Cynics are simply thwarted romantics.
William Goldman (1931-2018) American screenwriter, novelist
The Princess Bride (1973)
Law and Justice play no role in the relations of peoples of unequal strength.
Gustave LeBon (1841-1931) German psychologist
Aphorisms of Present Times, 2.6 (1913)
For Liberalism, the individual is the end and society the means; nor is it conceivable that the individual, considered in the dignity of an ultimate finality, be lowered to mere instrumentality. For Fascism, society is the end, individuals the means, and its whole life consists in using individuals as instruments for its social ends.
Alfredo Rocco (1875-1935) Italian politician, jurist, economic theorist
The Political Doctrine of Fascism (1926)
(Source)
War is not violence and killing, pure and simple; war is controlled violence, for a purpose. The purpose of war is to support your government’s decisions by force. The purpose is never to kill the enemy just to be killing him — but to make him do what you want him to do. Not killing — but controlled and purposeful violence.
I think perhaps we want a more conscious life. We’re tired of drudging and sleeping and dying. We’re tired of seeing just a few people able to be individualists. We’re tired of always deferring hope till the next generation. We’re tired of hearing politicians and priests and cautious reformers (and the husbands!) coax us, “Be calm! Be patient! Wait! We have the plans for a Utopia already made; just wiser than you.” For ten thousand years they’ve said that. We want our Utopia now — and we’re going to try our hands at it.
Sinclair Lewis (1885-1951) American novelist, playwright
Main Street, ch. 16 [Carol] (1920)
(Source)
If she asked for the sun, he would climb the sky until he burned.
Daniel Swensen (b. c.1975) American writer
Orison (2014)
Sow an act, and you reap a habit. Sow a habit, and you reap a character. Sow a character, and you reap a destiny.
Charles Reade (1814-1884) English novelist and dramatist
(Attributed)
Attributed in Notes and Queries, 9th series, vol. 12 (7 Nov 1903). Not found in any of his works, but attributed to many other authors over time. See here for more discussion.
In order to govern, the question is not to follow out a more or less valid theory but to build with whatever materials are at hand. The inevitable must be accepted and turned to advantage.
Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) French emperor, military leader
Deathbed statement (17 Apr 1821)
Marrying a man is like buying something you’ve been admiring for a long time in a shop window. You may love it when you get it home, but it doesn’t always go with everything else in the house.
Jean Kerr (1922-2003) American author and playwright [b. Bridget Jean Collins]
“The Ten Worst Things about a Man,” The Snake Has All the Lines (1960)
Today in America unions have a secure place in our industrial life. Only a handful of unreconstructed reactionaries harbor the ugly thought of breaking unions. Only a fool would try to deprive working men and women of the right to join the union of their choice.
Dwight David Eisenhower (1890-1969) American general, US President (1953-61)
Speech, American Federation of Labor, New York City (17 Sep 1952)
TRELANE: I don’t know if I like your tone. It’s most challenging. That’s what you’re doing, challenging me?
SPOCK: I object to you. I object to intellect without reason. I object to power without constructive purpose.
TRELANE: Why, Mr. Spock, you do have a saving grace, after all — you’re ill-mannered!
Paul Schneider (1923-2008) American screenwriter
Star Trek, 1×17 “The Squire of Gothos” (1967)
I have regard to appearance still. So am I no hero.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
Journal (1839-04-06)
The main idea in golf as in life, I suppose, is to learn to accept what cannot be altered, and to keep on doing one’s own reasoned and resolute best whether the prospect be bleak or rosy.
Robert Tyre "Bobby" Jones, Jr. (1902-1971) American amateur golfer, lawyer
Golf Is My Game (1960)
(Source)
You’ve never said anything as stupid as what people thought you said.
James Richardson (b. 1950) American poet
Vectors: Aphorisms and Ten-Second Essays, # 5 (2001)
Keep on going, and chances are you will stumble on something, perhaps when you are least expecting it. I never heard of anyone stumbling on something sitting down.
Charles F. Kettering (1876-1958) American inventor, engineer, researcher, businessman
(Attributed)
Variant:"Keep on going and the chances are you will stumble on something, perhaps when you are least expecting it. I have never heard of anyone stumbling on something sitting down."
