American Democrat (1838)
The central belief of every moron is that he is the victim of a mysterious conspiracy against his common rights and true deserts.
H. L. Mencken (1880-1956) American writer and journalist [Henry Lewis Mencken]
Baltimore Evening Sun (15 Jun 1936)
Full text.
The red light is always longer than the green light.
Lawrence J. Peter (1919-1990) American educator, management theorist
Peter’s People, ch. 8, “Peter’s Theory of Relativity” (1979)
REARDON: That’s one thing I’ve learned about clients. Dead ones don’t pay their bills.
Steve Martin (b. 1945) American comedian, actor, writer, producer, musician
Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid (1982) [with Carl Reiner, George Gipe]
The most any one can do is to confess as candidly as he can the grounds for the faith that is in him, and leave his example to work on others as it may.
William James (1842-1910) American psychologist and philosopher
“The Dilemma of Determinism” (1884)
No pain, no palm;
No thorns, no throne;
No gall, no glory;
No cross, no crown.William Penn (1644-1718) English writer, philosopher, politician, statesman
“No Cross, No Crown” (1682)
Originally written while a prisoner in the Tower of London (1668-69). See Quarles (1821).
Every Man has a rainy corner of his life out of which foul weather proceeds and follows after him.
[Jeder Mensch hat eine Regen-Ecke seines Lebens aus der ihm das schlimme Wetter nachzieht.]Jean Paul Richter (1763-1825) German writer, art historian, philosopher, littérateur [Johann Paul Friedrich Richter; pseud. Jean Paul]
Titan, Jubilee 31, cycle 123 [Gaspard] (1803) [tr. Brooks (1863)]
(Source)
(Source (German)). Alternate translation:Every man has a rainy corner in his life, from which bad weather besets him.
[E.g.]
Ideas come in pairs and they contradict one another; their opposition is the principal engine of reflection.
Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) French philosopher and writer
“Ideology and Revolution,” Studies on the Left, Vol. 1, #3 (1960)
Great riches come to many men by chance.
Bias of Priene (fl. c. 650) Greek philosopher
In Diogenes Laërtius, The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers (c. 230) [tr. Yonge]
You can’t argue with a river, it is going to flow. You can dam it up, you can put it to useful purposes, you can deflect it, but you can’t argue with it.
Power is always gradually stealing away from the many to the few because the few are more vigilant and consistent.
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) English writer, lexicographer, critic
The Adventurer, # 45 (10 Apr 1753)
I don’t believe in kickin’,
It ain’t apt to bring one peace;
But the wheel what squeaks the loudest
is the one what gets the grease.Cal Stewart (1856-1919) American vaudevillean, monologuist [stage character "Uncle Josh" Weathersby]
Uncle Josh Weathersby’s “Punkin’ Centre” Stories (1903)
Origin of the phrase, "The squeaky wheel gets the grease." Often misattributed to Josh Billings (see here).
Feeling does not succeed in converting consolation into truth, nor does reason succeed in converting truth into consolation.
Miguel de Unamuno (1864-1936) Spanish philosopher and writer [Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo]
The Tragic Sense of Life [Del Sentimiento Trágico de la Vida], ch. 5 “The Rationalist Dissolution” (1913) [tr. Flitch (1921)]
Full text.
The real offence, as she ultimately perceived, was her having a mind of her own at all. Her mind was to be his — attached to his own like a small garden-plot to a deer-park.
Henry James (1843-1916) American writer
The Portrait of a Lady, ch. 42 (1881)
We have it in our power to begin the world over again.
Thomas Paine (1737-1809) American political philosopher and writer
Common Sense (14 Feb 1776)
It often happens that I wake at night and begin to think about a serious problem and decide I must tell the Pope about it. Then I wake up completely and remember I am the Pope.
St. John XXIII (1881-1963) Italian Catholic Pontiff (1958-63) [Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli]
(Attributed)
I have been thinking that I would make a proposition to my Republican friends … That if they will stop telling lies about the Democrats, we will stop telling the truth about them.
Adlai Stevenson (1900-1965) American diplomat, statesman
Speech, Fresno, California (19 Sep 1952)
A favorite quip of Stevenson's.
That one never need to look beyond the love of money for explanation of human behavior is one of the most jealously guarded simplification of our culture.
John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-2006) Canadian-American economist, diplomat, author
The New Industrial State, ch. 12, sec. 1, (1967)
From every mountainside, let freedom ring. When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman, civil rights leader, social activist, preacher
“I Have a Dream,” speech, Washington, DC (28 Aug 1963)
In battle nothing is ever as good or bad as the first reports of excited men would have it.
William Joseph "Bill" Slim, Viscount Slim (1891-1970) British military commander and politician
Unofficial History, ch. 6 (1959)
Mr. Speaker, Mr. President, Members of the House, Members of the Senate, my fellow Americans:
All I have I would have given gladly not to be standing here today.
Lyndon B. Johnson (1908-1973) American politician, educator, US President (1963-69)
Speech (1963-11-27), “Let Us Continue,” Joint Session of Congress, Washington, D. C.
(Source)
Five days after the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
The qualities of a good prosecutor are as elusive and as impossible to define as those which mark a gentleman. And those who need to be told would not understand it anyway. A sensitiveness to fair play and sportsmanship is perhaps the best protection against the abuse of power, and the citizen’s safety lies in the prosecutor who tempers zeal with human kindness, who seeks truth and not victims, who serves the law and not factional purposes, and who approaches his task with humility.
Robert H. Jackson (1892-1954) US Supreme Court Justice (1941-54), lawyer, jurist, politician
“The Federal Prosecutor,” speech, Conference of United States Attorneys, Washington, DC (1940-04-01)
(Source)
Concluding words. Delivered while Jackson was the US Attorney General. Reprinted in the Journal of the American Judicature Society (1940-06).
What we buy belongs to us only when the price is forgotten.
Elizabeth Bibesco (1897-1945) Romanian-English writer
Haven (1951)
We cannot overstate our debt to the Past, but the moment has the supreme claim.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
“Quotation and Originality,” Letters and Social Aims (1876)
I think the most important thing I learned from Stephen King I learned as a teenager, reading King’s book of essays on horror and on writing, Danse Macabre. In there he points out that if you just write a page a day, just 300 words, at the end of a year you’d have a novel. It was immensely reassuring — suddenly something huge and impossible became strangely easy. As an adult, it’s how I’ve written books I haven’t had the time to write, like my children’s novel Coraline.
Neil Gaiman (b. 1960) British author, screenwriter, fabulist
Blog entry (2012-04-28), “Popular Writers: A Stephen King Interview”
(Source)
Contributor's note to an interview with Stephen King, "The King and I," Sunday Times Magazine (2012-04-08).
The person who snores the loudest will fall asleep first.
(Other Authors and Sources)
Pickett’s Postulate
In John Peers, 1,001 Logical Laws (1979)
HARRIS: I’ve been thinking about myself and I think I can become the kind of person that’s worth you staying for. First of all, I’m a man who can cry. Now it’s true, it’s usually when I’ve hurt myself, but it’s a start.
