Senseless extravagance is the best friend of revolution.
William Ralph Inge (1860-1954) English prelate [Dean Inge]
“Our Present Discontents,” Outspoken Essays: First Series (1919)
Home is where, when you go there and tell people to get out, they have to leave.
Jim Butcher (b. 1971) American author
Skin Game (2014)
Value yourself according to the burdens you carry, and you will find everything a burden.
James Richardson (b. 1950) American poet
Vectors: Aphorisms and Ten-Second Essays, # 52 (2001)
People glorify all sorts of bravery except the bravery they might show on behalf of their nearest neighbors.
George Eliot (1819-1880) English novelist [pseud. of Mary Ann Evans]
Middlemarch, Book 8, ch. 72 (1871-72)
While democracy must have its organization and controls, its vital breath is individual liberty.
Charles Evans Hughes, Sr. (1862-1948) American statesman, politician, Supreme Court Justice (1910-1916, 1930-1941)
Speech (4 Mar 1939)
Here is the very heart and soul of the matter. If you look to lead, invest at least 40% of your time managing yourself — your ethics, character, principles, purpose, motivation, and conduct. Invest at least 30% managing those with authority over you, and 15% managing your peers. Use the remainder to induce those you “work for” to understand and practice the theory. I use the terms “work for” advisedly, for if you don’t understand that you should be working for your mislabeled “subordinates,” you haven’t understood anything. Lead yourself, lead your superiors, lead your peers, and free your people to do the same. All else is trivia.
Dee W. Hock (b. 1929) American businessman
In M. Mitchell Waldrop, “Dee Hock on Management,” Fast Company (Oct/Nov 1996)
(Source)
It’s hard to lead a cavalry charge if you think you look funny on a horse.
Adlai Stevenson (1900-1965) American diplomat, statesman
(Attributed)
What was impossible yesterday is an accomplishment today — while tomorrow heralds the unbelievable.
Percival E. Fansler (1883-1937) American engineer, businessman, entrepreneur
Speech, First Scheduled Commercial Airline Flight, St. Petersburg, Florida (1 Jan 1914)
My faith in the future rests squarely on the belief that man, if he doesn’t first destroy himself, will find new answers in the universe, new technologies, new disciplines, which will contribute to a vastly different and better world in the twenty-first century. Recalling what has happened in my short lifetime in the fields of communication and transportation and the life sciences, I marvel at the pessimists who tell us that we have reached the end of our productive capacity, who project a future of primarily dividing up what we now have and making do with less. To my mind the single essential element on which all discoveries will be dependent is human freedom.
Barry Goldwater (1909-1998) American politician
With No Apologies (1979)
Little changes are the enemies of great changes.
Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956) German poet, playwright, director, dramaturgist
“Quotation [Zitat]” (1930s) [tr. Morley]
Stupidity is the same as evil if you judge by the results.
Margaret Atwood (b. 1939) Canadian writer, literary critic, environmental activist
Surfacing, ch. 3 (1972)
(Source)
You should show the least vanity about your greatest gifts. Content yourself with doing: leave saying to others.
[Afecte menos sus mayores eminencias. Conténtese con hacer, y deje para otros el decir.]
Baltasar Gracián y Morales (1601-1658) Spanish Jesuit priest, writer, philosopher
The Art of Worldly Wisdom [Oráculo Manual y Arte de Prudencia], § 295 (1647) [tr. Maurer (1992)]
(Source)
(Source (Spanish)). Alternate translations:Shew as little as thou canst thy most eminent qualities. Rest satisfied to doe, and leave it to others to talk of it.
[Flesher ed. (1685)]The greater your exploits the less you need affect them: content yourself with doing, leave the talking to others.
[tr. Jacobs (1892)]Real achievement needs no such affectation. Rest in accomplishment, and leave talk to others. Do, and do not brag.
[tr. Fischer (1937)]Make the least ado about your greatest gifts. Be content to act, and leave the talking to others.
[Source]
A consecutive series of great actions never is the result of chance and luck; it is always the product of planning and genius. … Is it because they are lucky that they have become great? No, but by being great, they have been able to master luck.
Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) French emperor, military leader
Remarks to Emanuel Las Cases (14 Nov 1816)
In The Mind of Napoleon: A Selection from His Written and Spoken Words, ch. 56 [ed. J. Herold (1955)]
For a terrifying moment I thought he was going to hug me, but fortunately we both remembered we were English just in time. Still, it was a close call.