I am unable to find this precise phrase in Kettering's writings or primary writings about him. However, this appears to have been part of a common set of phrases he used, which indicates either it is accurate or a paraphrase of one of them:Accomplishment has been an accident as a rule. Nobody ever stumbled while he was standing still. You only stumble when you are moving. So we always had it a rule in our organization when we lacked intelligence we speeded up motion, because the chances of stumbling infinitely increased.
"250 at Luncheon Honor Kettering," New York Times (1936-11-11)Nobody ever found anything while sitting down. So, Q.E.D., don't be afraid to stumble.
“Don’t Be Afraid to Stumble,” The Rotarian (1952-01)
The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way,
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973) English writer, fabulist, philologist, academic [John Ronald Reuel Tolkien]
The Lord of the Rings, Vol. 1: The Fellowship of the Ring, Book 1, ch. 1 “A Long-expected Party” (1954)
(Source)
Sung by Bilbo as he leaves Bag End. Two chapters later, Frodo sings the same song when walking with Sam, Merry, and Pippin, but substitutes "weary" for "eager."
In a higher world it is otherwise, but here below to live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often.
John Henry Newman (1801-1890) English prelate, Catholic Cardinal, theologian
An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, ch. 1, sec. 7 (1845)
(Source)
Sorvalh smiled, and it was terrifying, and glorious. “And so we learn how simple it is to change the history of the universe,” Sorvalh said. “All you need is for every other thing to have gone so horribly wrong first.”
John Scalzi (b. 1969) American writer
The End of All Things (2015)
But I think a life of raising prize cattle, going shooting two or three times a year, fishing in the summer, and interspersing the whole thing with some golf and bridge — and whenever I felt like talking or writing, doing it with abandon and with no sense of responsibility whatsoever — maybe such a life wouldn’t be so bad.
Dwight David Eisenhower (1890-1969) American general, US President (1953-61)
Letter to Alfred M. Gruenther (2 Nov 1956)
The latter part of a wise man’s life is taken up in curing the follies, prejudices, and false opinions he had contracted in the former.
Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) English writer and churchman
“Thoughts on Various Subjects” (1706)
(Source)
If we cannot trust woman with the knowledge of her own body, then I claim that two thousand years of Christian teaching has proved to be a failure.
Margaret Sanger (1879-1966) American birth control activist, sex educator, nurse
“The Morality of Birth Control,” speech, Park Theatre, New York (18 Nov 1921)
(Source)
‘Tis known by the name of perseverance in a good cause — and of obstinacy in a bad one.
Laurence Sterne (1713-1786) Anglo-Irish novelist, Anglican clergyman
Tristam Shandy, 1.17 (1759-67)
See Browne.
The history of liberty is a history of resistance. The history of liberty is a history of the limitation of governmental power, not the increase of it.
Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924) US President (1913-20), educator, political scientist
Speech, New York Press Club (9 Sep 1912)
Whatever happens, they say afterwards, it must have been fate. People are always a little confused about this, as they are in the case of miracles. When someone is saved from certain death by a strange concatenation of circumstances, they say that’s a miracle. But of course if someone is killed by a freak chain of events — the oil spilled just there, the safety fence broken just there — that must also be a miracle. Just because it’s not nice doesn’t mean it’s not miraculous.
Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Interesting Times (1994)
(Source)
Footnote on the first page.
The trouble about God is that he is like a person who never acknowledges one’s letters and so, in time, one comes to the conclusion either that he does not exist or that you have got the address wrong. I admitted that it was of great moment: but what was the use of going on dispatching fervent messages — say to Edinburgh — if they all came back through the dead letter office: nay more, if you couldn’t even find Edinburgh on the map.
C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) English writer, literary scholar, lay theologian [Clive Staples Lewis]
Letter to Warren Lewis (1 Jul 1921)
I know I was writing stories when I was five. I don’t know what I did before that. Just loafed, I suppose.
P. G. Wodehouse (1881-1975) Anglo-American humorist, playwright and lyricist [Pelham Grenville Wodehouse]
“The Art of Fiction #60,” interview with Gerald Clarke, The Paris Review (Winter 1975)
(Source)
In foreign policy one must make do with what one has.
Henry Kissinger (1923-2024) German-American diplomat
Years of Upheaval, ch. 12 (1982)
Whoever destroys a soul, it is considered as if he destroyed an entire world. And whoever saves a life, it is considered as if he saved an entire world.
