Peace cannot be built on exclusion. That has been the price of the past 30 years.
Gerry Adams (b. 1948) Northern Irish politician, statesman [Gearóid Mac Ádhaimh]
Daily Telegraph (11 Apr 1998)
It is through education that the daughter of a peasant can become a doctor, that the son of a mine worker can become the head of the mine, that a child of farm workers can become the president of a great nation. It is what we make out of what we have, not what we are given, that separates one person from another.
Nelson Mandela (1918-2013) South African revolutionary, politician, statesman
Long Walk to Freedom (1995)
“The first ten million years were the worst,” said Marvin, “and the second ten million years, they were the worst, too. The third ten million years I didn’t enjoy at all. After that I went into a bit of a decline.”
Douglas Adams (1952-2001) English writer
The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, ch. 18 (1980)
Administrivia: WIST now supports mobile!
I’ve activated (and tweaked) the WordPress JetPack mobile theme for WIST, so that people on smaller mobile devices don’t get eyes strain trying to visit the place. If you visit on a mobile phone or any device below a certain resolution, you will get a streamlined version of WIST which should be much easier to read. If you want to shift back to the original, there’s a link at the bottom that says “View Full Site” that will take you there.
I am still having a few formatting problems, particularly with the humongous “WIST” logo at the top. My apologies for that — I’ll strive to fix it as soon as I can figure out how.
Please leave comments with any problems you are having. Thanks!
Reality provides us with facts so romantic that imagination itself could add nothing to them.
Jules Verne (1828-1905) French novelist, poet, playwright
The Fur Country (1873)
In giving of thy alms, inquire not so much into the person, as his necessity. God looks not so much upon the merits of him that requires, as into the manner of him that relieves; if the man deserve not, thou hast given it to humanity.
“Simple things are never problems,” I told her. “Unfortunate, maybe, but if it isn’t complicated, it isn’t really a problem.”
The Goddess nodded. “Very good, Vlad; I didn’t expect such wisdom from you.”
I grunted and didn’t tell her I was quoting my grandfather; I’d rather she stayed impressed.
Steven Brust (b. 1955) American writer, systems programmer
Issola (2001)
Elections are won by men and women chiefly because most people vote against somebody rather than for somebody.
Franklin Pierce Adams (1881-1960) American journalist and humorist
Nods and Becks (1944)
Adams earlier used a similar phrase (not claiming attribution) in his "Conning Tower" column (13 Nov 1916): "Voters went to the polls, as had been observed frequently, with the intention to vote against Somebody rather than for Somebody." See also Fields.
More discussion about the origins of this quotation: I Never Vote For Anybody. I Always Vote Against – Quote Investigator.
It is a dear and lovely disposition, and a most valuable one, that can brush away indignities and discourtesies and seek and find the pleasanter features of an experience.
Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
In The North American Review (1906)
(Source)
Change your opinions, keep to your principles;
change your leaves, keep intact your roots.
Victor Hugo (1802-1885) French writer
Victor Hugo’s Intellectual Autobiography (1907) [tr. O’Rourke]
A memorandum is written not to inform the reader but to protect the writer.
Dean Acheson (1893-1971) American statesman
(Attributed)
We are as liable to be corrupted by our books as by our companions.
Henry Fielding (1707-1754) English novelist, dramatist, satirist
“A Fragment of a Comment on Lord Bolingbroke’s Essays” (1755)
Just because you’re offended, doesn’t mean you’re right.
It is a strange desire, to seek power and to lose liberty.
Francis Bacon (1561-1626) English philosopher, scientist, author, statesman
Essays, “Of Great Place” (1625)
Rash indeed is he who reckons on the morrow, or haply on days beyond it; for tomorrow is not, until today is past.
Sophocles (496-406 BC) Greek tragic playwright
Trachiniae, l. 943
Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep.
The Bible (The New Testament) (AD 1st - 2nd C) Christian sacred scripture
Romans 12:15 [KJV]
Quoting 12:15-18: "Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep. Be of the same mind toward one another; do not be haughty in mind, but associate with the lowly Do not be wise in your own estimation. Never pay back evil for evil to anyone Respect what is right in the sight of all men. If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men."
Did they live happily ever after? They did not. No one ever does, in spite of what the stories may say. They had their good days, as you do, and they had their bad days, and you know about those. They had their victories, as you do, and they had their defeats, and you know about those, too. There were times when they felt ashamed of themselves, knowing they had not done their best, and there were times when they knew they had stood where their God had meant them to stand. All I’m trying to say is that they lived as well as they could.