Ben Aaronovitch (b. 1964) British author
Moon Over Soho (2011)
This is the whole of Christianity. There is nothing else. It is so easy to get muddled about that. It is easy to think that the Church has a lot of different objects — education, building, missions, holding services. Just as it is easy to think the State has a lot of different objects — military, political, economic, and what not. But in a way things are much simpler than that. The State exists simply to promote and to protect the ordinary happiness of human beings in this life. A husband and wife chatting over a fire, a couple of friends having a game of darts in a pub, a man reading a book in his own room or digging in his own garden — that is what the State is there for. And unless they are helping to increase and prolong and protect such moments, all the laws, parliaments, armies, courts, police, economics, etc., are simply a waste of time. In the same way the Church exists for nothing else but to draw men into Christ, to make them little Christs. If they are not doing that, all the cathedrals, clergy, missions, sermons, even the Bible itself, are simply a waste of time. God became Man for no other purpose. It is even doubtful, you know, whether the whole universe was created for any other purpose.
C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) English writer, literary scholar, lay theologian [Clive Staples Lewis]
Mere Christianity, ch. 8 (1952)
(Source)
And when we speak we are afraid
our words will not be heard
nor welcome
but when we are silent
we are still afraid.
So it is better to speak
remembering
we were never meant to survive.
Audre Lorde (1934-1992) American writer, feminist, civil rights activist
“A Litany for Survival,” The Black Unicorn (1978)
Nothing is good or bad but by Comparison.
Thomas Fuller (1654-1734) English physician, preacher, aphorist, writer
Gnomologia: Adages and Proverbs, #3666 (1732)
(Source)
If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn’t part of ourselves doesn’t disturb us.
Herman Hesse (1877-1962) German-born Swiss poet, novelist, painter
Demian, ch. 6 (1919)
What are the marks of a sick culture? It is a bad sign when the people of a country stop identifying themselves with the country and start identifying with a group. A racial group. Or a religion. Or a language. Anything, as long as it isn’t the whole population. A very bad sign. Particularism. It was once considered a Spanish vice but any country can fall sick with it.
Robert A. Heinlein (1907-1988) American writer
Friday [Dr. Baldwin] (1982)
It is impossible to discourage the real writers — they don’t give a damn what you say, they’re going to write.
Sinclair Lewis (1885-1951) American novelist, playwright
(Attributed)
Democracy postulates community of interest or loyal patriotism. When these are absent it cannot long exist.
William Ralph Inge (1860-1954) English prelate [Dean Inge]
“Our Present Discontents,” Outspoken Essays: First Series (1919)
Admit thy guilt and and seek forgiveness, for the denial of guilt is two iniquities.
Solomon ibn Gabirol (fl. 11th Century) Andalusian poet and Jewish philosopher [a.k.a. Solomon ben Judah, Avicebron]
Choice of Pearls, 109 [tr. Cohen (1925)]
When I think about all the money we spent on bombs and munitions, and our failures in Viet Nam, Iraq, Afghanistan and other places around the world … Instead of advancing our agenda using force, we should have instead built schools and hospitals in these countries, improving the lives of their children. By now, those children would have grown into positions of influence, and they would be grateful to us instead of hating us.
George Shultz (b. 1920) American economist, statesman, and businessman
(Attributed)
(Source)
Quoted in In Daniel Levitin, The Organized Mind (2014).
Doesn’t matter how pretty you are. What’s important is how pretty you feel. No one feels pretty when they hear “no” often enough.
Jim Butcher (b. 1971) American author
Skin Game (2014)
How should I be able to govern others when I don’t know how to govern myself?
François Rabelais (1494-1553) French writer, humanist, doctor
Gargantua and Pantagruel, 1.52 (1532-1552) [tr. Cohen (1955)]
Not a day passes over the earth but men and women of no note do great deeds, speak great words, and suffer noble sorrows.
Charles Reade (1814-1884) English novelist and dramatist
The Cloister and the Hearth, ch. 1 (1861)
One word after another.
That’s the only way that novels get written and, short of elves coming in the night and turning your jumbled notes into Chapter Nine, it’s the only way to do it.