The Talmud (AD 200-500) Collection of Jewish rabbinical writings
Mishnah Sanhedrin 4:9; Yerushalmi Talmud, Tractate Sanhedrin 37a
(Source)
Alt. trans.: "Whoever destroys a single life is as guilty as though he had destroyed the entire world; and whoever rescues a single life earns as much merit as though he had rescued the entire world."
In dealing with the law and with people I have found a vast difference between “should” and “is.”
Robert A. Heinlein (1907-1988) American writer
Friday [Brian] (1982)
Myron reflected that there are so many people in the world who are eager to do for you things that you do not wish done, provided only that you will do for them things that you don’t wish to do.
Sinclair Lewis (1885-1951) American novelist, playwright
Work of Art, ch. 21 (1934)
Actions will be judged according to intentions.
Muhammad (570-632) Arabian merchant, prophet, founder of Islam [Mohammed]
The Sayings of Muhammad [tr. Abdullah Al-Suhrawardy (1941)]
What you cannot enforce,
Do not command!Sophocles (496-406 BC) Greek tragic playwright
Oedipus at Colonus, l. 839 [tr. Fitzgerald (1941)]
Despite considerable propaganda to the contrary, the greatest need of the moment is not a decision to be tender to the well-to-do. Their situation is not so desperate as popularly represented. Also one makes an economy work not by rewarding the rich but by rewarding all who contribute to its success.
John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-2006) Canadian-American economist, diplomat, author
Speech (1963-12-13), “Wealth and Poverty,” National Policy Committee on Pockets of Poverty
(Source)
Children are different — mentally, physically, spiritually, quantitatively, qualitatively; and furthermore, they’re all a little bit nuts.
Jean Kerr (1922-2003) American author and playwright [b. Bridget Jean Collins]
“Children Really are Not People,” Please Don’t Eat the Daisies, The Saturday Evening Post (27 Jul 1957)
Whatever may be the immediate gains and losses, the dangers to our safety arising from political suppression are always greater than the dangers to that safety arising from political freedom. Suppression is always foolish. Freedom is always wise. That is the faith, the experimental faith, by which we Americans have undertaken to live. If we, the citizens of today, cannot shake ourselves free from the hysteria which blinds us to that faith, there is little hope for peace and security, either at home or abroad.
Alexander Meiklejohn (1872-1964) Philosopher, university administrator, civil libertarian
Testimony before the Senate Sub-Committee on Constitutional Rights (1955)
Don’t consider how many you can please, but whom.
Publilius Syrus (d. 42 BC) Assyrian slave, writer, philosopher [less correctly Publius Syrus]
Sententiae [Moral Sayings], # 599 [tr. Lyman, Jr. (1862)]
The pat on the back, the arm around the shoulder, the praise for what was done right, and the sympathetic nod for what wasn’t, are as much a part of golf as life itself.
Gerald R. Ford (1913-2006) American politician, US President (1974-77) [b. Leslie Lynch King, Jr.]
Speech, Dedication of the World Golf Hall of Fame, Pinehurst, North Carolina (12 Sep 1974)
Despair says, I cannot lift that weight. Happiness says, I do not have to.
James Richardson (b. 1950) American poet
Vectors: Aphorisms and Ten-Second Essays, # 4 (2001)
People are very open-minded about new things — as long as they’re exactly like the old ones.
Charles F. Kettering (1876-1958) American inventor, engineer, researcher, businessman
(Attributed)
Each writer is born with a repertory company in his head. Shakespeare has perhaps twenty players, and Tennessee Williams has about five, and Samuel Beckett one — and maybe a clone of that one. I have ten or so, and that’s a lot. As you get older, you become more skillful at casting them.
Gore Vidal (1925-2012) American novelist, dramatist, critic
Time (17 Apr 1978)
It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man, who knows what the law is today, can guess what it will be tomorrow.
James Madison (1751-1836) American statesman, political theorist, US President (1809-17)
The Federalist Papers, #62 (Feb 1788)
He whose Belly is full, believes not him whose is empty.
Thomas Fuller (1654-1734) English physician, preacher, aphorist, writer
Gnomologia: Adages and Proverbs, #2399 (1732)
(Source)
Now I think, speaking roughly, by leadership we mean the art of getting someone else to do something that you want done because he wants to do it, not because your position of power can compel him to do it, or your position of authority. A commander of a regiment is not necessarily a leader. He has all of the appurtenances of power given by a set of Army regulations by which he can compel unified action. He can say to a body such as this, “Rise,” and “Sit down.” You do it exactly. But that is not leadership.