Stephen King (b. 1947) American author
The Eyes of the Dragon (1987)
DANILOV: We must give them hope, pride, a desire to fight. Yes, we need to make examples. But examples to follow. What we need are heroes.
Jean-Jacques Annaud (b. 1943) French film director, screenwriter, producer
Enemy at the Gates (2001) [with Alain Godard]
I do not say that Democracy has been more pernicious, on the whole, and in the long run, than Monarchy or Aristocracy. Democracy has never been and never can be so durable as Aristocracy or Monarchy. But while it lasts it is more bloody than either. […] Remember Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes exhausts and murders itself. There never was a Democracy Yet, that did not commit suicide.
John Adams (1735-1826) American lawyer, Founding Father, statesman, US President (1797-1801)
Letter to John Taylor (17 Dec 1814)
(Source)
The cynic is one who never sees a good quality in a man, and never fails to see a bad one. He is the human owl, vigilant in darkness, and blind to light, mousing for vermin, and never seeing noble game.
Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887) American clergyman and orator
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit (1870)
The first duty towards children is to make them happy. If you have not made them happy, you have wronged them. No other good they may get can make up for that.
Charles Buxton (1823-1871) English brewer, philanthropist, writer, politician
Notes of Thought (1873)
“You mean,” said Lucy rather faintly, “that it would have turned out all right—somehow? But how? Please, Aslan! Am I not to know?”
“To know what would have happened, child?” said Aslan. “No. Nobody is ever told that.”
“Oh dear,” said Lucy.
“But anyone can find out what will happen,” said Aslan. “If you go back to the others now, and wake them up; and tell them you have seen me again; and that you must all get up at once and follow me — what will happen? There is only one way of finding out.”
C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) English writer, literary scholar, lay theologian [Clive Staples Lewis]
Prince Caspian (1951)
If the universe is bigger and stranger than I can imagine, it’s best to meet it with an empty bladder.
John Scalzi (b. 1969) American writer
Old Man’s War (2005)
When I contemplate the common lot of mortality, I must acknowledge that I have drawn a high prize in the lottery of life … the double fortune of my birth in a free and enlightened country, in an honourable and wealthy family, is the lucky chance of an unit against millions.
Edward Gibbon (1737-1794) English historian
Memoirs of My Life and Writings (1796)
Good humor may be said to be one of the very best articles of dress one can wear in society.
William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-1863) English novelist
Sketches and Travels in London, “On Tailoring — and Toilets in General” (1856)
I will enjoy the pleasure of what I give by giving it alive, and seeing another enjoy it. When I die, I should be ashamed to leave enough to build me a monument if there were a wanting friend above ground.
Alexander Pope (1688-1744) English poet
Letter to Jonathan Swift (9 Oct 1729)
So I didn’t have a plan. I did, as I stood there, start to get seeds of what might, sometime, become a vague step generally in the direction of an intention. I may be stating that too strongly.
Steven Brust (b. 1955) American writer, systems programmer
Issola (2001)
I know the colour rose, and it is lovely,
But not when it ripens in a tumour;
And healing greens, leaves and grass, so springlike,
In Limbs that fester are not springlike.Daniel "Dannie" Abse (1923-2014) Welsh poet
“Pathology of Colours” (1968)
Everything is possible for an eccentric, especially when he is English.
Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection, we can catch excellence.
Vince Lombardi (1913-1970) American football coach
(Attributed)
Posterity! You will never know, how much it cost the present Generation, to preserve your Freedom! I hope you will make a good Use of it. If you do not, I shall repent in Heaven, that I ever took half the Pains to preserve it.
John Adams (1735-1826) American lawyer, Founding Father, statesman, US President (1797-1801)
Letter to Abigail Adams (26 Apr 1777)
(Source)
The more you are drawn to put yourself in the place of the other person, the more you feel the pain inflicted upon him, the insult offered him, the injustice of which he is a victim, the more you will be urged to act so that you may prevent the pain, insult, or injustice.
Peter Kropotkin (1842-1921) Russian activist, scientist, philosopher, anarchist
Anarchist Morality (1909)
Men trust their ears less than their eyes.
