We are much beholden to Machiavel and others, that write what men do, and not what they ought to do.
Francis Bacon (1561-1626) English philosopher, scientist, author, statesman
De Augmentis Scientiarum [Advancement of Learning], Book 2, ch. 21, #9 (1605)
Let us tenderly and kindly cherish, therefore, the means of knowledge. Let us dare to read, think, speak and write.
John Adams (1735-1826) American lawyer, Founding Father, statesman, US President (1797-1801)
“A Dissertation on the Canon and the Feudal Law” No. 4, Boston Gazette (1765-10-21)
(Source)
It’s probably wrong to believe there can be any limit to the horror which the human mind can experience. On the contrary, it seems that some exponential effect begins to obtain as deeper and deeper darkness falls — as little as one may like to support the idea that when the nightmare grows black enough, horror spawns horror, one coincidental evil begets other, often more deliberate evils, until finally blackness seems to cover everything.
And the most terrifying question of all may be just how much horror the human mind can stand and still maintain a wakeful, staring, unrelenting sanity. That such events have their own Rube Goldberg absurdity goes almost without saying. At some point, it all starts to become rather funny. That may be the point at which sanity begins either to save itself or to buckle and break down; that point at which one’s sense of humor begins to reassert itself.
Stephen King (b. 1947) American author
Pet Sematary (1983)
Enthusiasm of the cause may sometimes warp judgment.
William Howard Taft (1857-1930) US President (1909-13) and Chief Justice (1921-1930)
Speech, Methodist Conference, Ocean Grove, NJ (15 Aug 1911)
How long do you want to wait until you start enjoying life? When you’re sixty-five you get Social Security, not girls.
Neil Simon (1927-2018) American playwright and screenwriter
Come Blow Your Horn (1961)
Dreadful will be the day when the world becomes contented, when one great universal satisfaction spreads itself over the world. Sad will be the day for every man when he becomes absolutely contented with the life that he is living, with the thoughts that he is thinking, with the deeds that he is doing, when there is not forever beating at the doors of his soul some great desire to do something larger which he knows that he was meant and made to do because he is a child of God.
Phillips Brooks (1835-1893) American clergyman, hymnist
Daily Thoughts from Phillips Brooks (1893)
There was really only one thing for her to say, those three words that all the terrible art, the worst pop songs and movies, the most seductive lies, can somehow never cheapen. I love you.
Ian McEwan (b. 1948) English novelist and screenwriter
“Only love and then oblivion,” The Guardian (15 Sep 2001)
(Source)
One day I sat thinking, almost in despair; a hand fell on my shoulder and a voice said reassuringly: cheer up, things could get worse. So I cheered up and, sure enough, things got worse.
(Other Authors and Sources)
James Haggerty (1909-1981) Press Secretary to President Eisenhower
He always pictured himself a libertarian, which to my way of thinking means “I want the liberty to grow rich and you can have the liberty to starve”. It’s easy to believe that no one should depend on society for help when you yourself happen not to need such help.
Isaac Asimov (1920-1992) Russian-American author, polymath, biochemist
I, Asimov: A Memoir (1994)
At its core, therefore, science is a form of arrogance control.
Carol Tavris (b. 1944) American social psychologist and author
Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts (2008) [with Elliot Aronson]
When you have discovered a stain in yourself, you eagerly seek for and gladly find stains in others.
Berthold Auerbach (1812-1882) German author
(Attributed)
Attributed in Maturin M. Ballou, Edge-Tools of Speech (1886).
Every time the Church has gotten into the political game, no matter what the manner of her entry, no matter what her opinion or posing choices in a political situation with regard to an institution, she has been drawn every time into a betrayal, either of revealed truth or of the incarnate love. She has become involved every time in apostasy. … Politics is the Church’s worst problem. It is her constant temptation, the occasion of her greatest disasters, the trap continually set for her by the Prince of this world.
Jacques Ellul (1912-1994) French philosopher, law professor, sociologist, theologian
The Presence of the Kingdom [Présence au monde moderne] (1948) [tr. Wyon (1951)]
In our brief national history, we have shot four of our presidents, worried five of them to death, impeached one and hounded another out of office. And when all else fails, we hold an election and assassinate their characters.