Dwight David Eisenhower (1890-1969) American general, US President (1953-61)
Speech, Conference of the Society for Personnel Administration (12 May 1954)
If Heaven had looked upon riches to be a valuable thing, it would not have given them to such a scoundrel.
Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) English writer and churchman
Letter to Miss Vanhomrigh (12 Aug 1720)
(Source)
Never give up on a dream just because of the time it will take to accomplish it. The time will pass anyway.
Earl Nightingale (1921-1989) American motivational speaker, writer, radio personality
(Attributed)
Privilege should not be tolerated because it is to the advantage of a minority; nor yet because it is to the advantage of a majority. No doctrinaire theories of vested rights or freedom of contract can stand in the way of our cutting out abuses from the body politic.
Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) American politician, statesman, conservationist, writer, US President (1901-1909)
Lecture (1910-06-07), “Biological Analogies in History,” Romanes Lecture, Oxford University
(Source)
The intelligence of that creature known as a crowd is the square root of the number of people in it.
Bereavement is a universal and integral part of our experience of love. It follows marriage as normally as marriage follows courtship or as autumn follows summer.
C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) English writer, literary scholar, lay theologian [Clive Staples Lewis]
A Grief Observed (1961)
Every honest and God-fearing man is a mighty factor in the future of the Republic. Educated men, business men, professional men, should be the last to shirk the responsibilities attaching to citizenship in a free government. They should be practical and helpful — mingling with the people — not selfish and exclusive. It is not necessary that every man should enter into politics, or adopt it as a profession, or seek political preferment, but it is the duty of every man to give personal attention to his political duties. They are as sacred and binding as any we have to perform.
William McKinley (1843-1901) US President (1897-1901)
Speech, Woodstock, Connecticut (4 July 1891)
(Source)
International relations are governed by interests, and not by moral principles.
B. H. Liddell Hart (1895-1970) English soldier, military historian (Basil Henry Liddell Hart)
“The Illusion of Treaties,” Why Don’t We Learn from History? (1944)
I believe in individualism. I believe in it in the arts, the sciences and professions. I believe in it in business. I believe in individualism in all of these things — up to the point where the individualist starts to operate at the expense of society.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882-1945) American lawyer, politician, statesman, US President (1933-1945)
Acceptance Speech, Democratic Convention, Chicago (27 Jun 1936)
Properly regarded, male vanity is a virtue, not a vice. Treated correctly, it makes him enormously pleasanter to deal with.
Robert A. Heinlein (1907-1988) American writer
Friday [Friday Jones] (1982)
“The trouble with this country is,” observed Herndon, “that there’re too many people going about saying: ‘The trouble with this country is –‘”
Every good act is charity. A man’s true wealth hereafter is the good that he does in this world to his fellows.
Muhammad (570-632) Arabian merchant, prophet, founder of Islam [Mohammed]
(Attributed)
(Source)
Attributed in Rev. James Wood (ed.) Dictionary of Quotations from Ancient and Modern, English and Foreign Sources (1893). Also sometimes attributed to Moliere.
It is loyalty to great ends, even though forced to combine the small and opposing motives of selfish men to accomplish them; it is the anchored cling to solid principles of duty and action, which knows how to swing with the tide, but is never carried away by it — that we demand in public men, and not sameness of policy, or a conscientious persistency in what is impracticable.
James Russell Lowell (1819-1891) American diplomat, essayist, poet
“Abraham Lincoln” (1864), My Study Windows (1871)
The real menace in dealing with a five-year-old is that in no time at all you begin to sound like a five-year-old.
Jean Kerr (1922-2003) American author and playwright [b. Bridget Jean Collins]
Please Don’t Eat the Daisies, “How to Get the Best of Your Children” (1957)
We have passed beyond the time of what they call the laisser-faire school which believes that the Government ought to do nothing but run a police force.
William Howard Taft (1857-1930) US President (1909-13) and Chief Justice (1921-1930)
Speech, Milwaukee (17 Sep 1909)
(Source)
Don’t write so you can be understood. Write so that you cannot be misunderstood.