Herodotus (c.484-c.420 BC) Greek historian
The Histories, Book 1, ch. 8
She was a grown up now, and she discovered that being a grown up was not quite what she had suspected it would be when she was a child. She had thought then that she would make a conscious decision one day to simply put her toys and games and little make-believes away. Now she discovered that was not what happened at all. Instead, she discovered, interest simply faded. It became less and less and less, until a dust of years drew over the bright pleasures of childhood, and they were forgotten.
Stephen King (b. 1947) American author
The Eyes of the Dragon (1987)
Remember that children, marriages, and flower gardens reflect the kind of care they get.
H. Jackson "Jack" Brown, Jr. (b. 1940) American writer
Life’s Instructions for Wisdom, Success, and Happiness (2001)
I have always preferred cheerfulness to mirth. The latter I consider as an act, the former as an habit of mind. Mirth is short and transient, cheerfulness fixed and permanent. Those are often raised into the greatest transports of mirth who are subject to the greatest depressions of melancholy. On the contrary, cheerfulness, though it does not give the mind such an exquisite gladness, prevents us from falling into any depths of sorrow. Mirth is like a flash of lightning, that breaks through a gloom of clouds, and glitters for a moment; cheerfulness keeps up a kind of daylight in the mind, and fills it with a steady and perpetual serenity.
Joseph Addison (1672-1719) English essayist, poet, statesman
The Spectator, #381, “Cheerfulness and Mirth” (17 May 1712)
(Source)
A city is in many respects a great business corporation, but in other respects it is enlarged housekeeping. … May we not say that city housekeeping has failed partly because women, the traditional housekeepers, have not been consulted as to its multiform activities?
Jane Addams (1860-1935) American reformer, suffragist, philosopher, author
Newer Ideals of Peace, “Utilization of Women in City Government” (1907)
She shrugged. “I don’t mind getting old.”
“I didn’t mind getting old when I was young, either,” I said. “It’s the being old now that’s getting to me.”
John Scalzi (b. 1969) American writer
Old Man’s War (2005)
The prouder a man is, the more he thinks he deserves; and the more he thinks he deserves, the less he really does deserve.
Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887) American clergyman and orator
Royal Truths (1866)
The chances of finding out what’s really going on in the universe are so remote, the only thing to do is hang the sense of it and keep yourself occupied.
Douglas Adams (1952-2001) English writer
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, ch. 30 (1979)
Yes, yes, we are taught to fly in the air like birds, and to swim in the water like the fishes; but how to live on the earth we don’t know.
Maxim Gorky (1868-1936) Russian writer [b. Alexei Maximovich Peshkov]
(Attributed)
Quoting a Russian peasant on progress; cited in Lothrop Soddard, Social Classes in Post-War Europe (1925).
Quoted later by Martin Luther King, Jr., in "The Man Who Was a Fool," Strength to Love (1963): "We have learned to fly the air like birds and swim the sea like fish, but we have not learned the simple art of living together as brothers"; he used the same phrase in his Nobel Peace Prize lecture (1964).
Variant: "Now that we have learned to fly the air like birds, swim under water like fish, we lack one thing—to learn to live on earth as human beings."
Sometimes misattributed to George Bernard Shaw. See here for more information.
Let us not be mistaken: the best government in the world, the best parliament and the best president, cannot achieve much on their own. And it would be wrong to expect a general remedy from them alone. Freedom and democracy include participation and therefore responsibility from us all.
Václav Havel (1936-2011) Czech playwright, essayist, dissident, politician
“New Year’s Address to the Nation” (1 Jan 1990)
History is crowded with the persons who have exchanged a life of dismay for death. Lucius Aruntius killed himself, he said, to escape from both the future and the past.
[L’Histoire est toute pleine de ceux qui en mille façons ont changé à la mort une vie peneuse. Lucius Aruntius se tua, pour, disoit-il, fuir et l’advenir et le passé.]
Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) French essayist
Essays, Book 2, ch. 3 “A Custom of the Island of Cea [Coustume de l’Isle de Cea]” (c. 1573) (2.3) (1595) [tr. Ives (1925)]
(Source)
The reference to Lucius Aruntius, who killed himself during the waning days of Tiberius' reign before he could, like other enemies of Tiberius, be imprisoned and executed, was added in the 1588 edition. The event is described in Tacitus, Annals, Book 6, sec. 48.
(Source (French)). Alternate translations:The historie is very full of such, who a thousand wayes have changed a lingering-toylsome life with death. Lucius Aruntius killed himselfe (as he saide) to avoyde what was past, and eschew what was to come.