P. J. O'Rourke (b. 1947) American humorist, editor
Parliament of Whores, “The President” (1991)
Oozing charm from every pore,
He oiled his way around the floor.Alan Jay Lerner (1918-1986) American dramatist, lyricist, composer
“You Did It,” My Fair Lady (1956)
This planet has — or rather had — a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much all of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movement of small green pieces of paper, which was odd because on the whole it wasn’t the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.
Douglas Adams (1952-2001) English writer
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Introduction (1979)
(Source)
Nothing is useless. A superstition is a hamper or a basket to carry useful lessons in.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
Journal (1836)
It doesn’t matter whether the cat is black or white, as long as it catches mice.
Deng Xiaoping (1904-1997) Chinese revolutionary, politician, statesman [Teng Hsiao-p'ing]
Speech, Communist Youth League conference (Jul 1962)
There are a variety of translations, and Deng used the phrase on numerous occasions.
You judge a war according to who is in the right as long as you have no interest in the outcome; if you’re one of the participants, or if the result is going to have a major effect on you, then you have to create the moral principles that put you in the right — that’s nothing new, everyone knows it.
Steven Brust (b. 1955) American writer, systems programmer
Dragon (1998)
A cheerful, easy countenance and behavior are very useful: they make fools think you a good-natured man, and they make designing men think you an undesigning one.
“Is the Master out of his mind?” she asked me.
I nodded.
“And he’s taking you with him?”
I nodded again.
“Where?” she asked.
I pointed towards the centre of the earth.
“Into the cellar?” exclaimed the old servant.
“No,” I said, “farther down than that.”
Jules Verne (1828-1905) French novelist, poet, playwright
Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864)
(Source)
The man who has received a benefit ought always to remember it, but he who has granted it ought to forget the fact at once.
Demosthenes (384-322 BC) Greek orator and statesman
(Attributed)
(Source)
Attributed in Hugh Percy Jones, A New Dictionary of Foreign Phrases and Classical Quotations (1900).
What the tender poetic youth dreams, and prays, and paints to-day, but shuns the ridicule of saying aloud, shall presently be the resolutions of public bodies, then shall be carried as grievance and bill of rights through conflict and war, and then shall be triumphant law and establishment for a hundred years, until it gives place, in turn, to new prayers and pictures.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
“Politics,” Essays: Second Series (1844)
(Source)
This quotation is more often given as the paraphrase used by another speaker of the era, the abolitionist Wendell Phillips:What the tender and poetic youth dreams to-day, and conjures up with inarticulate speech, is to-morrow the vociferated result of public opinion, and the day after is the charter of nations.
Phillips used this phrase, prefixed with, "As Emerson says," and in quotation marks, at least twice. First in his lecture "Harper's Ferry" (1 Nov 1859), Brooklyn. Second, in a different context, in "The Scholar in a Republic" (30 Jun 1881), a famous speech at the centennial of the Phi Beta Kappa society at Harvard University.
Emerson did not use this shorter phrasing, however, in any of his written works, and frequent attributions of it to him are in error.
When a man comes not merely to tolerate, but to boast of the stains that the world has flung upon him; when he wears his spots as if they were jewels; when he flaunts his unscrupulousness, and his cynicism and his disbelief and his hard-heartedness in your face as the signs and badges of his superiority; when to be innocent and unsuspicious and sensitive seems to be ridiculous and weak; when it is reputable to show that we are men of the world by exhibiting the stains that the world has left upon our reputation, our conduct, and our heart, then we understand how flagrant is the danger; then we see how hard it must be to keep ourselves unspotted from the world.
Books are the quietest and most constant of friends, and the most patient of teachers.
Charles William Eliot (1834-1926) American academic
“The Durable Satisfactions of Life,” speech, Harvard University (3 Oct 1905)
“Do unto others …” is a good rule of thumb. I live by that. Forgiveness is probably the greatest virtue there is. But that’s exactly what it is -‐ a virtue. Not just a Christian virtue. No one owns being good. I’m good. I just don’t believe I’ll be rewarded for it in heaven. My reward is here and now. It’s knowing that I try to do the right thing. That I lived a good life. And that’s where spirituality really lost its way. When it became a stick to beat people with. “Do this or you’ll burn in hell.”
You won’t burn in hell. But be nice anyway.
Ricky Gervais (b. 1961) English comedian, actor, director, writer
“Why I’m an Atheist,” Wall Street Journal (19 Dec 2010)
(Source)
For a man to love again where he is loved, it is the charity of publicans contracted by mutual profit and good offices; but to love a man’s enemies is one of the cunningest points of the law of Christ, and an imitation of the divine nature.