Quintilian (39-90) Roman orator [Marcus Fabius Quintilianus]
De Institutione Oratoria, Book 8, ch. 2, l. 24
Alt. trans.: "We should not write so that it is possible for [the reader] to understand us, but so that it is impossible for him to misunderstand us."
Also attributed to Epictetus, Francis Bacon, Robert Louis Stevenson, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and William Taft.
If you think it’s hard to meet new people, try picking up the wrong golf ball.
Jack Lemmon (1925-2001) American actor [John Uhler Lemmon III]
(Attributed)
An old joke, probably pre-dating Lemmon's use of it. See here.
Please all, and you will please none.
Peace does not appear so distant as it did. I hope it will come soon, and come to stay; and so come as to be worth the keeping in all future time. It will then have been proved that, among free men, there can be no successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet; and that they who take such appeal are sure to lose their case, and pay the cost.
Those who demand consideration for their sacrifices were making investments, not sacrifices.
James Richardson (b. 1950) American poet
Vectors: Aphorisms and Ten-Second Essays, # 2 (2001)
People see the wrongness in an idea much quicker that the rightness.
Charles F. Kettering (1876-1958) American inventor, engineer, researcher, businessman
(Attributed)
Envy, like flame, blackens that which is above it, and which it cannot reach.
Jean-Antoine Petit-Senn (1792-1870) French-Swiss poet
(Attributed)
Unkindness has no Remedy at Law.
Thomas Fuller (1654-1734) English physician, preacher, aphorist, writer
Gnomologia: Adages and Proverbs, #5402 (1732)
(Source)
Persuasion deals in the coin of self-interest.
Richard Neustadt (1919-2003) American political scientist
Presidential Power: The Politics of Leadership, 3.3 (1960)
I have no use for those — regardless of their political party — who hold some foolish dream of spinning the clock back to days when unorganized labor was a huddled, almost helpless mass.
Dwight David Eisenhower (1890-1969) American general, US President (1953-61)
Speech, American Federation of Labor, New York City (17 Sep 1952)
Reasoning will never make a Man correct an ill Opinion, which by Reasoning he never acquired.
Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) English writer and churchman
“Letter to a Young Clergyman” (9 Jan 1720)
(Source)
Earliest version of this general sentiment, which has been attributed to (or at times borrowed by) figures such as Sydney Smith, Fisher Ames, and Lyman Beecher.
For more information about this quotation: You Cannot Reason People Out of Something They Were Not Reasoned Into – Quote Investigator.
The trouble with this country is that there are too many politicians who believe, with a conviction based on experience, that you can fool all of the people all of the time.
Franklin Pierce Adams (1881-1960) American journalist and humorist
Nods and Becks (1944)
See Lincoln.
Whoever knocks persistently, ends by entering.
'Ali ibn Abi-Talib (602-661) Fourth Caliph
Maxims of ‘Ali [tr. Akbar]
True liberty shows itself to best advantage in protecting the rights of others, and especially of minorities.
Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) American politician, statesman, conservationist, writer, US President (1901-1909)
Lecture (1910-06-07), “Biological Analogies in History,” Romanes Lecture, Oxford University
(Source)
Scientists have calculated that the chances of something so patently absurd actually existing are millions to one. But magicians have calculated that million-to-one chances crop up nine times out of ten.
Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Mort (1987)
You must picture me alone in that room in Magdalen, night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him of whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me. In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England. I did not then see what is now the most shining and obvious thing; the Divine humility which will accept a convert even on such terms. The Prodigal Son at least walked home on his own feet. But who can duly adore that Love which will open the high gates to a prodigal who is brought in kicking, struggling, resentful, and darting his eyes in every direction for a chance of escape? The words compelle intrare, compel them to come in, have been so abused by wicked men that we shudder at them; but, properly understood, they plumb the depth of the Divine mercy. The hardness of God is kinder than the softness of men, and His compulsion is our liberation.
C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) English writer, literary scholar, lay theologian [Clive Staples Lewis]
Surprised by Joy, ch. 14 (1955)
I expose slavery in this country, because to expose it is to kill it. Slavery is one of the monsters of darkness to whom the light of truth is death.
Frederick Douglass (1817-1895) American abolitionist, orator, writer
Speech, Moorfields, England (22 May 1846)
(Source)
Institutions like to continue doing what they have been doing, always on a grander scale, if possible. When old enemies disappear, mellow, or turn into allies, as frequently happens in international relations, new enemies must be found and new threats must be discovered. The failure to replenish the supply of enemies is the supreme threat facing any national security bureaucracy.