Steve Martin (b. 1945) American comedian, actor, writer, producer, musician
L. A. Story (1991)
(Source)
Every Jack sees in his own particular Jill charms and perfections to the enchantment of which we stolid onlookers are stone-cold. And which has the superior view of the absolute truth, he or we? Which has the more vital insight into the nature of Jill’s existence, as a fact? Is he in excess, being in this matter a maniac? or are we in defect, being victims of a pathological anesthesia as regards Jill’s magical importance? Surely the latter; surely to Jack are the profounder truths revealed; surely poor Jill’s palpitating little life-throbs are among the wonders of creation, are worthy of this sympathetic interest; and it is to our shame that the rest of us cannot feel like Jack. For Jack realizes Jill concretely, and we do not. He struggles toward a union with her inner life, divining her feelings, anticipating her desires, understanding her limits as manfully as he can, and yet inadequately, too; for he also is afflicted with some blindness, even here. Whilst we, dead clods that we are, do not even seek after these things, but are contented that that portion of eternal fact named Jill should be for us as if it were not. Jill, who knows her inner life, knows that Jack’s way of taking it — so importantly — is the true and serious way; and she responds to the truth in him by taking him truly and seriously, too. May the ancient blindness never wrap its clouds about either of them again! Where would any of us be, were there no one willing to know us as we really are or ready to repay us for our insight by making recognizant return? We ought, all of us, to realize each other in this intense, pathetic, and important way.
William James (1842-1910) American psychologist and philosopher
“What Makes a Life Significant?” Lecture, Harvard (1900)
[P]eople marvel when I tell them that I am happy. They imagine that my limitations weigh heavily upon my spirit, and chain me to the rock of despair. Yet, it seems to me, happiness has very little to do with the senses. If we make up our minds that this is a drab and purposeless universe, it will be that, and nothing else. On the other hand, if we believe that the earth is ours, and that the sun and moon hang in the sky for our delight, there will be joy upon the hills and gladness in the fields because the Artist in our souls glorifies creation. Surely, it gives dignity to life to believe that we are born into this world for noble ends, and that we have a higher destiny than can be accomplished within the narrow limits of this physical life.
Helen Keller (1880-1968) American author and lecturer
“The Dreams That Come True,” Personality (Dec 1927)Sometimes abridged as: "Many people marvel when I tell them I am happy. They imagine that my limitations weigh heavily upon my spirit. Yet, it seemst o me that happiness has very little to do with the senses. If we make up our minds that this is a drab and purposeless universe, it will be that. On the other hand, if we believe that the world is ouirs, that the sun and moon hang in the sky for our delight, there will be joy."
Full text.
Tioto was experiencing that inexorable law of human souls tha we prepare ourselves for sudden deeds by the reiterated choice of good or evil that gradually determines character.
George Eliot (1819-1880) English novelist [pseud. of Mary Ann Evans]
Romola, 2.3 (1863)
To enable it to do its work naturally, every new idea must be in some way embedded in what is old.
Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965) Alsatian philosopher, physician, philanthropist, polymath
“The Conception of the Kingdom of God in the Transformation of Eschatology” (1951)
Great strength of body is the gift of nature;
But to be able to advise whate’er
Is most expedient for one’s country’s good,
Is the peculiar work of sense and wisdom.
Most men are wicked.Bias of Priene (fl. c. 650) Greek philosopher
In Diogenes Laërtius, The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers (c. 230) [tr. Yonge]
The corner-stone of the Republic lies in our treating each man on his worth as a man, paying no heed to his creed, his birthplace, or his occupation, asking not whether he is rich or poor, whether he labors with head or hand; asking only whether he acts decently and honorably in the various relations of his life, whether he behaves well to his family, to his neighbors, to the State. We base our regard for each man on the essentials and not the accidents. We judge him not by his professions, but by his deeds; by his conduct, not by what he has acquired of this world’s goods. Other republics have fallen, because the citizens gradually grew to consider the interests of a class before the interests of the whole; for when such was the case it mattered little whether it was the poor who plundered the rich or the rich who exploited the poor; in either event the end of the republic was at hand.
Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) American politician, statesman, conservationist, writer, US President (1901-1909)
Speech, Jamestown Exposition (26 Apr 1907)
Toiling, — rejoicing — sorrowing,
Onward through life he goes;
Each morning sees some task begin,
Each evening sees it close;
Something attempted, something done,
Has earned a night’s repose.Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882) American poet
“The Village Blacksmith”
But, you may say, who will complain of a decree which is passed against traitors to their country? Time, I answer, the lapse of years, and Fortune, whose caprice rules the nations. Whatever befalls these prisoners will be well deserved; but you, Fathers of the Senate, are called upon to consider how your action will affect other criminals. All bad precedents have originated in cases which were good; but when the control of the government falls into the hands of men who are incompetent or bad, your new precedent is transferred from those who well deserve and merit such punishment to the undeserving and blameless.
Julius Caesar (100-44 BC) Roman general and statesman [Gaius Julius Caesar]
In Sallust, The War with Cataline [tr. Loeb Classical Library (1921, rev. 1931)]
Full http://penelope.uchicago.edu/thayer/e/roman/texts/sallust/bellum_catilinae*.html.
Our two great political parties have really nothing more to propose than the keeping or the taking of the offices from the other party.
Henry George (1839-1897) American economist
Social Problems, ch. 2 (1883)
Private enterprise did not get us atomic energy.
John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-2006) Canadian-American economist, diplomat, author
The Affluent Society, ch. 25, sec. 3 (1958)
Men often hate each other because they fear each other; they fear each other because they don’t know each other; they don’t know each other because they can not communicate; they can not communicate because they are separated.
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman, civil rights leader, social activist, preacher
Stride Toward Freedom, ch. 2 “Montgomery Before the Protest” (1958)
(Source)
HAMLET: If it be now, ’tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come. The readiness is all.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Hamlet, Act 5, sc. 2, l. 234ff (5.2.234) (c. 1600)
(Source)
The mind is still haunted with its old unconscious ways; it broods on lost authorities; and the yearning, the deep and hollowing yearning for divine volition and service is with us still.
Julian Jaynes (1920-1997) American psychologist
The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind (1976)
The creature Man, who in his own selfish affairs is a coward to the backbone, will fight for an idea like a hero.
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) British playwright and critic
Man and Superman, ch. 3 (1903)
Choose the course which you adopt with deliberation; but when you have adopted it, then persevere in it with firmness.
Bias of Priene (fl. c. 650) Greek philosopher
In Diogenes Laërtius, The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, “Bias” (c. 230) [tr. Yonge]
Alt. trans.: "Be slow in considering, but resolute in action."
This great Republic of ours shall never become the government of a plutocracy, and it shall never become the government of a mob. God willing, it shall remain what our fathers who founded it meant it to be — a government in which each man stands on his worth as a man, where each is given the largest personal liberty consistent with securing the well-being of the whole, and where, so far as in us lies, we strive continually to secure for each man such equality of opportunity that in the strife of life he may have a fair chance to show the stuff that is in him.
Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) American politician, statesman, conservationist, writer, US President (1901-1909)
Speech, Jamestown Exposition (26 Apr 1907)
Timely disbursements to prepare for danger frequently prevent much greater disbursements to repel it.
George Washington (1732-1799) American military leader, Founding Father, US President (1789-1797)
“Farewell Address” (17 Sep 1796)
I never think of stories as made things; I think of them as found things. As if you pull them out of the ground, and you just pick them up. Someone once told me that that was me low-balling my own creativity. That might or might not be the case. But still, on the story I am working on now, I do have some unresolved problem. It doesn’t keep me awake at nights. I feel like when it comes down, it will be there ….
Stephen King (b. 1947) American author
Interview with Neil Gaiman, Neil Gaiman’s Journal (blog) (28 Apr 2012)
Unabridged version of a Sunday Times Magazine interview. Full text.
What is needed is a realization that power without love is reckless and abusive and that love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice. Justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman, civil rights leader, social activist, preacher
Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? ch. 2 “Black Power” (1967)
(Source)
True science teaches, above all, to doubt and be ignorant.
[La verdadera ciencia enseña, por encima de todo, a dudar y a ser ignorante.]
Miguel de Unamuno (1864-1936) Spanish philosopher and writer [Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo]
The Tragic Sense of Life [Del Sentimiento Trágico de la Vida], ch. 5 “The Rationalist Dissolution” (1913) [tr. Flitch (1921)]
Full text.