Francis Bacon (1561-1626) English philosopher, scientist, author, statesman
Sacred Meditations [Meditationes Sacræ], “Of the Exaltation of Charity” (1597)
Live now, believe me, wait not till tomorrow;
Gather the roses of life today.[Vivez, si m’en croyez, n’attendez à demain;
Cueillez dés aujourd’huy les roses de la vie.]
Pierre de Ronsard (1524-1585) French poet
“Quand vous serez bien vieille, au soir, à la chandelle,” l. 13, Sonnets pour Hélène (1578)
(Source)
MONGO: Mongo only pawn in game of life.
Mel Brooks (b. 1926) American comedic actor, writer, producer [b. Melvyn Kaminsky]
Blazing Saddles (1974)
A person may cause evil to others not only by his actions but by his inaction, and in either case he is justly accountable to them for the injury.
John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) English philosopher and economist
On Liberty, ch. 1 “Introductory” (1859)
(Source)
Remember, Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.
Stephen King (b. 1947) American author
“Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption” (1982)
Our Passions, Ambition, Avarice, Love, Resentment &c possess so much metaphysical Subtilty and so much overpowering Eloquence, that they insinuate themselves into the Understanding and the Conscience and convert both to their Party. And I may be deceived as much as any of them, when I Say, that Power must never be trusted without a Check.
John Adams (1735-1826) American lawyer, Founding Father, statesman, US President (1797-1801)
Letter to Thomas Jefferson (2 Feb 1816)
(Source)
If I am not for myself, who will be for me? And if I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now — when?
Hillel (1st C. BC-1st C. AD) Jewish sage, rabbi [הלל]
Talmud, Mishnah, “Pirkay Avot [Chapters of the Fathers],” Aboth 1:14 [tr. Rosten (1972)]
A harmless hilarity and a buoyant cheerfulness are not infrequent concomitants of genius; and we are never more deceived than when we mistake gravity for greatness, solemnity for science, and pomposity for erudition.
Charles Caleb "C. C." Colton (1780-1832) English cleric, writer, aphorist
Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Vol. 1, § 202 (1820)
(Source)
There are circumstances which have to do with simple human honor. No matter the risk. To resist and not surrender.
Antonin Artaud (1896-1948) French playwright, actor, director
Letter to André Breton (28 Feb 1947)
Nations are never virtuous, though they might sometimes think they are.
Ian McEwan (b. 1948) English novelist and screenwriter
Solar (2010)
Don’t you believe in flying saucers, they ask me? Don’t you believe in telepathy? — in ancient astronauts? — in the Bermuda triangle? — in life after death?
No, I reply. No, no, no, no, and again no.
One person recently, goaded into desperation by the litany of unrelieved negation, burst out “Don’t you believe in anything?”
“Yes”, I said. “I believe in evidence. I believe in observation, measurement, and reasoning, confirmed by independent observers. I’ll believe anything, no matter how wild and ridiculous, if there is evidence for it. The wilder and more ridiculous something is, however, the firmer and more solid the evidence will have to be.”
Isaac Asimov (1920-1992) Russian-American author, polymath, biochemist
The Roving Mind (1983)
See Carl Sagan.
All presidents start out to run a crusade, but after a couple of years they find they are running something less heroic and much more intractable: namely, the presidency.
Alistair Cooke (1908-2004) Anglo-American essayist and journalist
Talk About America, ch. 6 (1981)
“Charm” — which means the power to effect work without employing brute force — is indispensable to women. Charm is a woman’s strength just as strength is a man’s charm.
Havelock Ellis (1859-1939) British sexologist, physician, social reformer [Henry Havelock Ellis]
The Task of Social Hygiene (1912)
Don’t commit suicide, because you might change your mind two weeks later.
Art Buchwald (1925-2007) American humorist, columnist
Leaving Home (1995)
A personal mantra Buchwald used to combat his intermittent depression. Possibly borrowed from Voltaire.
He’s suffering from Politicians’ Logic. Something must be done, this is something, therefore we must do it.
Antony Jay (1930-2016) English writer, broadcaster, director
Yes, Prime Minister, 2×05 “Power to the People” (7 Jan 1988)
Variant: "There is this great idea about the logic of a politician, along the lines of: 'Something must be done, this is something, therefore we must do it.'"