Richard J. Barnet (1929-2004) American scholar, writer, activist
Roots of War, 5.1 (1971)
Unrestricted individualism spells ruin to the individual himself. But so does the elimination of individualism, whether by law or custom.
Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) American politician, statesman, conservationist, writer, US President (1901-1909)
An Autobiography, ch. 5 (1913)
We each have a moral obligation to conserve and preserve beauty in this world; there is none to waste.
Robert A. Heinlein (1907-1988) American writer
Friday [Dr. Baldwin] (1982)
Fortune has dealt with me rather too well. I have known little struggle, not much poverty, many generosities. Now and then I have, for my books or myself, been somewhat warmly denounced — there was one good pastor in California who upon reading my Elmer Gantry desired to lead a mob and lynch me, while another holy man in the state of Maine wondered if there was no respectable and righteous way of putting me in jail. And, much harder to endure than any raging condemnation, a certain number of old acquaintances among journalists, what in the galloping American slang we call the “I Knew Him When Club,” have scribbled that since they know me personally, therefore I must be a rather low sort of fellow and certainly no writer. But if I have now and then received such cheering brickbats, still I, who have heaved a good many bricks myself, would be fatuous not to expect a fair number in return.
Sinclair Lewis (1885-1951) American novelist, playwright
Nobel Lecture (12 Dec 1930)
Like as the waves make towards the pebbl’d shore,
So do our minutes hasten to their end.
Few men of action have been able to make a graceful exit at the appropriate time.
Malcolm Muggeridge (1903-1990) British journalist, author, media personality, satirist
Chronicles of Wasted Time: An Autobiography (1972)
Divide and rule, the politician cries;
Unite and lead, is watchword of the wise.[Entzwei’ und gebiete! Tüchtig Wort;
Verein’ und leite! Beßrer Hort!]Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) German poet, statesman, scientist
Sprüche in Reimen (1819)
(Source)
Alt. trans.:
- "Divide and command, a wise maxim; / Unite and guide, a better."
- "Divide and rule, a capital motto! / Unite and lead, a better one!"
It’s easy to think that as a result of the extinction of the dodo, we are now sadder and wiser, but there’s a lot of evidence to suggest that we are merely sadder and better informed.
No tendency is quite so strong in human nature as the desire to lay down rules of conduct for other people.
William Howard Taft (1857-1930) US President (1909-13) and Chief Justice (1921-1930)
Ladies Home Journal (May 1919)
Regarding the temperance movement. Quoted in Robert J. Schoenberg, Mr. Capone (1992).
If ever there’s a tomorrow where we’re not together, there is something you must remember. You’re braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.
A. A. Milne (1882-1956) English poet and playwright [Alan Alexander Milne]
(Misattributed)
(Source)
Christopher Robin to Pooh Bear. The quotation is broadly attributed to Milne and Winnie the Pooh, but is actually from the 1997 Disney video Pooh's Grand Adventure: The Search for Christopher Robin, written by Carter Crocker and Karl Geurs, based on the characters created by Milne.
You will find that he takes care never to say or do anything, that can be construed into a slight, or a negligence; or that can, in any degree, mortify people’s vanity and self-love; on the contrary, you will perceive that he makes people pleased with him by making them first pleased with themselves: he shows respect, regard, esteem and attention, where they are severally proper: he sows them with care, and he reaps them in plenty.
Lord Chesterfield (1694-1773) English statesman, wit [Philip Dormer Stanhope]
Letter to his son, #214 (18 Jan 1750)
(Source)
On a proper role model to imitate.
As the means, so the end.
Mohandas Gandhi (1869-1948) Indian philosopher and nationalist [Mahatma Gandhi]
In Young India (17 Jul 1924)
Compare to this.
The road reaches every place, the short cut only one.
James Richardson (b. 1950) American poet
Vectors: Aphorisms and Ten-Second Essays, # 1 (2001)
The only difference between a problem and a solution is that people understand the solution.