So keep on keeping on. Write another word and then another.Neil Gaiman (b. 1960) British author, screenwriter, fabulist
“Pep Talk from Neil Gaiman,” National Novel Writing Month (2011)
(Source)
“Aslan,” said Lucy, “you’re bigger.”
“That is because you are older, little one,” answered he.
“Not because you are?”
“I am not. But every year you grow, you will find me bigger.”C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) English writer, literary scholar, lay theologian [Clive Staples Lewis]
Prince Caspian (1951)
Murder investigations start with the victim because usually in the first instance that’s all you’ve got. The study of the victim is called victimology because everything sounds better with an ology tacked on the end. To make sure that you make a proper fist of this, the police have developed the world’s most useless mnemonic: 5 x WH & H. Otherwise known as Who? What? Where? When? Why? & How? Next time you watch a real murder investigation on the TV and you see a group of serious-looking detectives standing around talking, remember that what they’re actually doing is trying to work out what sodding order the mnemonic is supposed to go in. Once they’ve sorted that out the exhausted officers will retire to the nearest watering hole for a drink and a bit of a breather.
Ben Aaronovitch (b. 1964) British author
Moon Over Soho (2011)
There is a sort of gratification in doing good which makes us rejoice in ourselves, and a generous pride that accompanies a good conscience.
[Il y a certes je ne sçay quelle congratulation, de bien faire, qui nous resjouit en nous mesmes, et une fierté genereuse, qui accompagne la bonne conscience.]
Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) French essayist
Essays, Book 3, ch. 2 “Of Repentence [Du repentir]” (1586) (3.2) (1595) [tr. Frame (1943)]
(Source)
First appeared in the 1588 edition.
(Source (French)). Alternate translations:There is truely I wot not what kinde of congratulation, of well doing, which rejoyceth us in our selves, and a generous jollitie, that accompanieth a good conscience.
[tr. Florio (1603)]There is a kind of I know not what congratulation in well-doing, that gives us an inward Satisfaction, and a certain generous Boldness that accompanies a good Conscience.
[tr. Cotton (1686)]There is a kind of, I know not what, congratulation in well-doing that gives us an inward satisfaction, and a generous boldness that accompanies a good conscience.
[tr. Cotton/Hazlitt (1877)]There is surely I know not what self-gratification in doing well, which rejoices us ourselves, and a noble pride which attends a good conscience.
[tr. Ives (1925)]There is an unutterable delight in acting well which makes us inwardly rejoice; a noble feeling of pride accompanies a good conscience.
[tr. Screech (1987)]
That hatred springs more from self-contempt than from a legitimate grievance is seen in the intimate connection between hatred and a guilty conscience. There is perhaps no surer way of infecting ourselves with virulent hatred toward a person than by doing him a grave injustice. That others have a just grievance against us is a more potent reason for hating them than that we have a just grievance against them.
Eric Hoffer (1902-1983) American writer, philosopher, longshoreman
True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements, Part 3, ch. 14, § 69 (1951)
(Source)
When I was younger, I thought I could change this world. Now I no longer think so but for emotional reasons I must keep on fighting a holding action.
Robert A. Heinlein (1907-1988) American writer
Friday [Dr. Baldwin] (1982)
Under a tyranny, most friends are a liability. One quarter of them turn “reasonable” and become your enemies, one quarter are afraid to speak, and one quarter are killed and you die with them. But the blessed final quarter keep you alive.
Sinclair Lewis (1885-1951) American novelist, playwright
It Can’t Happen Here (1935)
Say what you will, ’tis better to be left than never to have been loved.
William Congreve (1670-1729) English dramatist
The Way of the World, Act 2, sc. 1 (1700)
See also Tennyson.
The leader holds his position purely because he is able to appeal to the conscience and to the reason of those who support him, and the boss holds his position because he appeals to fear of punishment and hope of reward. The leader works in the open, and the boss in covert. The leader leads, and the boss drives.
Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) American politician, statesman, conservationist, writer, US President (1901-1909)
Speech, Binghamton, New York (24 Oct 1910)
HAMLET: Use every man after his desert, and who should ‘scape whipping?
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Hamlet, Act 2, sc. 2, l. 555ff (2.2.555) (c. 1600)
(Source)
The dead don’t need justice. That’s for those of us who are left looking down at the remains.
Jim Butcher (b. 1971) American author
Skin Game (2014)
There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.
Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) American writer
(Attributed)
No one can govern who cannot afford to be unpopular, and no democratic official can afford to be unpopular. Sometimes he has to wink at flagrant injustice and oppression; at other times a fanatical agitation compels him to pass laws which forbid the citizen to indulge perfectly harmless tastes, or tax him to contribute to the pleasures of the majority.
William Ralph Inge (1860-1954) English prelate [Dean Inge]
“Our Present Discontents,” Outspoken Essays: First Series (1919)
You’re not supposed to be so blind with patriotism that you can’t face reality. Wrong is wrong, no matter who does it or says it.
Malcolm X (1925-1965) American revolutionary, religious leader [b. Malcolm Little]
“Prospects for Freedom in 1965,” speech, New York (7 Jan 1965)
(Source)
It is easy to be brave from a safe distance.
If there’s anything a public servant hates to do it’s something for the public.
Frank McKinney "Kin" Hubbard (1868-1930) American caricaturist and humorist
(Attributed)
Back then I wanted to be right about my estimate of my abilities. Now I want to be wrong.
James Richardson (b. 1950) American poet
Vectors: Aphorisms and Ten-Second Essays (2001)
The problem is never how to get new, innovative thoughts into your mind, but how to get old ones out. Every mind is a room packed with archaic furniture. You must get the old furniture of what you know, think, and believe out before anything new can get in. Make an empty space in any corner of your mind, and creativity will instantly fill it.
Dee W. Hock (b. 1929) American businessman
In M. Mitchell Waldrop, “Dee Hock on Management,” Fast Company (Oct/Nov 1996)
(Source)
Be thankful for what you have; you’ll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don’t have, you will never, ever have enough.
Oprah Winfrey (b. 1954) American TV personality, actress
(Attributed)
When the spirits are low, when the day appears dark, when work becomes monotonous, when hopes hardly seems worth having, just mount a bicycle and go for a good spin down the road, without thought of anything but the ride you are taking.
Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930) British writer and physician
In The American Bee Keeper (May 1895)
When evil-doing comes like falling rain, nobody calls out “stop!”
When crimes begin to pile up they become invisible.
When sufferings become unendurable the cries are no longer heard.
The cries, too, fall like rain in summer.Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956) German poet, playwright, director, dramaturgist
“When evil-doing comes like falling rain [Wenn die Untat kommt, wie der Regen fällt]” (1935) [tr. Willett]
Equality, rightly understood, as our founding fathers understood it, leads to liberty and to the emancipation of creative differences. Wrongly understood, as it has been so tragically in our time, it leads first to conformity and then to despotism.
Barry Goldwater (1909-1998) American politician
Speech, accepting the GOP Presidential Nomination, San Francisco (16 Jul 1964)
We are a nation of many nationalities, many races, many religions — bound together by a single unity, the unity of freedom and equality. Whoever seeks to set one nationality against another, seeks to degrade all nationalities. Whoever seeks to set one race against another seeks to enslave all races. Whoever seeks to set one religion against another, seeks to destroy all religion.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882-1945) American lawyer, politician, statesman, US President (1933-1945)
Speech, Brooklyn, New York (1 Nov 1940)
Be wiser than other people, if you can; but do not tell them so.
Lord Chesterfield (1694-1773) English statesman, wit [Philip Dormer Stanhope]
Letter to his son, #104 (29 Nov 1745)
(Source)
BRUTUS: The abuse of greatness is, when it disjoins
Remorse from power.William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Julius Caesar, Act 2, sc. 1, l. 19ff (2.1.19-20) (1599)
(Source)
Life often seems like a long shipwreck, of which the debris are friendship, glory, and love; the shores of existence are strewn with them.
Germaine de Staël (1766-1817) Swiss-French writer, woman of letters, critic, salonist [Anne Louise Germaine de Staël-Holstein, Madame de Staël, Madame Necker]
Reflections on Suicide [Réflexions sur le suicide], Sec. 1 (1813) [tr. De Finod]
There’s a particular kind of safety that comes from being on the streets where you went to school, had your first snog, or drink, or threw up your first chicken vindaloo.