Many’s the long night I’ve dreamed of cheese — toasted, mostly.
Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) Scottish essayist, novelist, poet
Treasure Island, ch. 15 (1883)
GUIDERIUS: Fear no more the heat o’ the sun,
Nor the furious winter’s rages;
Thou thy worldly task hast done,
Home art gone, and ta’en thy wages:
Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Cymbeline, Act 3, sc. 2, l. 331ff (3.2.331-336) (1611)
(Source)
That is what trust is, you know: if we never had secrets from our friends and loved ones, there would never be any need for them to trust us.
Steven Brust (b. 1955) American writer, systems programmer
Orca [Kiera] (1996)
The cheerful live longest in life, and after it, in our regards.
Christian Nestell Bovee (1820-1904) American epigrammatist, writer, publisher
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought (1862)
Posthumous charities are the very essence of selfishness, when bequeathed by those who, when alive, would part with nothing.
Charles Caleb "C. C." Colton (1780-1832) English cleric, writer, aphorist
Lacon: or, Many Things in Few Words, #341 (1820)
(Source)
A true Englishman doesn’t joke when he is talking about so serious a thing as a wager.
Jules Verne (1828-1905) French novelist, poet, playwright
Around the World in Eighty Days (1873)
(Source)
An era can be said to end when its basic illusions are exhausted.
Arthur Miller (1915–2005) American playwright and essayist
“The Year It Came Apart,” New York Magazine (30 Dec 1974)
How can anyone govern a nation that has two hundred and forty-six different kinds of cheese?
Charles de Gaulle (1890-1970) French statesman and soldier
(Attributed)
Quoted in Ernest Mignon, Les Mots du Général (1962).
Reading after a certain age diverts the mind too much from its creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking, just as the man who spends too much time in the theater is tempted to be content with living vicariously instead of living his own life.
Whether you believe that life evolved over billions of years or God made everything, you can’t justify torturing an animal for a shampoo.
And therefore knowledge that tendeth but to satisfaction, is but as a courtesan, which is for pleasure, and not for fruit or generation.
Francis Bacon (1561-1626) English philosopher, scientist, author, statesman
Valerius Terminus: Of the Interpretation of Nature, ch. 1 (1603)
(Source)
The jaws of power are always open to devour, and her arm is always stretched out, if possible, to destroy the freedom of thinking, speaking, and writing.
John Adams (1735-1826) American lawyer, Founding Father, statesman, US President (1797-1801)
“A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law” (1765)
(Source)
Tell us not that the world is governed by universal law; the news is not comfortable, but simply horrible, unless you can tell us, or allow others to tell us, that there is a loving giver, and a just administrator of that law.
Charles Kingsley (1819-1875) English clergyman, historian, essayist, novelist (pseud. "Parson Lot")
“The Meteor Shower,” sermon (26 Nov 1866)
(Source)
Get action. Seize the moment. Man was never intended to become an oyster.
Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) American politician, statesman, conservationist, writer, US President (1901-1909)
Comment to Mrs. J. A. Roosevelt (25 Dec 1851)
(Source)
Quoted in David McCullough, Mornings on Horseback (1981), sourced from the W. Sheffield Cowles, Jr. Collection (private). Usually given as a quote in full to his children, McCullough only notes the last sentence ("Man ... oyster") as an actual quotation.
You couldn’t get hold of the things you’d done and turn them right again. Such a power might be given to the gods, but it was not given to women and men, and that was probably a good thing. Had it been otherwise, people would probably die of old age still trying to rewrite their teens.
Stephen King (b. 1947) American author
The Stand (1978)
We know so little about each other. We lie mostly submerged, like ice floes, with our visible social selves projecting only cool and white.
Ian McEwan (b. 1948) English novelist and screenwriter
Amsterdam (1998)
There are no happy endings in history, only crisis points that pass.
Isaac Asimov (1920-1992) Russian-American author, polymath, biochemist
The Gods Themselves, Sec. 3, ch. 19 (1972)
She hung up and I set out the chess board. I filled a pipe, paraded the chessmen and inspected them for French shaves and loose buttons, and played a championship tournament game between Gortchakoff and Meninkin, seventy-two moves to a draw, a prize specimen of the irresistible force meeting the immovable object, a battle without armour, a war without blood, and as elaborate a waste of human intelligence as you could find anywhere outside an advertising agency.