It is, I think, an indisputable fact that Americans are, as Americans, the most self-conscious people in the world, and the most addicted to the belief that the other nations of the earth are in a conspiracy to undervalue them.
Consciousness is a much smaller part of mental life than we are conscious of, since we cannot be conscious of what we aren’t conscious of.
Julian Jaynes (1920-1997) American psychologist
The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind (1976)
Ignorance maketh most Men go into a Party, and Shame keepeth them from getting out of it.
George Savile, Marquis of Halifax (1633-1695) English politician and essayist
“Of Parties,” Political, Moral, and Miscellaneous Thoughts and Reflections (1750)
(Source)
Money is a good servant but a bad master.
(Other Authors and Sources)
French saying
“Poverty,” Pitt exclaimed, “is no disgrace but it is damned annoying.” In the contemporary United States it is not annoying but it is a disgrace.
John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-2006) Canadian-American economist, diplomat, author
The Affluent Society, ch. 23, sec. 6 (1958)
(Source)
Somehow this madness must cease. We must stop now. I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted. I speak for the poor in America who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home and death and corruption in Vietnam. I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. I speak as an American to the leaders of my own nation. The great initiative in this war is ours. The initiative to stop it must be ours.
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman, civil rights leader, social activist, preacher
The Trumpet of Conscience (1967)
Those who prepared for all the emergencies of life beforehand may equip themselves at the expense of joy.
E. M. Forster (1879-1970) English novelist, essayist, critic, librettist [Edward Morgan Forster]
Howard’s End, ch. 7 (1910)
They pay me absurd amounts of money for something that I would do for free.
Stephen King (b. 1947) American author
Interview with Neil Gaiman, Neil Gaiman’s Journal (blog) (28 Apr 2012)
Unabridged version of a Sunday Times Magazine interview. Full text.
Oh, that lovely title, ex-President.
Dwight David Eisenhower (1890-1969) American general, US President (1953-61)
New York Post (26 Oct 1959)
When we went to school we were told that we were governed by laws, not men. As a result of that, many people think there is no need to pay any attention to judicial candidates because judges merely apply the law by some mathematical formula and a good judge and a bad judge all apply the same kind of law. The fact is that the most important part of a judge’s work is the exercise of judgment and that the law in a court is never better than the common sense judgment of the judge that is presiding.
Robert H. Jackson (1892-1954) US Supreme Court Justice (1941-54), lawyer, jurist, politician
Speech, Greater Buffalo Advertising Club, New York (1933)
(Source)
Quoted in Eugene Gerhart, America's Advocate: Robert H. Jackson, ch. 4 (1958).
To be on a pedestal is to be in a corner.
Elizabeth Bibesco (1897-1945) Romanian-English writer
Haven (1951)
The separation of church and state is necessary partly because if religion is good then the state shouldn’t interfere with the religious vision or with the religious prophet. There must be a realm of truth beyond political competence, that’s why there must be a separation of churches. But if religion is bad, and a bad religion is one that gives an ultimate sanctity to some particular cause, then religion mustn’t interfere with the state. So one of the basic democratic principles as we know it in America is the separation of church and state.
Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971) American theologian and clergyman
Interview with Mike Wallace (27 Apr 1958)
Full text.
The longer you wait in line, the greater the likelihood that you are standing in the wrong line.
(Other Authors and Sources)
The Queue Principle
In Arthur Bloch, Murphy's Law: Book Two, Situational Murphology" (1980)
HARRIS: When I really analyze it, Trudi wasn’t for me anyway. The only good times we had were having sex and laying in bed watching TV.
ARIEL: I hate to tell you this, Harris, but if you can find somebody you can have sex with and lie in bed and watch TV, you’ve really got something.
Steve Martin (b. 1945) American comedian, actor, writer, producer, musician
L. A. Story (1991)
(Source)
I saw a moving sight the other morning before breakfast in a little hotel where I slept in the dusty fields. The young man of the house shot a little wolf called coyote in the early morning. The little heroic animal lay on the ground, with his big furry ears, and his clean white teeth, and his little cheerful body, but his little brave life was gone. It made me think how brave all living things are. Here little coyote was, without any clothes or house or books or anything, with nothing to pay his way with, and risking his life so cheerfully — and losing it — just to see if he could pick up a meal near the hotel. He was doing his coyote-business like a hero, and you must do your boy-business, and I my man-business bravely, too, or else we won’t be worth as much as a little coyote.
William James (1842-1910) American psychologist and philosopher
Letter to his son from the Yosemite Valley (28 Aug 1889)
Full text.
It is useless to try to adjudicate a long-standing animosity by asking who started it or who is the most wrong. The only sufficient answer is to give up the animosity and try forgiveness, to try to love our enemies and to talk to them and (if we pray) to pray for them. If we can’t do any of that, then we must begin again by trying to imagine our enemies’ children who, like our children, are in mortal danger because of enmity that they did not cause.
Wendell Berry (b. 1934) American farmer, educator, poet, conservationist
“The Failure of War,” Citizenship Papers (2003)
None but a coward dares to boast that he has never known fear.
Ferdinand Foch (1851-1929) French soldier and military theorist
(Attributed)
A man with a new idea is a Crank until the idea succeeds.
Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
Following the Equator, ch. 32, epigraph (1897)
Now, you may or may not agree that preserving the civil religion in this way is good for the culture. Vote your conscience. But can we really believe that tweaking civil religion in these ways actually brings people closer to the kingdom of God, that it helps them become more like Jesus? For example, does anyone really think that allowing for a prayer before social functions is going to help students become kingdom people? Might not such prayer — and the political efforts to defend such prayer — actually be harmful to the kingdom inasmuch as it reinforces the shallow civil religious mindset that sees prayer primarily as a perfunctory religious activity? Might it not be better to teach our kids that true kingdom prayer has nothing to do with perfunctory social functions, that true kingdom prayer cannot be demanded or retracted by social laws, and that their job as kingdom warriors is to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thess. 5:17) whether the law allows for it to be publicly expressed or not?
Gregory A. "Greg" Boyd (b. 1957) American evangelical pastor, Christian theologian, author.
The Myth of a Christian Nation (2007)
Of all species of silliness the silliest is the assertion sometimes made that the woman whose primary lifework is taking care of her home and children is somehow a “parasite woman.” It is such a ridiculous in version of the truth that it ought not to be necessary even to allude to it.
Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) American politician, statesman, conservationist, writer, US President (1901-1909)
“The Parasite Woman,” Metropolitan (May 1916)
(Source)
Shoulders are from God and burdens, too.
Isaac Bashevis Singer (1904-1991) Polish-American writer, Nobel laureate (b. Icek-Hersz Zynger)
“Gimpel the Fool” (1953) [tr. Bellow (1953)]
Full text.
“I know, up on the top
You are seeing great sights,
But down here at the bottom
We, too, should have rights.”Dr. Seuss (1904-1991) American author, illustrator [pseud. of Theodor Geisel]
“Yertle the Turtle” (1958)
The vaster the power gained, the vaster the appetite for more.
Ursula K. Le Guin (1929-2018) American writer
The Lathe of Heaven, ch. 9 (1971)
To believe in God is to yearn for His existence and, furthermore, it is to act as if He did exist.
Miguel de Unamuno (1864-1936) Spanish philosopher and writer [Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo]
The Tragic Sense of Life [Del Sentimiento Trágico de la Vida], ch. 5 “The Rationalist Dissolution” (1913) [tr. Flitch (1921)]
Full text.
In the long run an opinion often borrows credit from the forbearance of its patrons.