Ben Aaronovitch (b. 1964) British author
Moon Over Soho (2011)
Music and silence — how I detest them both! How thankful we should be that ever since our Father entered Hell — though longer ago than humans, reckoning in light years, could express — no square inch of infernal space and no moment of infernal time has been surrendered to either of those abominable forces, but all has been occupied by Noise — Noise, the grand dynamism, the audible expression of all that is exultant, ruthless, and virile — Noise which alone defends us from silly qualms, despairing scruples, and impossible desires. We will make the whole universe a noise in the end. We have already made great strides in this direction as regards the Earth. The melodies and silences of Heaven will be shouted down in the end. But I admit we are not yet loud enough, or anything like it.
C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) English writer, literary scholar, lay theologian [Clive Staples Lewis]
The Screwtape Letters (1942)
Terrorism’s goal is to commit frightening, high-profile crimes that scare people into making rash, expensive decisions that make the world look like the terrorists would like to see it.
Cory Doctorow (b. 1971) Canadian-British blogger, journalist, activist, author
“How terrorists trick Western governments in doing their work for them,” Boingboing.net (16 Nov 2015)
(Source)
Hate is too great a burden to bear. It injures the hater more than it injures the hated.
Coretta Scott King (1927-2006) American author, activist, civil rights leader
Speech, San Francisco (14 Apr 1989)
There can be no true goodness nor true love without the utmost clear-sightedness.
Albert Camus (1913-1960) Algerian-French novelist, essayist, playwright
The Plague, ch. 2 (1947) [tr. Gilbert (1948)]
A well run tyranny is almost as scarce as an efficient democracy.
Robert A. Heinlein (1907-1988) American writer
Friday [Dr. Baldwin] (1982)
The Maker of the universe with stars a hundred thousand light-years apart was interested, furious, and very personal about it if a small boy played baseball on Sunday afternoon.
Sinclair Lewis (1885-1951) American novelist, playwright
Elmer Gantry (1927)
One must be prepared not to act, but to “stand still in the light,” confident that only such a stillness possesses the eloquence to draw men away from lives we must believe they inwardly loathe.
Theodore Roszak (1933-2011) American historian and author
The Making of the Counter Culture, ch. 8 (1969)
My doctrine is this, that if we see cruelty or wrong that we have the power to stop, and do nothing, we make ourselves sharers in the guilt.
Anna Sewell (1820-1878) English novelist
Black Beauty, Part 3, ch. 33 “Dolly and a Real Gentleman” (1877)
(Source)
The democracy is a ready victim to shibboleths and catchwords, as all demagogues know too well.
William Ralph Inge (1860-1954) English prelate [Dean Inge]
“Our Present Discontents,” Outspoken Essays: First Series (1919)
Who hath not saved some trifling thing
More prized than jewels rare —
A faded flower, a broken ring,
A tress of golden hair?
More to the point, nameless hideous monsters are freaking terrifying. You always fear what you don’t know, what you don’t understand, and the first step to having understanding of something is to know what to call it. It’s a habit of mine to give names to anything I wind up interacting with if it doesn’t have one readily available. Names have power — magically, sure, but far more important, they have psychological power. Something horrible with a name holds less power over you, less terror, than something horrible without one.
“Octokongs,” I pronounced grimly. “Why did it have to be octokongs?”Jim Butcher (b. 1971) American author
Skin Game (2014)
Administrivia: A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Words (but shouldn’t use that many)
So I’ve been doing a graphic / visualization / meme for one quotation a day (out of the five I usually do) for a month now, and it seems to be both popular and pretty sustainable (at least until I get a job), so I will continue doing so.
You can see the list to date by clicking on the “Visual Quotes (memes)” link in the sidebar; I’m tagging each of them with a tag of “meme”. You can also visit PixTeller, which is where I’m building these; I think they’ve definitely improved since the first few I did as I’ve learned more about the tool and what works (and what doesn’t work as well).
If you have any suggestions for improvement in this effort, please leave me a comment.
It’s so wrong to think that spectacular courage is the best bravery. The noblest bravery is battling against these dreadful daily assaults, often very minor, on one’s spirit.
Joanna Trollope (b. 1943) British writer [pseud. Caroline Harvey]
The Rector’s Wife (1991)
Anyone who idolizes you is going to hate you when he discovers that you are fallible. He never forgives. He has deceived himself, and he blames you for it.
Elbert Hubbard (1856-1915) American writer, businessman, philosopher
An American Bible [ed. Alice Hubbard] (1918)
Were there no hearers, there would be no backbiters.