Raymond Chandler (1888-1959) American novelist
The Long Goodbye, ch. 24 (1953)
A thick skin is a gift from God.
Konrad Adenauer (1876-1967) German politician
New York Times (30 Dec 1959)
Money dishonestly acquired is never worth its cost, while a good conscience never costs as much as it is worth.
Jean-Antoine Petit-Senn (1792-1870) French-Swiss poet
Maxims and Ethical Sentences
The custom and fashion of to-day will be the awkwardness and outrage of to-morrow. So arbitrary are these transient laws.
Alexandre Dumas, père (1802-1870) French novelist and dramatist
(Attributed)
Quoted in James Comper Gray, The Biblical Museum: Old Testament, vol. 3 (1878 ed.).
So give me the political economist, the sanitary reformer, the engineer; and take your saints and virgins, relics and miracles. The spinning-jenny and the railroad, Cunard’s liners and the electric telegraph, are to me, if not to you, signs that we are, on some points at least, in harmony with the universe; that there is a mighty spirit working among us, who cannot be your anarchic and destroying Devil, and therefore may be the Ordering and Creating God.
Charles Kingsley (1819-1875) English clergyman, historian, essayist, novelist (pseud. "Parson Lot")
Yeast: A Problem, ch. 5 (1848)
(Source)
To be a book collector is to combine the worst characteristics of a dope-fiend with those of a miser.
Robertson Davies (1913-1995) Canadian author, editor, publisher
The Papers of Samuel Marchbanks (1985)
Some of you are really smart. You know who you are.
Some of you are really thick. Unfortunately, you don’t know who you are.
Nothing is terrible except fear itself.
[Nil terribile nisi ipse timor.]
Francis Bacon (1561-1626) English philosopher, scientist, author, statesman
De Augmentis Scientiarum [Advancement of Learning], Part 2, “Fortitudo” (1605)
Hope for the best.
Expect the worst.
The world’s a stage.
We’re unrehearsed.
Mel Brooks (b. 1926) American comedic actor, writer, producer [b. Melvyn Kaminsky]
The Twelve Chairs, “Hope for the Best, Expect the Worst”, chorus (1970)
The virtues, like the body, become strong more by labor than by nourishment.
Jean Paul Richter (1763-1825) German writer, art historian, philosopher, littérateur [Johann Paul Friedrich Richter; pseud. Jean Paul]
(Attributed)
Quoted in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895).
Most men spend the best part of their lives making the remaining part wretched.
[La plupart des hommes emploient la meilleure partie de leur vie à rendre l’autre misérable.]
Jean de La Bruyère (1645-1696) French essayist, moralist
The Characters [Les Caractères], ch. 11 “Of Mankind [De l’Homme],” § 102 (11.102) (1688) [tr. Stewart (1970)]
(Source)
(Source (French)). Alternate translations:The greatest part of mankind employ their first years to make their last miserable.
[Bullord ed. (1696)]The greatest part of Mankind imploy their first Years to make their last miserable.
[Curll ed. (1713)]The greatest part of Mankind employ their first Years to make their last miserable. [Browne ed. (1752)]Most men employ the first years of their life in making the last miserable.
[tr. Van Laun (1885)]Most men make use of the first part of their life to render the last part miserable.
[Source]
You know, here in America we’re loyal to our flaws. It’s like, if we change even our flaws there’s something wrong.
William "Bill" Maher (b. 1956) American comedian, political commentator, critic, television host.
“Bill Maher, Incorrect American Patriot,” Interview with Sharon Waxman, Washington Post (8 Nov 2002)
(Source)
Every day should be passed as if it were to be our last.
Publilius Syrus (d. 42 BC) Assyrian slave, writer, philosopher [less correctly Publius Syrus]
Sententiae [Moral Sayings], # 633
Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.
Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936) English journalist and writer
“Cheese,” Alarms and Discursions (1911)
Beware, beware! he’ll cheat ‘ithout scruple, who can without fear.
Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) American statesman, scientist, philosopher, aphorist
Poor Richard’s Almanack (1743)
You know that prudery is only the other side of prurience. The words are even on the same page in the dictionary.