[tr. Florio (1603)]History abounds with instances of persons that have in a thousand forms, exchanged a melancholy life for death. Lucius Aruntius killed himself for the sake, as he said, of flying from deeds past and to come.
[tr. Cotton (1686), Vol. 1, ch. 60]History is everywhere full of those who by a thousand ways have exchanged a painful and irksome life for death. Lucius Aruntius killed himself, to fly, he said, both the future and the past.
[tr. Cotton/Hazlitt (1877)]History is chock full of those who in a thousand ways have changed a painful life for death. Lucius Arruntius killed himself, he said, to escape both the future and the past.
[tr. Frame (1943)]History is full of people who have, in thousands of ways, exchanged a pain-filled life for death. Lucius Aruntius killed himself, "to escape," he said, "from the future and the past."
[tr. Screech (1987)]
In the woods too, a man casts off his years, as the snake his slough, and at what period soever of life, is always a child. In the woods, is perpetual youth. Within these plantations of God, a decorum and sanctity reign, a perennial festival is dressed, and the guest sees not how he should tire of them in a thousand years. In the woods, we return to reason and faith. There I feel that nothing can befall me in life, — no disgrace, no calamity, (leaving me my eyes,) which nature cannot repair. Standing on the bare ground, — my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space, — all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eye-ball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
“Nature,” ch. 1, Nature: Addresses and Lectures (1849)
(Source)
The very poor can always be depended upon. They never turn away the hungry. Time and again, all over the United States, have I been refused food at the big house on the hill; and always have I received food from the little shack down by the creek or marsh, with its broken windows stuffed with rags and its tired-faced mother broken with labor. Oh! you charity-mongers, go to the poor and learn, for the poor alone are the charitable. They neither give nor withhold from the excess. They have no excess. They give, and they withhold never, from what they need for themselves. A bone to the dog is not charity. Charity is the bone shared with the dog when you are just as hungry as the dog.
Jack London (1876-1916) American novelist
“My Life in the Underworld,” Cosmopolitan Magazine (May 1907)
(Source)
Republished in The Road, Part 1, ch. 1 (1907). Recalling his days as a hobo in 1892.
It’s important to be kind. You can’t know all the times that you’ve hurt people in tiny, significant ways. It’s easy to be cruel without meaning to be. There’s nothing you can do about that. But you can choose to be kind. Be kind.
Categories, if you’ll excuse a brief digression, are a useful way to get a handle on things you don’t understand, as long as you don’t get too attached to them and forget that things like to pop out of one category and into another, and that sometimes the whole category turns itself inside out and becomes something different. It’s useful, for example, to categorize your target as a sorcerer, if he is one; but if you get too attached to your category it’ll leave you embarrassed when he suddenly pulls a knife on you.
Steven Brust (b. 1955) American writer, systems programmer
Issola (2001)
Though sleep is called our best friend, it is a friend who often keeps us waiting!
Jules Verne (1828-1905) French novelist, poet, playwright
The Steam House, Book 2, ch. 5 (1880)
(Source)
KATHERINE: He made her melancholy, sad, and heavy,
And so she died. Had she been light like you,
Of such a merry, nimble, stirring spirit,
She might ha’ been a grandam ere she died.
And so may you, for a light heart lives long.William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Love’s Labour’s Lost, Act 5, sc. 2, l. 15ff (5.2.15-19) (c. 1595)
(Source)
To Rosaline.
Fashions in sin change.
Lillian Hellman (1905-1984) American playwright, screenwriter
Watch on the Rhine (1941)
We send missionaries to China so the Chinese can get to heaven, but we won’t let them into our country.
Pearl S. Buck (1892-1973) American writer
(Attributed)
Quoted in Clifton Fadiman, The American Treasury: 1455-1955 (1955).
Consider as well that, however one may sing the praises of those who by their virtue either defend or increase the glory of their country, their actions only affect worldly prosperity, and within narrow limits. But the man who sets fallen learning on its feet (and this is almost more difficult than to originate it in the first place) is building up a sacred and immortal thing, and serving not one province alone but all peoples and all generations. Once this was the task of princes, and it was the greatest glory of Ptolemy. But his library was contained between the narrow walls of its own house, and Aldus is building up a library which has no other limits than the world itself.
Desiderius Erasmus (1465-1536) Dutch humanist philosopher and scholar
The Adages, “Make Haste Slowly [Festina Lente]” (1508 ed.)