Henry James (1843-1916) American writer
“Essays in Criticism by Matthew Arnold,” North American Review (Jul 1865)
It is a good wise verse, Gutta cavat lapidem non vi se saepe cadendo; “The drop of rain maketh a hole in the stone, not by violence, but by oft falling.”
Hugh Latimer (1487-1555) English cleric, academic, martyr
Seventh Sermon Preached before King Edward VI
Usually just the translation is given and credited to Latimer, though in context he is quoting an older source. Full text.
To have a grievance is to have a purpose in life. A grievance can almost serve as a substitute for hope; it not infrequently happens that those who hunger for hope give their allegiance to him who offers them a grievance.
Eric Hoffer (1902-1983) American writer, philosopher, longshoreman
The Passionate State of Mind, Aphorism 166 (1955)
(Source)
A full purse is not as good as an empty one is bad.
(Other Authors and Sources)
Yiddish saying
The rule of ideas is only powerful in a world that does not change. Ideas are inherently conservative. They yield not to the attack of other ideas but to the massive onslaught of circumstance with which they cannot contend.
John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-2006) Canadian-American economist, diplomat, author
The Affluent Society, ch. 2, sec. 6 (1958)
(Source)
I think that, as life is action and passion, it is required of a man that he should share the passion and action of his time at peril of being judged not to have lived.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (1841-1935) American jurist, Supreme Court Justice
“In Our Youth Our Hearts Were Touched With Fire,” Memorial Day speech, Keene, New Hampshire (30 May 1884)
Full text.
Our hearts, unrisen, yield a heavy bread.
Anne Wilkinson (1910-1961) Canadian poet
“Topsoil to the Wind,” The Hangman Ties the Holly (1955)
I do not want the peace which passeth understanding. I want the understanding which bringeth peace.
On your first appearance before the Court, do not waste your time and ours telling us so. We are likely to discover for ourselves that you are a novice but will think none the less of you for it. Every famous lawyer had his first day at our bar, and perhaps a sad one [….] Be respectful, of course, but also be self-respectful, and neither disparage yourself nor flatter the Justices. We think well enough of ourselves already.
Robert H. Jackson (1892-1954) US Supreme Court Justice (1941-54), lawyer, jurist, politician
“Advocacy Before the Supreme Court,” Morrison Lecture, California State Bar (23 Aug 1951)
(Source)
Reprinted in the Cornell Law Quarterly (Fall 1951). Legal citation "Advocacy Before the Supreme Court," 37 A.B.A.J. 801, 803 (1951).
Life more often teaches us how to perfect our weaknesses than how to develop our strengths.
Elizabeth Bibesco (1897-1945) Romanian-English writer
Haven (1951)
If we live inside a bad joke, it is up to us to learn, at best and worst, to tell it well.
Jonathan Raban (b. 1942) British travel writer and novelist
Coasting: A Private Voyage (1987)
On Philip Larkin. Full text.
If it works, it’s obsolete.
(Other Authors and Sources)
Anonymous
Quoted in Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media: The Extension of Man, ch. 1 (1964)
HARRIS: You know, you’re really nobody in L.A. unless you live in a house with a really big door.
Steve Martin (b. 1945) American comedian, actor, writer, producer, musician
L. A. Story (1991)
(Source)
What could be more absurd, to begin with, than our attitude of high moral outrage against other nations for manufacturing the selfsame weapons that we manufacture? The difference, as our leaders say, is that we will use these weapons virtuously, whereas our enemies will use them maliciously — a proposition that too readily conforms to a proposition of much less dignity: we will use them in our interest, whereas our enemies will use them in theirs.
Wendell Berry (b. 1934) American farmer, educator, poet, conservationist
Citizenship Papers, “The Failure of War” (2003)
Make voyages! — Attempt them! — there’s nothing else.
Tennessee Williams (1911-1983) American playwright
Camino Royale [Byron] (1953)
Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot.
Charlie Chaplin (1889-1977) English comic actor, film director, composer
(Attributed)
An idea isn’t responsible for the people who believe in it.
Don Marquis (1878-1937) American journalist and humorist
“The Sun Dial” column, New York Sun (1918)
When we fail to distinguish between the quasi-Christian civil religion of America and the kingdom of God … we end up wasting precious time and resources defending and tweaking the civil religion — as though doing so had some kingdom value. We strive to keep prayer in schools, fight for the right to have public prayer before football games, lobby to preserve the phrases “under God” in our Pledge of Allegiance and “in God we trust” on our coins, battle to hold the traditional civil meaning of marriage, and things of that sort — as though winning these fights somehow brings America closer to the kingdom of God.
Gregory A. "Greg" Boyd (b. 1957) American evangelical pastor, Christian theologian, author.
The Myth of a Christian Nation (2007)
It is a bad thing for a nation to raise and to admire a false standard of success; and there can be no falser standard than that set by the deification of material well-being in and for itself.
Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) American politician, statesman, conservationist, writer, US President (1901-1909)
Speech (1910-04-23), “Citizenship in a Republic [The Man in the Arena],” Sorbonne, Paris
(Source)
Many things — such as loving, going to sleep, or behaving unaffectedly — are done worst when we try hardest to do them.
C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) English writer, literary scholar, lay theologian [Clive Staples Lewis]
Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Literature, “Edmund Spenser” (1966)
Full text. This chapter of the book was originally printed in Major British Writers, ed. G. B. Harrison (1959).
I am quite sure that (bar one) I have no race prejudice, and I think I have no color prejudices, nor caste prejudices. Indeed, I know it. I can stand any society. All I care to know is that a man is a human being — that is enough for me; he can’t be any worse.
Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
“Concerning the Jews,” Harper’s (Sep 1899)
Power always has most to apprehend from its own illusions.
James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851) American novelist
The American Democrat, Introduction (1838)
"Apprehend" here meaning "fear".
Faith feels itself secure neither with universal consent, nor with tradition, nor with authority. It seeks support of its enemy, reason.
Miguel de Unamuno (1864-1936) Spanish philosopher and writer [Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo]
The Tragic Sense of Life [Del Sentimiento Trágico de la Vida], ch. 4 “The Essence of Catholicism” (1913) [tr. Flitch (1921)]
Full text.
We set sail on this new sea because there is new knowledge to be gained, and new rights to be won, and they must be won and used for the progress of all people. For space science, like nuclear science and technology, has no conscience of its own. Whether it will become a force for good or ill depends on man, and only if the United States occupies a position of preeminence can we help decide whether this new ocean will be a sea of peace or a new terrifying theater of war.
John F. Kennedy (1917-1963) US President (1961-63)
Speech, Rice University, Houston (12 Sep 1962)
The reason we struggle with insecurity is because we compare our behind-the-scenes with everyone else’s highlight reel.
Steven Furtick (b. 1980) American pastor
Speech, Willow Creek Global Leadership Summit (church gathering) (11 Aug 2011)
Religion, patriotism, race, and sex are the favorite red herrings of foul political method — they are the most successful because they explode so easily and flood the mind with those unconscious prejudices which make critical thinking difficult.
Walter Lippmann (1889-1974) American journalist and author
A Preface to Politics (1913)
When money speaks, truth is silent.
(Other Authors and Sources)
Russian saying
Wealth is not without its advantages, and the case to the contrary, although it has often been made, has never proved widely persuasive.
John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-2006) Canadian-American economist, diplomat, author
The Affluent Society, ch. 1, sec. 1 (1958)
(Source)
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction […] The chain reaction of evil — hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars — must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.
Always strive to excel, but only on the weekends.
Richard Rorty (1931-2007) American philosopher
(Attributed)
We can discover the fact that we had a prejudice only after having got rid of it.
Sir Karl Popper (1902-1994) Austrian-British philosopher
The Open Society and Its Enemies, 2.23 (1945)
There is no way to peace. Peace is the way.