Isaac Asimov (1920-1992) Russian-American author, polymath, biochemist
The Gods Themselves, Sec. 3, ch. 12 (1972)
Now, I’m an atheist. I really don’t believe for a moment that our moral sense comes from a God. […] It’s human, universal, [it’s] being able to think our way into the minds of others. As I said at the time, what those holy fools clearly lacked, or clearly were able to deny themselves, was the ability to enter into the minds of the people they were being so cruel to. Amongst their crimes, is, was, a failure of the imagination, of the moral imagination.
Ian McEwan (b. 1948) English novelist and screenwriter
“Faith and Doubt At Ground Zero,” Frontline (Feb 2002)
The public cannot be too curious concerning the characters of public men.
Samuel Adams (1722-1803) American revolutionary, statesman
Letter to James Warren (4 Nov 1775)
Duty makes us do things well, but love makes us do them beautifully.
Phillips Brooks (1835-1893) American clergyman, hymnist
(Attributed)
(Source)
Quoted in Life and Light for Woman, Vol. 26, #1 (Jan 1896)
The United States brags about its political system, but the President says one thing during the election, something else when he takes office, something else at midterm and something else when he leaves.
Deng Xiaoping (1904-1997) Chinese revolutionary, politician, statesman [Teng Hsiao-p'ing]
Comment (1983)
(Source)
When asked by a group of American professors about China's political stability. Quoted in Philip West and Frans A. M. Alting von Geusau, The Pacific Rim and the Western World: Strategic, Economic, and Cultural Perspectives (1987).
ALICK. What IS charm, exactly, Maggie?
MAGGIE. Oh, it’s — it’s a sort of bloom on a woman. If you have it, you don’t need to have anything else; and if you don’t have it, it doesn’t much matter what else you have.
J. M. Barrie (1860-1937) Scottish novelist and dramatist [James Matthew Barrie]
What Every Woman Knows (1918)
Usually quoted in an elided format ("Charm, it's a sort of bloom on a woman ...:).
If you attack the establishment long enough and hard enough, they will make you a member of it.
Art Buchwald (1925-2007) American humorist, columnist
Speech, Horatio Alger Award Dinner, Washington, DC (May 1989)
Buchwald used a number of variations of this phrase; this particular one was reported a week later in the International Herald Tribune (24 May 1989), but other versions go back to the 1960s (e.g., "Woe to the person in this country who attacks the establishment. It isn’t jail, nor even physical harm, that he must fear. His main problem is that by attacking the Establishment, he automatically becomes a member of it, and there is no greater punishment in the world," from his column of 7 May 1968). See here for more info.
The only real training for leadership is leadership.
Antony Jay (1930-2016) English writer, broadcaster, director
(Attributed)
A cheerful temper, joined with innocence will make beauty attractive, knowledge delightful, and wit good-natured.
Joseph Addison (1672-1719) English essayist, poet, statesman
The Tatler #192 (1 Jul 1710)
Do not give, as many rich men do, like a hen that lays her egg and then cackles.
Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887) American clergyman and orator
“Plymouth Pulpit” (26 Jun 1869)
All the pieces wish to be, if not a player, at least the piece the players are most concerned with.
Steven Brust (b. 1955) American writer, systems programmer
Dragon (1998)
He believed in it, as certain good women believe in the leviathan — by faith, not by reason.
Jules Verne (1828-1905) French novelist, poet, playwright
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, ch. 4 (1870)
(Source)
The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those who speak it.
George Orwell (1903-1950) English writer [pseud. of Eric Arthur Blair]
(Attributed)
People seldom improve when they have no other model but themselves to copy.
Oliver Goldsmith (1730-1774) Irish poet, playwright, novelist
“On Our Theaters,” The Bee, #11 (13 Oct 1759)
Life is not a static thing. The only people who do not change their minds are incompetents in asylums, who can’t, and those in cemeteries.
Everett Dirksen (1896-1969) American politician
(Attributed)
There is more treasure in books than in all the pirates loot on Treasure Island and at the bottom of the Spanish Main … and, best of all, you can enjoy these riches every day
of your life.Walt Disney (1901-1966) American entrepreneur, animator, film producer, showman
(Attributed)
The only route to success is hard work. If you didn’t work hard I don’t think it counts as success.
Nay, number (itself) in armies importeth not much, where the people is of weak courage; for (as Virgil saith) It never troubles a wolf how many the sheep be.