(Source)
Discussing the Aldine Press, the first modern publishing house. In Margaret Mann Phillips, ed., Erasmus on His Times (1967).
If you are threatened or offended by people disagreeing, challenging or even ridiculing your faith, your faith can’t be that strong.
Mahomet made the people believe that he would call a hill to him, and from the top of it offer up his prayers for the observers of his law. The people assembled. Mahomet called the hill to come to him, again and again; and when the hill stood still he was never a whit abashed, but said, “If the hill will not come to Mahomet, Mahomet will go to the hill.”
Francis Bacon (1561-1626) English philosopher, scientist, author, statesman
Essays, “Of Boldness” (1625)
What the world wants iz good examples, not so mutch advice; advice may be wrong, but examples prove themselves.
[What the world wants is good examples, not so much advice; advice may be wrong, but examples prove themselves.]
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. 130 “Affurisms: Puddin & Milk” (1874)
(Source)
I give you now Professor Twist,
A conscientious scientist.
Trustees exclaimed, “He never bungles!”
And sent him off to distant jungles.
Camped on a tropic riverside,
One day he missed his loving bride.
She had, the guide informed him later,
Been eaten by an alligator.
Professor Twist could not but smile.
“You mean,” he said, “a crocodile.”Ogden Nash (1902-1971) American poet
“The Purist”
Sympathy … is not an end in itself. … Not mere feeling, but action, will mitigate the world’s misery, society’s injustice, or the people’s alienation from God.
Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907-1972) Polish-American rabbi, theologian, philosopher
The Prophets, 18 (1962)
In a book, all would have gone according to plan. … but life was so fucking untidy — what could you say for an existence where some of your most crucial conversations of your life took place when you needed to take a shit, or something? An existence where there weren’t even any chapters?
Stephen King (b. 1947) American author
Misery (1987)
Laws for the liberal education of youth, especially of the lower class of people, are so extremely wise and useful, that, to a humane and generous mind, no expense for this purpose would be thought extravagant.
John Adams (1735-1826) American lawyer, Founding Father, statesman, US President (1797-1801)
“Thoughts on Government” (Apr 1776)
(Source)
Experience iz a grindstun, and it iz lucky for us if we kan git brightened by it, not ground.
[Experience is a grindstone, and it is lucky for us if we can get brightened by it, not ground.
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. 130 “Affurisms: Puddin & Milk” (1874)
(" target="_blank">Source)
This aphorism was transformed / paraphrased in the early 1920s into something a bit more inspirational, first (it appears) in Forbes (1922-10-14), then in similar form in other periodicals such as The Beaver (1924-03) and Wood Construction (1924-09-15). The new form:Life is a grindstone, and whether it grinds a man down or polishes him up, depen's on the stuff he's made of.
In an earlier pass of Billings quotations, I did up a meme, unknowingly based on that later phrasing:
For we do not easily expect evil of those whom we love most.
[Non enim facile de his quos plurimum diligimus turpitudinem suspicamur.]
Peter Abelard (1079-1142) French philosopher, theologian, logician [Pierre Abélard]
Historia Calamitatum Mearum, ch. 6
In America there are two classes of travel — first class, and with children. Traveling with children corresponds roughly to traveling third class in Bulgaria.
Robert Benchley (1889-1945) American humorist
Pluck and Luck (1925)
For as much as I hate the cemetery, I’ve been grateful it’s here, too. I miss my wife. It’s easier to miss her at a cemetery, where she’s never been anything but dead, than to miss her in all the places where she was alive.
John Scalzi (b. 1969) American writer
Old Man’s War (2005)
CATO: Content thyself to be obscurely good.
When vice prevails, and impious men bear sway,
The post of honour is a private station.Joseph Addison (1672-1719) English essayist, poet, statesman
Cato, Act 4, sc. 4, l. 139ff (1713)
(Source)
When the political columnists say “Every thinking man,” they mean themselves, and when candidates appeal to “Every intelligent voter,” they mean everybody who is going to vote for them.
Franklin Pierce Adams (1881-1960) American journalist and humorist
Nods and Becks (1944)
The ocean is a large drop; the drop, a small ocean.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
Journal (1836)
“You know,” said Arthur, “it’s at times like this, when I’m trapped in a Vogon airlock with a man from Betelgeuse, and about to die of asphyxiation in deep space that I really wish I’d listened to what my mother told me when I was young.”
“Why, what did she tell you?”