A. J. Muste (1885-1967) Dutch-American minister, labor and civil rights activist, pacifist [Reverend Abraham Johannes Muste]
“Debating Dissent,” New York Times (16 Nov 1967)
Sometimes attributed to Gandhi, or cited as a quote of Gandhi by Muste.
If certain acts of violation of treaties are crimes, they are crimes whether the United States does them or whether Germany does them, and we are not prepared to lay down a rule of criminal conduct against others which we would not be willing to have invoked against us.
Robert H. Jackson (1892-1954) US Supreme Court Justice (1941-54), lawyer, jurist, politician
International Conference on Military Trials, London (1945)
US Dept. of State Publication No. 3080 (1949), p.330.
Blessed are those who give without remembering and take without forgetting.
Elizabeth Bibesco (1897-1945) Romanian-English writer
Haven (1951)
Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.
Marcus Aurelius (AD 121-180) Roman emperor (161-180), Stoic philosopher
(Spurious)
Widely attributed to Marcus Aurelius, but no actual citation found, and with some discrepancies to his philosophy. The closest match appears to be Meditations 2.11, but it is a very poor match.
More information:
Forecast: To observe that which has passed, and guess it will happen again; to anticipate the future by guessing at the past; to predict that an event will happen, if it does, by basing calculations on events that have already happened, if they did.
Elbert Hubbard (1856-1915) American writer, businessman, philosopher
The Roycroft Dictionary (1914)
(Source)
There are two kinds of adhesive tape: that which won’t stay and that which won’t come off.
(Other Authors and Sources)
Telesco’s Law of Nursing
In Arthur Bloch, Murphy's Law: Book Two, "Medical Murphology" (1980).
HARRIS: Sitting there at that moment I thought of something else Shakespeare said. He said, “Hey … life is pretty stupid; with lots of hubbub to keep you busy, but really not amounting to much.” Of course I’m paraphrasing: “Life is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
Steve Martin (b. 1945) American comedian, actor, writer, producer, musician
L. A. Story (1991)
(Source)
If we are serious about peace, then we must work for it as ardently, seriously, continuously, carefully, and bravely as we have ever prepared for war.
Wendell Berry (b. 1934) American farmer, educator, poet, conservationist
“A Citizen’s Response,” Citizenship Papers (2003)
The best Qualification of a Prophet is to have a good Memory.
George Savile, Marquis of Halifax (1633-1695) English politician and essayist
“Experience,” Political, Moral, and Miscellaneous Reflections (1750)
(Source)
If the sky falls, hold up your hands.
(Other Authors and Sources)
Spanish proverb
There are few minds in a century that can look upon a new idea without terror. Fortunately for the rest of us, there are very few new ideas about.
W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965) English novelist and playwright [William Somerset Maugham]
A Writer’s Notebook, “1896” (1949)
If you peel back the facade of the civil religion, you find that America is about as pagan as any country we could ever send missionaries to. Despite what a majority of Americans say when asked by pollsters, we are arguably no less self-centered, unethical, or prone toward violence than most other cultures. We generally look no more like Jesus, dying on a cross out of love for the people who crucified him, than people in other cultures. The fact that we have a quasi-Christian civil religion doesn’t help; if anything, it hurts precisely because it creates the illusion that we are closer to the example of Jesus than we actually are.
Gregory A. "Greg" Boyd (b. 1957) American evangelical pastor, Christian theologian, author.
The Myth of a Christian Nation (2007)
Distrust above all other men the man who seeks to make you pass judgment upon your fellow citizens upon any ground of artificial distinction between you and them. Distrust the man who seeks to get you to favor them or discriminate against them either because they are well off or not well off, because they occupy one social position or another, because they live in one part of the country or another, or because they profess one creed or another.
Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) American politician, statesman, conservationist, writer, US President (1901-1909)
“The Cuban Dead,” speech, Arlington National Cemetery (12 Apr 1907)
Speech at the unveiling of the "Rough Riders" (1st U.S. Voluntary Cavalry) monument. Full text.
Character is the ability to carry out a good resolution long after the excitement of the moment has passed.
Cavett Robert (1908-1997) American orator, lawyer
“A Ticket to Anywhere,” speech (1969)Variants:
- "Character is the ability to carry out a good resolution long after the mood in which it was made has left you."
- "Character is the ability to carry out a good resolution long after the emotion of the moment has passed."
Described in California Farmer, Volume 230 (1969)
The Bible is not a Rulebook for Other People. Those who pretend that it is are always, always trying to tell you who it is that you don’t have to love. When that’s your starting point, you’re reading it wrong.
Fred Clark (Contemp.) American author, journalist
Slacktivist blog, “The Bible Is Not a Rulebook for Other People” (9 Apr 2012)
Full text.
Glorious is the risk! — καλος γαρ ο κινδυνος, glorious is the risk that we are able to run of our souls never dying … Faced with this risk, I am presented with arguments designed to eliminate it, arguments demonstrating the absurdity of the belief in the immortality of the soul; but these arguments fail to make any impression on me, for they are reasons and nothing more than reasons, and it is not with reasons that the heart is appeased. I do not want to die — no; I neither want to die nor do I want to want to die; I want to live for ever and ever and ever. I want this “I” to live — this poor “I” that I am and that I feel myself to be here and now, and therefore the problem of the duration of my soul, of my own soul, tortures me.
Miguel de Unamuno (1864-1936) Spanish philosopher and writer [Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo]
The Tragic Sense of Life [Del Sentimiento Trágico de la Vida], ch. 3 “The Hunger of Immortality” (1913) [tr. Flitch (1921)]
Full text.
But however close we sometimes seem to that dark and final abyss, let no man of peace and freedom despair. For he does not stand alone.
John F. Kennedy (1917-1963) US President (1961-63)
Speech, UN General Assembly (25 Sep 1961)
I believe with Justin Martyr, that all good men are Christians, and I believe there have been, and are, good men in all nations, sincere and conscientious.
John Adams (1735-1826) American lawyer, Founding Father, statesman, US President (1797-1801)
Letter to Simon Miller (8 Jul 1820)
I love mankind — it’s people I can’t stand.
Charles Schulz (1922-2000) American cartoonist
Go Fly a Kite, Charlie Brown (1963)
With money in your pocket, you are wise and handsome, and you sing well too.
(Other Authors and Sources)
Yiddish saying
Long run salvation by men of business has never been highly regarded if it means disturbance of orderly life and convenience in the present. So inaction will be advocated in the present even though it means deep trouble in the future. Here, at least equally with communism, lies the threat to capitalism. It is what causes men who know that things are going quite wrong to say that things are fundamentally sound.
John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-2006) Canadian-American economist, diplomat, author
The Great Crash, 1929, ch. 10 “Cause and Consequence” (1954)
The gospel at its best deals with the whole man, not only his soul but his body, not only his spiritual well-being, but his material well being. Any religion that professes to be concerned about the souls of men and is not concerned about the slums that damn them, the economic conditions that strangle them and the social conditions that cripple them is a spiritually moribund religion awaiting burial.
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman, civil rights leader, social activist, preacher
Pilgrimage to Non-Violence (1960)
Thus I advise against suicide. Life may not be exactly pleasant, but it is at least not dull. Heave yourself into Hell today, and you may miss, tomorrow or next day, another Scopes trial, or another War to End War, or perhaps a rich and buxom widow with all her first husband’s clothes.
H. L. Mencken (1880-1956) American writer and journalist [Henry Lewis Mencken]
“Swing Low, Sweet Chariot!” The American Mercury (Apr 1928)
Review of R. Cavan, Suicide. Full text.
Of what help is anyone who can only be approached with the right words?
Elizabeth Bibesco (1897-1945) Romanian-English writer
Haven (1951)
The peace of God which passes all understanding.