George Herbert (1593-1633) Welsh priest, orator, poet.
Jacula Prudentum, or Outlandish Proverbs, Sentences, &c. (compiler), # 69 (1640 ed.)
(Source)
When my friend does something stupid, he is just my friend doing something stupid. When I do something stupid, I have deeply betrayed myself.
James Richardson (b. 1950) American poet
Vectors: Aphorisms and Ten-Second Essays (2001)
Never hire or promote in your own image. It is foolish to replicate your strength. It is idiotic to replicate your weakness. It is essential to employ, trust, and reward those whose perspective, ability, and judgment are radically different from yours. It is also rare, for it requires uncommon humility, tolerance, and wisdom.
Dee W. Hock (b. 1929) American businessman
In M. Mitchell Waldrop, “Dee Hock on Management,” Fast Company (Oct/Nov 1996)
(Source)
No one is useless in this world who lightens the burden of it for any one else.
Charles Dickens (1812-1870) English writer and social critic
Our Mutual Friend, ch. 9 (1864-65)
All the gang of those who rule us
Hope our quarrels never stop
Helping them to split and fool us
So they can remain on top.Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956) German poet, playwright, director, dramaturgist
“Solidarity song [Solidaritätslied]” (1931) [tr. Willett]
I met my old lover on the street today
She seemed so glad to see me; I just smiled
And we talked about the old times, and drank ourselves some beers
Still crazy after all these years.Paul Simon (b. 1941) American musician, singer-songwriter.
“Still Crazy After All These Years” (1975)
It’s silly to go on pretending that under the skin we are all brothers. The truth is more likely that under the skin we are all cannibals, assassins, traitors, liars, hypocrites, poltroons.
Henry Miller (1891-1980) American novelist
“Two Writers in Praise of Rabelais and Each Other,” New York Times (7 Sep 1974)
(Source)
Those who seek absolute power, even though they seek it to do what they regard as good, are simply demanding the right to enforce their own version of heaven on earth. And let me remind you, they are the very ones who always create the most hellish tyrannies. Absolute power does corrupt, and those who seek it must be suspect and must be opposed.
MALVOLIO: In my stars I am above thee, but be not afraid of greatness. Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon ’em.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Twelfth Night, Act 2, Sc. 5, l. 147ff (2.5.147-150) (1601)
(Source)
The phrase appears three times in the play:See also Boorstin.
- As above, Malvolio reading the forged love letter from Maria.
- Act 3, sc. 4, l. 42ff, Malvolio recalling the phrases from the letter.
- Act 5, sc. 1, l. 393ff, the Fool reciting the second half of the phrase.
Of all the horrid, hideous notes of woe,
Sadder than owl songs or the midnight blast,
Is that portentous phrase, “I told you so,”
Utter’d by friends, those prophets of the past,
Who, ‘stead of saying what you now should do,
Own they foresaw that you would fall at last.
Altho insured
Remember, kiddo
They don’t pay you
They pay
Your widow
Burma-Shave(Other Authors and Sources)
Burma-Shave sign
Molly served as the Folly’s housekeeper, cook, and rodent exterminator. She never speaks, has too many teeth and a taste for raw meat, but I try never to hold that against her or let her get between me and the exit.
Ben Aaronovitch (b. 1964) British author
Moon Over Soho (2011)
I am sorry to hear of the little dog’s death. The animal creation is a strange mystery. We can make some attempt to understand human suffering: but the sufferings of animals from the beginning of the world till now (inflicted not only by us but by one another) — what is one to think? And again, how strange that God brings us into such intimate relations with creatures of whose real purpose and destiny we remain forever ignorant. We know to some degree what angels and men are for. But what is a flea for, or a wild dog?
C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) English writer, literary scholar, lay theologian [Clive Staples Lewis]
Letter to Mary Willis Shelburne (26 Oct 1962)
Let’s not forget that the little emotions are the great captains of our lives, and we obey them without realizing it.
An act is not good because we feel obliged to do it; it is rather that we feel obliged to do it because it is good.
Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907-1972) Polish-American rabbi, theologian, philosopher
Man Is Not Alone, ch. 13 (1951)
He who hates a man is as if he hated God.