“I don’t know, I didn’t listen.”
Douglas Adams (1952-2001) English writer
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, ch. 7 (1979)
It’s innocence when it charms us, ignorance when it doesn’t.
Mignon McLaughlin (1913-1983) American journalist and author
The Second Neurotic’s Notebook, ch. 10 (1966)
(Source)
Our loyalty is due entirely to the United States. It is due to the President only and exactly to the degree in which he efficiently serves the United States. It is our duty to support him when he serves the United States well. It is our duty to oppose him when he serves it badly. This is true about Mr. Wilson now and it has been true about all our Presidents in the past. It is our duty at all times to tell the truth about the President and about every one else, save in the cases where to tell the truth at the moment would benefit the public enemy.
Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) American politician, statesman, conservationist, writer, US President (1901-1909)
Kansas City Star (7 May 1918)
Reprinted in "Lincoln and Free Speech," The Great Adventure (1926).
Are all men in disguise except those crying?
Daniel "Dannie" Abse (1923-2014) Welsh poet
“Encounter at a greyhound bus station” (1986)
Be charitable and indulgent to every one but yourself.
Joseph Joubert (1754-1824) French moralist, philosopher, essayist, poet
(Attributed)
(Source)
Frequently attributed to Joubert, but with no citation from his works. Earliest quoted in Maturin M. Ballou, ed., Treasury of Thought (1884 ed.).
Sometimes given "but thyself."
It’s one thing to be aware of complex strategies and lies that might be going on around you. It’s another to let yourself become so worried about deception that you become paralyzed.
Steven Brust (b. 1955) American writer, systems programmer
Dragon (1998)
He who walks through a great city to find subjects for weeping, may, God knows, find plenty at every corner to wring his heart; but let such a man walk on his course, and enjoy his grief alone — we are not of those who would accompany him. The miseries of us poor earthdwellers gain no alleviation from the sympathy of those who merely hunt them out to be pathetic over them. The weeping philosopher too often impairs his eyesight by his woe, and becomes unable from his tears to see the remedies for the evils which he deplores. Thus it will often be found that the man of no tears is the truest philanthropist, as he is the best physician who wears a cheerful face, even in the worst of cases.
Charles Mackay (1814-1889) Scottish poet, journalist, song writer
Extraordinary Popular Delusions And The Madness Of Crowds (1841)
Your God is the best God.
In fact, he’s the only God.
All other Gods are ridiculous, made up rubbish.
Not yours though. Yours is real.
Change is not always progress. […] A fever of newness has been everywhere confused with the spirit of progress.
Henry Ford (1863-1947) American industrialist
Ford Ideals (1922)
The profit of books is according to the sensibility of the reader. The profoundest thought or passion sleeps as in a mine, until an equal mind and heart finds and publishes it.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
“Quotation and Originality,” Letters and Social Aims (1876)
If you want to be adored by your peers and have standing ovations wherever you go — live to be over ninety.
George Abbott (1887-1995) American director, producer, dramatist
(Attributed)
Quoted in his obituary in The Times of London (2 Feb 1995)
Has it ever occurred to you … that parents are nothing but overgrown kids until their children drag them into adulthood? Usually kicking and screaming?
Stephen King (b. 1947) American author
Christine, Part 1, ch. 3 (1983)
Maybe this is the chief thing the dog knows better than we do. There isn’t enough time in life to do anything but love and do our work with joy. We should sleep when we’re tired. Run with abandon. Always be happy to see each other. And never stop believing we will, someday, catch the squirrel.
Rash indeed is he who reckons on the morrow, or haply on days beyond it; for tomorrow is not, until today is past.
Sophocles (496-406 BC) Greek tragic playwright
Trachiniae, l. 943
There are obviously two educations. One should teach us how to make a living and the other how to live.
John Adams (1735-1826) American lawyer, Founding Father, statesman, US President (1797-1801)
(Misattributed)
Actually American writer and historian James Truslow Adams (1878-1949).Variants:
- "There are two types of education. One should teach us how to make a living, and the other how to live."
- "There are two educations. One should teach us how to make a living and the other how to live."
There are few mortals so insensible that their affections cannot be gained by mildness; their confidence by sincerity; their hatred by scorn or neglect.
Johann Georg Zimmermann (1728-1795) Swiss philosophical writer, naturalist, physician
Aphorisms and Reflections on Men, Morals and Things (1800)
(Source)
The best way to cheer yourself is to try to cheer somebody else up.
Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
Note (1896-11-26), Mark Twain’s Notebook, ch. 27 “England” (1935) [ed. Albert Bigelow Paine]
(Source)
Written while in Guilford, England, shortly after the death of his daughter Susy in America.
Often given as "The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up." More discussion here.
By concentrating on what is good in people, by appealing to their idealism and their sense of justice, and by asking them to put their faith in the future, socialists put themselves at a severe disadvantage.
Ian McEwan (b. 1948) English novelist and screenwriter
City Limits (London, May 27, 1983)
When the debate is lost, slander becomes the tool of the loser.
Socrates (c.470-399 BC) Greek philosopher
(Spurious)
Of recent coinage. See here for more discussion.
I hate that I’ve become one of those old men who visits a cemetery to be with his dead wife. When I was (much) younger I used to ask Kathy what the point would be. A pile of rotting meat and bones that used to be a person isn’t a person anymore; it’s just a pile of rotting meat and bones. The person is gone — off to heaven or hell or wherever or nowhere. You might as well visit a side of beef.
When you get older you realize this is still the case. You just don’t care. It’s what you have.
John Scalzi (b. 1969) American writer
Old Man’s War (2005)
No man can tell whether he is rich or poor by turning to his ledger. It is the heart that makes a man rich. He is rich or poor according to what he is, not according to what he has.
Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887) American clergyman and orator
Life Thoughts: Gathered from the Extemporaneous Discourses of Henry Ward Beecher (1858)
The beginnings of all things are small.
[Omnium rerum principia parva sunt.]
Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BC) Roman orator, statesman, philosopher
De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum, Book 5, ch. 58
Alt. trans.: "Everything has a small beginning."
After sitting next to Mr. Gladstone I thought he was the cleverest man in England. But after sitting next to Mr. Disraeli I thought I was the cleverest woman in England.
(Other Authors and Sources)
Princess Marie Louise of Schleswig-Holstein (1872-1956) (Attributed)
The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don’t.
Douglas Adams (1952-2001) English writer
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, ch. 3 (1979)
Observe the invincible tendency of the mind to unify. It is a law of our constitution that we should not contemplate things apart without the effort to arrange them in order with known facts and ascribe them to the same law.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
Journal (1836)
I myself am made entirely of flaws, stitched together with good intentions.
Augusten Burroughs (b. 1965) American writer
Magical Thinking (2004)
You find yourself refreshed by the presence of cheerful people. Why not make earnest efforts to confer that pleasure on others? You will find half the battle is gained, if you never allow yourself to say anything gloomy.
Lydia Maria Child (1802-1880) American abolitionist, activist, journalist, suffragist
Looking Toward Sunset (1874, 10th ed.)
Kragar made a sound I won’t attempt to describe. I could sense Loiosh holding back several remarks. It seems I surround myself with people who think I’m an idiot, which probably says something deep and profound about me.
Steven Brust (b. 1955) American writer, systems programmer
Dragon (1998)
We do not quite forgive a giver. The hand that feeds us is in some danger of being bitten. We can receive anything from love, for that is a way of receiving it from ourselves; but not from any one who assumes to bestow.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
“Gifts,” Essays: Second Series, No. 5 (1844)
(Source)
How many things have been denied one day, only to become realities the next!
Jules Verne (1828-1905) French novelist, poet, playwright
From the Earth to the Moon (1865)
(Source)
PORTIA: How far that little candle throws his beams!
So shines a good deed in a naughty world.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Merchant of Venice, Act 5, sc. 1, l. 99ff (5.1.99-100) (1597)
(Source)
In some versions, "So shines a good deed in a weary world."
Sometimes misattributed to Roald Dahl; Willy Wonka uses the line toward the end of the movie Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971).
All is change; all yields its place and goes.
Euripides (485?-406? BC) Greek tragic dramatist
Heracles (421-416 B.C.)
Consider what you have in the smallest chosen library. A company of the wisest and wittiest men that could be picked out of all civil countries, in a thousand years, have set in best order the results of their learning and wisdom. The men themselves were hid and inaccessible, solitary, impatient of interruption, fenced by etiquette; but the thought which they did not uncover to their bosom friend is here written out in transparent words to us, the strangers of another age.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
“Books,” Society and Solitude (1870)
And remember, your critics want you to be as unhappy, unfulfilled and unimportant as they are. Let your happiness eat them up from inside.