The Bible (The New Testament) (AD 1st - 2nd C) Christian sacred scripture
Philippians 4:7
We must never forget that the record on which we judge these defendants is the record on which history will judge us tomorrow. To pass these defendants a poisoned chalice is to put it to our own lips as well.
Robert H. Jackson (1892-1954) US Supreme Court Justice (1941-54), lawyer, jurist, politician
Nuremberg Trials, Opening Statement (10 Nov 1945)
You got to have fun while you’re fightin’ for freedom, ’cause you don’t always win.
Molly Ivins (1944-2007) American writer, political columnist [Mary Tyler Ivins]
“The Fun’s in the Fight,” Mother Jones (May/Jun 1993)
Morality or Virtue is the end, faith only a Means to obtain that end: And if the end be obtained, it is no matter by what means.
Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) American statesman, scientist, philosopher, aphorist
“Dialogue Between Two Presbyterians” (1735)
No one can settle how much we ought to give. I’m afraid the only safe rule is to give more than we can spare,
C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) English writer, literary scholar, lay theologian [Clive Staples Lewis]
Mere Christianity, ch. 3 “Social Morality” (1952)
1. Nothing is as easy as it looks.
2. Everything takes longer than you think.
3. If there is possibility of several things going wrong, the one that will cause the most damage will be the one to go wrong.(Other Authors and Sources)
Murphy’s Law: Colrollaries
In Arthur Bloch, Murphy's Law: And Other Reasons Why Things Go gnorW, "Murphyology" (1979). See Murphy's Law.
SARA: Roland thinks L.A. is a place for the brain-dead. He says, if you turned off the sprinklers, it would turn into a desert. But I think — I don’t know, it’s not what I expected. It’s a place where they’ve taken a desert and turned it into their dreams. I’ve seen a lot of L.A. and I think it’s also a place of secrets: secret houses, secret lives, secret pleasures. And no one is looking to the outside for verification that what they’re doing is all right. So what do you say, Roland?
ROLAND: I still say it’s a place for the brain-dead.
Steve Martin (b. 1945) American comedian, actor, writer, producer, musician
L. A. Story (1991)
(Source)
Our Constitution, by its separation of powers and its system of checks and balances, acts as a restraint upon efficiency by denying exclusive power to any branch of government. The logic of governmental efficiency, unchecked, runs straight on, not only to dictatorship, but also to torture, assassination, and other abominations.
Wendell Berry (b. 1934) American farmer, educator, poet, conservationist
“A Citizen’s Response,” Citizenship Papers (2003)
A man’s character is most evident by how he treats those who are not in a position either to retaliate or reciprocate.
Paul Eldridge (1888-1982) American educator, novelist, poet
“Lanterns in the Night,” Maxim 41, The Jewish Forum (Aug 1948)
Restated by Eldridge in Maxims for a Modern Man, #1198 (1965): "A man is most accurately judged by how he treats those who are not in a position either to retaliate or to reciprocate."
The same sentiment is also made or attributed to Ann Landers, Abigail Van Buren, Malcolm Forbes, James Miles, and (without any reference found) Goethe and Samuel Johnson. A more convoluted version can be found in the 19th Century by Charles Spurgeon.
More examination of this quotation:
If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars.
Arthur Hugh Clough (1819-1861) English poet
“Say Not The Struggle Naught Availeth” (1849)
[Economic] and social changes, though among the greatest, are not the only forces which shape the course of our species. Ideas are not always the mere signs and effects of social circumstances: they are themelves a power in history.
John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) English philosopher and economist
“M. de Tocqueville on Democracy in America” (vol. 2), The Edinburgh Review (Oct 1840)
When kingdom-of-God citizens aspire to acquire Caesar’s authority to accomplish “the good,” we sell our kingdom birthright for a bowl of worldly porridge (Gen. 25:29-34). To the extent that we pick up the sword, we put down the cross. When our goal as kingdom people becomes centered on effectively running a better (let alone Christian) version of the kingdom of the world, we compromise to be faithful to the kingdom of God.
Gregory A. "Greg" Boyd (b. 1957) American evangelical pastor, Christian theologian, author.
The Myth of a Christian Nation (2007)
Courtesy is as much the mark of a gentleman as courage. If we respect ourselves, we individually show both qualities; and, in our collective capacity, we should demand of our representatives that the nation show both qualities in its dealings with other nations.
Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) American politician, statesman, conservationist, writer, US President (1901-1909)
Editorial, The Outlook (1 Apr 1911)
TROUT: After all, what is reality anyway? Nothin’ but a
collective hunch.Jane Wagner (b. 1935) American humorist, writer, director
The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe, Part 1 (1985) [perf. Lily Tomlin]
(Source)
Variant: "Reality is a collective hunch."
Nations follow their historic interests rather more faithfully than they do their ideologies.
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. (1917-2007) American historian, author, social critic
The Bitter Heritage: Vietnam and American Democracy, 1941-1966, ch. 7 (1967)
Man is said to be a reasoning animal. I do not know why he has not been defined as an affective or feeling animal. Perhaps that which differentiates him from other animals is feeling rather than reason. More often I have seen a cat reason than laugh or weep. Perhaps it weeps or laughs inwardly — but then perhaps, also inwardly, the crab resolves equations of the second degree.
Miguel de Unamuno (1864-1936) Spanish philosopher and writer [Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo]
The Tragic Sense of Life [Del Sentimiento Trágico de la Vida], ch. 1 “The Man of Flesh and Bone” (1913) [tr. Flitch (1921)]
Full text.
The corruption inherent in absolute power derives from the fact that such power is never free from the tendency to turn man into a thing, and press him back into the matrix of nature from which he has risen. For the impulse of power is to turn every variable into a constant, and give to commands the inexorableness and relentlessness of laws of nature. Hence absolute power corrupts even when exercised for humane purposes. The benevolent despot who sees himself as a shepherd of the people still demands from others the submissiveness of sheep. The taint inherent in absolute power is not its inhumanity but its anti-humanity.
Eric Hoffer (1902-1983) American writer, philosopher, longshoreman
The Ordeal of Change, ch. 15 “The Unnaturalness of Human Nature” (1963)
For I can assure you that we love our country, not for what it was, though it has always been great — not for what it is, though of this we are deeply proud — but for what it someday can, and, through the efforts of us all, someday will be.
John F. Kennedy (1917-1963) US President (1961-63)
Speech, National Industrial Conference Board (13 Feb 1961)
(Source)
Administrivia: No, this is not a pattern
At least I hope not.
After being on vacation for most of a week, I was back a couple of days, then promptly fell sick. Fell sick as in “I didn’t restart my computer until five days later.
But I’m back! And so are the quotations!
Rehearsing my impromptu witticisms.
Winston Churchill (1874-1965) British statesman and author
(Attributed)
When asked by Harold MacMillan what he was doing.
IAGO: How poor are they that have not patience!
What wound did ever heal but by degrees?William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Othello, Act 2, sc. 3, l. 391ff (2.3.391-392) (1603)
(Source)
National character is only another name for the particular form which the littleness, perversity, and baseness of mankind take in every country. If we become disgusted with one, we praise another, until we get disgusted with this too. Every nation mocks at other nations, and all are right.
[Dem Nationalcharakter wird, da er von der Menge redet, nie viel Gutes ehrlicherweise nachzurühmen sein. Vielmehr erscheint nur die menschliche Beschränktheit, Verkehrtheit und Schlechtigkeit in jedem Lande in einer andern Form und diese nennt man den Nationalcharakter. Von einem derselben degoutirt loben wir den andern, bis es uns mit ihm eben so ergangen ist. — Jede Nation spottet über die andere, und alle haben recht.]
Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) German philosopher
Parerga and Paralipomena, Vol. 1, “Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life [Aphorismen zur Lebensweisheit],” ch. 4 “Position, or a Man’s Place in the Estimation of Others [Von dem, was einer vorstellt]” (1851) [tr. Saunders (1890), 4.2]
(Source)
(Source (German)). Alternate translation:Since national character speaks of the crowd, not much good will ever be honestly said in its favour. On the contrary, we see in a different form in each country only human meanness, perversity, and depravity, and this is called national character. Having become disgusted with one of them, we praise another until we become just as disgusted with it. Every nation ridicules the rest and all are right.
[tr. Payne (1974), ch. 4 "What a Man Represents"]
It has often been said that power corrupts. But it is perhaps equally important to realize that weakness, too, corrupts. Power corrupts the few, while weakness corrupts the many. Hatred, malice, rudeness, intolerance, and suspicion are the faults of weakness. The resentment of the weak does not spring from any injustice done to them but from the sense of inadequacy and impotence. We cannot win the weak by sharing our wealth with them. They feel our generosity as oppression. St. Vincent De Paul cautioned his disciples to deport themselves so that the poor “will forgive them the bread you give them.”
Eric Hoffer (1902-1983) American writer, philosopher, longshoreman
The Ordeal of Change, ch. 2 “The Awakening of Asia” (1963)
This passage uses phrases from his earlier work The Passionate State Of Mind, and Other Aphorisms (1955)
And we must face the fact that the United States is neither omnipotent or omniscient — that we are only six percent of the world’s population — that we cannot impose our will upon the other ninety-four percent of mankind — that we cannot right every wrong or reverse each adversity — and that therefore there cannot be an American solution to every world problem.
John F. Kennedy (1917-1963) US President (1961-63)
Speech, University of Washington, Seattle (16 Nov 1961)
Administrivia: We now resume our regularly scheduled quoting
Back from vacation. Let the quoting begin!
And what I’ve learned is not to believe in magical leaders any more; that character and compassion are more important than ideology; and that even if it’s absurd to think you can change things, it’s even more absurd to think that it’s foolish and unimportant to try.
Peter C. Newman (b. 1929) Canadian journalist and writer
Home Country (1973)
Who would enjoy a life of no runs, no hits, no errors?
Hans Seyle (1907-1982) Hungarian endocrinologist [Selye János]
Stress Without Distress (1975)
It is impossible to imagine a nation which throughout the course of its whole existence has no cause for repentance. Every nation without exception, however persecuted, however cheated, however flawlessly righteous it feels itself to be today, has certainly at one time or another contributed its share of inhumanity, injustice, and arrogance.
Alexander Solzhenitsen (1918-2008) Russian novelist, emigre [Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn]
“Repentence and Self-Limitation in the Life of Nations” (1975)
We usually see only the things we are looking for — so much so that we sometimes see them where they are not.
Eric Hoffer (1902-1983) American writer, philosopher, longshoreman
The Passionate State of Mind, Aphorism 238 (1955)
(Source)
Let us not despair but act. Let us not seek the Republican answer or the Democratic answer but the right answer. Let us not seek to fix the blame for the past — let us accept our own responsibility for the future.
John F. Kennedy (1917-1963) US President (1961-63)
Speech, Loyola College Alumni Banquet, Baltimore (18 Feb 1958)
(Source)
There’s a reason you separate military and the police. One fights the enemies of the state, the other serves and protects the people. When the military becomes both, then the enemies of the state tend to become the people.
Ronald D. Moore (b. 1964) American screenwriter, television producer
Battlestar Galactica, S01E02 “Water” [Adama] (25 Oct 2004)
There is only one class in the community that thinks more about money than the rich, and that is the poor. The poor can think of nothing else.
Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) Irish poet, wit, dramatist
“The Soul of Man Under Socialism,” Fortnightly Review (Feb 1891)
Writing is a long and lonesome business; back of the problems in thought and composition hover always the awful questions: Is this the page that shows the empty shell? Is it here and now that they find me out?
John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-2006) Canadian-American economist, diplomat, author
The Great Crash, 1929, Introduction, Sec. 1 (1954)
Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn’t have to do it himself.
A. H. Weiler (1908-2002) Russian-American editor, critic
“Weiler’s Law”
Quoted in Arthur Bloch, Murphy's Law and Other Reasons That Things Go gnorW (1977)
I am something of a stoic, both by nature and by inheritance. And I learned from the example of my father that the manner in which one endures what must be endured is more important than the thing that must be endured.
Dean Acheson (1893-1971) American statesman
(Attributed)
Quoted in Merle Miller, Plain Speaking: An Oral Biography of Harry S. Truman (1986)
It isn’t enough to talk about peace; one must believe in it. And it isn’t enough to believe in it; one must work at it.
Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962) First Lady of the US (1933-45), politician, diplomat, activist
Radio broadcast, Voice of America (11 Nov 1951)
If we can cultivate in the world the idea that aggressive war-making is the way to the prisoner’s dock rather than the way to honors, we will have accomplished something toward making the peace more secure.
Robert H. Jackson (1892-1954) US Supreme Court Justice (1941-54), lawyer, jurist, politician
Nuremberg Trials, Opening Statement (10 Nov 1945)
There are two kinds of humor. One kind that makes us chuckle about our foibles and our shared humanity – like what Garrison Keillor does. The other kind holds people up to public contempt and ridicule — that’s what I do. Satire is traditionally the weapon of the powerless against the powerful. I only aim at the powerful. When satire is aimed at the powerless, it is not only cruel — it’s vulgar.
Molly Ivins (1944-2007) American writer, political columnist [Mary Tyler Ivins]
“The Mouth of Texas” People (9 December 1991)
A century from now, nobody will know which way I drove to work, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have to keep my eyes on the road.
Graham Ericsson (b. 1947) American writer, aphorist
A View from Eighteen, ch. 1 (2011)
It is our experience that political leaders do not always mean the opposite of what they say.
Abba Eban (1915-2002) Israeli politician and diplomat [b. Aubrey Solomon Eban]
In The Observer (5 Dec 1971)
If there is a wrong thing to do, it will be done, infallibly.
George Orwell (1903-1950) English writer [pseud. of Eric Arthur Blair]
“War-time Diary” (1941-05-18)
See Murphy's Law.
HARRIS: Forget for this moment the smog and the cars and the restaurant and the skating and remember only this. A kiss may not be the truth, but it is what we wish were true.
Steve Martin (b. 1945) American comedian, actor, writer, producer, musician
L. A. Story (1991)
(Source)
To imply by the word “terrorism” that this sort of terror is the work exclusively of “terrorists” is misleading. The “legitimate” warfare of technologically advanced nations likewise is premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against innocents. The distinction between the intention to perpetrate violence against innocents, as in “terrorism,” and the willingness to do so, as in “war,” is not a source of comfort.
Wendell Berry (b. 1934) American farmer, educator, poet, conservationist
“A Citizen’s Response,” Citizenship Papers (2003)
In science it often happens that scientists say, “You know that’s a really good argument; my position is mistaken,” and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn’t happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
Carl Sagan (1934-1996) American scientist and writer
Keynote Address, CSICOP (1987)
I think, no matter where you be,
You’ll hold me in your memory
And keep my image, there without me,
By telling later loves about me.Dorothy Parker (1893-1967) American writer
“But Not Forgotten”
Men become susceptible to ideas, not by discussion and argument, but by seeing them personified and by loving the person who so embodies them.
Lewis Mumford (1895-1990) American writer, philosopher, historian, architect
The Conduct of Life, 4.3 (1951)
While this conclusion may seem paradoxical to the Constantinian kingdom-of-the-world mindset, it makes perfect sense within a kingdom-of-God mindset. For the kingdom of God is not about coercive “power over,” but influential “power under.” Its essence is found in the power to transform lives from the inside out through love and service.