The Talmud (AD 200-500) Collection of Jewish rabbinical writings
Midrash
in Louis Mewman, The Talmudic Anthology, 136 (1945)
No matter who or what, a box of flowers is better than a slap in the belly with a wet fish.
Robert A. Heinlein (1907-1988) American writer
Friday [Friday Jones] (1982)
“Even if some details of dogma aren’t true — or even all of ’em — think what a consolation religion and the church are to weak humanity!”
“Are they? I wonder! Don’t cheerful agnostics, who know they are going to die dead, worry much less than good Baptists, who worry lest their sons and cousins and sweethearts fail to get into the Baptist heaven — or what is even worse, who wonder if they may not have guessed wrong — if God may not be a Catholic, maybe, or a Mormon or Seventh-day Adventist instead of a Baptist, and then they’ll go to hell themselves. Consolation? No!”Sinclair Lewis (1885-1951) American novelist, playwright
Elmer Gantry (1927)
The function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers.
Ralph Nader (b. 1934) American attorney, author, lecturer, political activist
Time Leadership Conference, Washington, DC (Sep 1976)
(Source)
In "Leadership: The Biggest Issue," Time (8 Nov 1976).
The guilty think all talk is of themselves.
Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1343-1400) English poet, philosopher, astronomer, diplomat
The Canterbury Tales, “The Canon’s Yeoman’s Prologue” (1390?) [tr. Coghill (1951)]
Even a feeble-minded man wants to be like other men.
Daniel F. Keyes (1927-2014) American author
Flowers for Algernon (novel) (1966)
I hold it to be our duty to see that the wage worker, the small producer, the ordinary consumer, shall get their fair share of the benefit of business prosperity. But it either is or ought to be evident to everyone that business has to prosper before anybody can get any benefit from it.
Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) American politician, statesman, conservationist, writer, US President (1901-1909)
Speech, Ohio Constitutional Convention (1 Feb 1912)
The excesses of revolutionists are not an argument against democracy, since revolutions are anything rather than democratic.
William Ralph Inge (1860-1954) English prelate [Dean Inge]
“Our Present Discontents,” Outspoken Essays: First Series (1919)
Believe nothing against another but upon good Authority: Nor report what may hurt another, unless it be a greater hurt to others to conceal it.
William Penn (1644-1718) English writer, philosopher, politician, statesman
Some Fruits of Solitude, #145 (1693)
The greatest height of heroism to which an individual, like a people, can attain is to know how to face ridicule; better still, to know how to make oneself ridiculous and not to shrink from the ridicule.
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], Conclusion (1913) [tr. Flitch (1921)]
(Source)
If you do everything for one reason, then all you have done will become meaningless when the reason does.
James Richardson (b. 1950) American poet
Vectors: Aphorisms and Ten-Second Essays, #41 (2001)
Commonly they whose tongue is their weapon, use their feet for defense.
Philip Sidney (1554-1586) English poet, courtier, scholar, and soldier
(Attributed)
Hire and promote first on the basis of integrity; second, motivation; third, capacity; fourth, understanding; fifth, knowledge; and last and least, experience. Without integrity, motivation is dangerous; without motivation, capacity is impotent; without capacity, understanding is limited; without understanding, knowledge is meaningless; without knowledge, experience is blind. Experience is easy to provide and quickly put to good use by people with all the other qualities.
Dee W. Hock (b. 1929) American businessman
In M. Mitchell Waldrop, “Dee Hock on Management,” Fast Company (Oct/Nov 1996)
(Source)
Love and business and family and religion and art and patriotism are nothing but shadows of words when a man’s starving.
O. Henry (1862-1910) American short story writer [pseud. for William Sydney Porter]
“Cupid à la Carte,” Heart of the West (1907)
Oh, the poor folks hate the rich folks,
And the rich folks hate the poor folks,
All of my folks hate all of your folks,
It’s American as apple pie.Tom Lehrer (b. 1928) American mathematician, satirist, songwriter
“National Brotherhood Week” (1965)
Oh why do we not say the important things, it would be so easy, and we are damned because we do not.
Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956) German poet, playwright, director, dramaturgist
“Song about my mother [Lied von meiner Mutter],” from “Thirteen Psalms” (1920) [tr. Middleton]
He tried
To cross
As fast train neared
Death didn’t draft him
He volunteered
Burma-Shave(Other Authors and Sources)
Burma-Shave sign