Francis Bacon (1561-1626) English philosopher, scientist, author, statesman
Essays or Counsels Civil and Moral, No. 29 “Of the True Greatness of Kingdoms and Estates” (1612)
(Source)
The wolf reference is actually a common Latin proverb: "Non curat numerum lupus [The wolf doesn't care about the number]," or its longer form "Lupus non curat numerum ovium" [The wolf does not care about the number of sheep.].
Though Bacon explicitly notes the phrase in Virgil's Eclogues, the Latin saying is often attributed to Bacon.
I have always been delighted at the prospect of a new day, a fresh try, one more start, with perhaps a bit of magic waiting somewhere behind the morning.
J. B. Priestley (1894-1984) English author, dramatist [John Boyne Priestley]
Delight (1949)
One hundred and eighty-eight years ago this week a small band of valiant men began a long struggle for freedom. They pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor not only to found a nation, but to forge an ideal of freedom — not only for political independence, but for personal liberty — not only to eliminate foreign rule, but to establish the rule of justice in the affairs of men. That struggle was a turning point in our history. Today in far corners of distant continents, the ideals of those American patriots still shape the struggles of men who hunger for freedom. This is a proud triumph. Yet those who founded our country knew that freedom would be secure only if each generation fought to renew and enlarge its meaning.
Lyndon B. Johnson (1908-1973) American politician, educator, US President (1963-69)
Speech (1964-07-02), Signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Washington, D.C.
(Source)
Our acts make or mar us, we are the children of our own deeds.
Victor Hugo (1802-1885) French writer
(Attributed)
Quoted in Henry Southgate, Things a Lady Would Like To Know, 2nd ed. (1875). But not confirmed or found in Hugo's writings.
I don’t ever lose sight of the fact that this country is the best one. I don’t care nearly as much about other societies. My country is the one I want to make better. But I do think the patriotic thing to do is to critique my country. How else do you make a country better but by pointing out its flaws?
William "Bill" Maher (b. 1956) American comedian, political commentator, critic, television host.
“Bill Maher, Incorrect American Patriot,” Interview with Sharon Waxman, Washington Post (8 Nov 2002)
(Source)
The grandest of heroic deeds are those which are performed within four walls and in domestic privacy.
Jean Paul Richter (1763-1825) German writer, art historian, philosopher, littérateur [Johann Paul Friedrich Richter; pseud. Jean Paul]
(Attributed)
In Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895)
The certain way to be cheated is to fancy one’s self more cunning than others.
Pierre Charron (1541-1603) French Catholic theologian and philosopher
(Attributed)
Quoted in John Timbs, Laconics: Or, The Best Words of the Best Authors, vol. 3, #308 (1829)
I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
Voltaire (1694-1778) French writer [pseud. of Francois-Marie Arouet]
(Misattributed)
(Source)
The words are not found in any Voltaire and actually belong to historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall, writing as S. G. Tallentyre in The Friends of Voltaire (1906), describing an 1759 incident where Voltaire learned that Claude-Adrien Helvétius' book On the Mind [De l’esprit] had been burned (along with Voltaire's own "On Natural Law") after condemnation by the Paris Parliament and the Sorbonne.‘What a fuss about an omelette!’ he had exclaimed when he heard of the burning. How abominably unjust to persecute a man for such an airy trifle as that! ‘I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it,’ was his attitude now.Hall later wrote to a friend that the actual words were her own and ought not to have had quotation marks.
Variations:More information here.
- I wholly disapprove of what you say -- and will defend to the death your right to say it.
- Monsieur l’Abbé, je déteste ce que vous écrivez, mais je donnerais ma vie pour que vous puissiez continuer à écrire.
FALSTAFF: The better part of valour is discretion.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Henry IV, Part 1, Act 4, sc. 4, l. 122ff (4.4.122) (1597)
(Source)
Once you get it into your head that somebody is controlling events, you can interpret everything in that light and find no reasonable certainty anywhere.
Isaac Asimov (1920-1992) Russian-American author, polymath, biochemist
Foundation’s Edge, ch. 12 “Agent” (1982)
We have a marvelous gift, and you see it develop in children, this ability to become aware that other people have minds just like your own and feelings that are just as important as your own, and this gift of empathy seems to me to be the building block of our moral system.
Ian McEwan (b. 1948) English novelist and screenwriter
The Root of All Evil? documentary, Channel 4, United Kingdom (Jan 2006)