Gregory A. "Greg" Boyd (b. 1957) American evangelical pastor, Christian theologian, author.
The Myth of a Christian Nation (2007)
The great corporations which we have grown to speak of rather loosely as trusts are the creatures of the State, and the State not only has the right to control them wherever need of such control is shown … The immediate necessity in dealing with trusts is to place them under the real, not the nominal, control of some sovereign to which, as its creatures, the trusts owe allegiance, and in whose courts the sovereign’s orders may be enforced. In my opinion, this sovereign must be the National Government.
Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) American politician, statesman, conservationist, writer, US President (1901-1909)
Speech, Providence, Rhode Island (23 Aug 1902)
There is no young man, no grown man, living that can not do more than he thinks he can.
Henry Ford (1863-1947) American industrialist
“My Advice to Young Men” (1930)
We must never delude ourselves into thinking that physical power is a substitute for moral power, which is the true sign of national greatness.
Adlai Stevenson (1900-1965) American diplomat, statesman
Speech, Hartford, Connecticut (18 Sep 1952)
There is a powerful craving in most of us to see ourselves as instruments in the hands of others and thus free ourselves from the responsibility for acts which are prompted by our own questionable inclinations and impulses. Both the strong and the weak grasp at this alibi. The latter hide their malevolence under the virtue of obedience: they acted dishonorably because they had to obey orders. The strong, too, claim absolution by proclaiming themselves the chosen instrument of a higher power — God, history, fate, nation or humanity.
Eric Hoffer (1902-1983) American writer, philosopher, longshoreman
The Passionate State of Mind, Aphorism 85 (1955)
(Source)
When I ran for Presidency of the United States, I knew that this country faced serious challenges, but I could not realize — nor could any man realize who does not bear the burdens of this office — how heavy and constant would be those burdens.
John F. Kennedy (1917-1963) US President (1961-63)
“Radio and TV Report to the American People on the Berlin Crisis” (25 Jul 1961)
(Source)
Realize that true happiness lies within you.
Lucian (c. AD 120 - after 180) Assyrian rhetoric, satirist [Lucian of Samasota]
(Attributed)
Everyone lives downstream from someone else.
(Other Authors and Sources)
American saying
Money, says the proverb, makes money. When you have got a little, it is often easy to get more. The great difficulty is to get that little.
Adam Smith (1723-1790) Scottish economist
The Wealth of Nations, 1.9 (1776)
Let’s begin with capitalism, a word that has gone largely out of fashion. The approved reference now is to the market system. This shift minimizes — indeed, deletes — the role of wealth in the economic and social system. And it sheds the adverse connotation going back to Marx. Instead of the owners of capital or their attendants in control, we have the admirably impersonal role of market forces. It would be hard to think of a change in terminology more in the interest of those to whom money accords power. They have now a functional anonymity.
John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-2006) Canadian-American economist, diplomat, author
“Free Market Fraud”, The Progressive (Jan 1999)
You know my friends, there comes a time when people get tired of being trampled by the iron feet of oppression. […] We are not wrong, we are not wrong in what we are doing. If we are wrong, the Supreme Court of this nation is wrong. If we are wrong, the Constitution of the United States is wrong. And if we are wrong, God Almighty is wrong. If we are wrong, Jesus of Nazareth was merely a utopian dreamer that never came down to Earth. If we are wrong, justice is a lie, love has no meaning. And we are determined here in Montgomery to work and fight until “justice runs down like water, and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman, civil rights leader, social activist, preacher
Speech, Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) Mass Meeting, Hold Street Baptist Church, Montgomery (5 Dec 1955)
Quotation is from the Bible, Amos 5:24.
To avoid the various foolish opinions to which mankind are prone, no superhuman genius is required. A few simple rules will keep you, not from all error, but from silly error. If the matter is one that can be settled by observation, make the observation yourself. Aristotle could have avoided the mistake of thinking that women have fewer teeth than men, by the simple device of asking Mrs. Aristotle to keep her mouth open while he counted. He did not do so because he thought he knew. Thinking that you know when in fact you don’t is a fatal mistake, to which we are all prone. I believe myself that hedgehogs eat black beetles, because I have been told that they do; but if I were writing a book on the habits of hedgehogs, I should not commit myself until I had seen one enjoying this unappetizing diet.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
“An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish,” Unpopular Essays (1950)
We begin to understand the goal of life is to die young — as late as possible!
Ashley Montagu (1905-1999) British-American anthropologist and humanist [b. Israel Ehrenberg, a/k/a Montague Francis Ashley-Montagu]
Growing Young, ch. 1 (1981)
Sometimes paraphrased: "The idea is to die young as late as possible."
Never have the nations of the world had so much to lose, or so much to gain. Together we shall save our planet, or together we shall perish in its flames. Save it we can — and save it we must — and then we shall earn the eternal thanks of mankind and, as peacemakers, the eternal blessings of God.
John F. Kennedy (1917-1963) US President (1961-63)
Speech, United Nations (20 Sep 1963)
But the validity of a doctrine does not depend on whose ox it gores.
Robert H. Jackson (1892-1954) US Supreme Court Justice (1941-54), lawyer, jurist, politician
Wells v. Simonds Abrasive Co., 345 U.S. 514, 525 (1953)
The problem with those who choose received Authority over fact and logic is how they choose which part of Authority to obey. The Bible famously contradicts itself at many points (I have never understood why any Christian would choose the Old Testament over the New), and the Koran can be read as a wonderfully compassionate and humanistic document. Which suggests that the problem of fundamentalism lies not with authority, but with ourselves.
Molly Ivins (1944-2007) American writer, political columnist [Mary Tyler Ivins]
Creators Syndicate column (27 Jun 2000)
Full text.
Freedom has been defined as the opportunity for self-discipline. Should we persistently fail to discipline ourselves, eventually there will be increasing pressure on government to redress the failure. By that process freedom will step by step disappear.
Dwight David Eisenhower (1890-1969) American general, US President (1953-61)
State of the Union Address (1957)
Nor is the people’s judgment always true:
The most may err as grossly as the few.John Dryden (1631-1700) English poet, dramatist, critic
Absalom and Achitophel, l. 781 (1681)
If anything can go wrong, it will.
(Other Authors and Sources)
“Murphy’s Law” (1949)Direct variants:
- "Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong."
- "Everything that can possibly go wrong will go wrong."
The history behind Murphy's Law -- and its very similar antecedents -- is long and disputed, unsurprising given its simple sentiments. It is most often attributed (via the name) to Capt. Edward Murphy, a development engineer working on rapid deceleration g-force tests, and first named as such by Dr. John Stapp, a US Air Force colonel and Flight Surgeon overseeing the project. See Wikipedia for a summary, and AIR for more information.
That this economic system persists and grows larger and stronger in spite of its evident failure has nothing to do with rationality or, for that matter, with evidence. It persists because, embodied now in multinational corporations, it has discovered a terrifying truth: If you can control a people’s economy, you don’t need to worry about its politics; its politics have become irrelevant. If you control people’s choices as to whether or not they will work, and where they will work, and what they will do, and how well they will do it, and what they will eat and wear, and the genetic makeup of their crops and animals, and what they will do for amusement, then why should you worry about freedom of speech? In a totalitarian economy, any “political liberties” that the people might retain would simply cease to matter. If, as is often the case already, nobody can be elected who is not wealthy, and if nobody can be wealthy without dependence on the corporate economy, then what is your vote worth? The citizen thus becomes an economic subject.
Wendell Berry (b. 1934) American farmer, educator, poet, conservationist
“Conserving Forest Communities,” Another Turn of the Crank (1996)