Charles F. Kettering (1876-1958) American inventor, engineer, researcher, businessman
(Attributed)
Quoted in Thomas Alvin Boyd, Charles F. Kettering: A Biography (1957)
Honest Men often go to Law for their Right; when Wise Men would sit down with the Wrong, supposing the first Loss least. In some Countries the Course of the Courts is so tedious, and the Expence so high, that the Remedy, Justice, is worse than, Injustice, the Disease. In my Travels I once saw a Sign call’d The Two Men at Law; One of them was painted on one Side, in a melancholy Posture, all in Rags, with this Scroll, I have lost my Cause. The other was drawn capering for Joy, on the other Side, with these Words, I have gain’d my Suit; but he was stark naked.
Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) American statesman, scientist, philosopher, aphorist
Poor Richard’s Almanack (1742)
We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our necessities but of their advantages.
Adam Smith (1723-1790) Scottish economist
The Wealth of Nations, 1.2 (1776)
When I found the first camp like that I think I never was so angry in my life. The bestiality displayed there was not merely piled up bodies of people that had starved to death, but to follow out the road and see where they tried to evacuate them so they could still work, you could see where they sprawled on the road. You could go to their burial pits and see horrors that really I wouldn’t even want to begin to describe. I think people ought to know about such things. It explains something of my attitude toward the German war criminal. I believe he must be punished, and I will hold out for that forever.
Dwight David Eisenhower (1890-1969) American general, US President (1953-61)
Press Conference (18 Jun 1945)
And God said, Let there be light, and there was light; but Eastern Electricity Board said He would have to wait until Thursday to be connected.
Terence Alan "Spike" Milligan (1918-2002) Anglo-Irish comedian, writer, actor
The Bible According to Spike Milligan, “The Creation According to the Trade Unions” (1994)
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Quoted in Spike Milligan's Meaning of Life: A Sort of Autobiography, ch. 1 (2011) [ed. Norma Farnes]
The Stream of Life sometimes glides smoothly on, through flowry meadows and enamell’d planes. At other times it draggs a winding reluctant Course through offensive Boggs and dismal gloomy Swamps. The same road now leads us thro’ a spacious Country fraught with evry delightful object, Then plunges us at once, into miry Sloughs, or stops our passage with craggy and inaccessible mountains. The free roving Songster of the forest, now rambles unconfin’d, and hopps from Spray to Spray but the next hour perhaps he alights to pick the scattered Grain and is entangled in the Snare. The Ship, which, wafted by a favourable gale, sails prosperously upon the peaceful Surface, by a sudden Change of weather may be tossed by the Tempest, and driven by furious, opposite winds, upon rocks or quicksands. In short nothing in this world enjoys a constant Series of Joy and prosperity.
John Adams (1735-1826) American lawyer, Founding Father, statesman, US President (1797-1801)
Journal (27 Mar 1756)
Many strokes fell tall Oaks.
John Clarke (d. 1658) British educator
Proverbs: English and Latine (1639)
I believe any man who takes the liberty of another into his keeping is bound to become a tyrant, and that any man who yields up his liberty, in however slight the measure, is bound to become a slave.
H. L. Mencken (1880-1956) American writer and journalist [Henry Lewis Mencken]
“Why Liberty?” Chicago Tribune (30 Jan 1927)
Technically, a cat locked in a box may be alive or it may be dead. You never know until you look. In fact, the mere act of opening the box will determine the state of the cat, although in this case there were three determinate states the cat could be in: these being Alive, Dead, and Bloody Furious.
I still think the argument from design the weakest possible ground for Theism, and what may be called the argument from un-design the strongest for Atheism.
C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) English writer, literary scholar, lay theologian [Clive Staples Lewis]
Letter to Alan Griffiths (20 Dec 1946)
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In short, we can judge by nothing but Appearances, and they are very apt to deceive us. Some put on a gay chearful Outside, and appear to the World perfectly at Ease, tho’ even then, some inward Sting, some secret Pain imbitters all their Joys, and makes the Balance even: Others appear continually dejected and full of Sorrow; but even Grief itself is sometimes pleasant, and Tears are not always without their Sweetness: Besides, Some take a Satisfaction in being thought unhappy, (as others take a Pride in being thought humble,) these will paint their Misfortunes to others in the strongest Colours, and leave no Means unus’d to make you think them thoroughly miserable; so great a Pleasure it is to them to be pitied; Others retain the Form and outside Shew of Sorrow, long after the Thing itself, with its Cause, is remov’d from the Mind; it is a Habit they have acquir’d and cannot leave.
Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) American statesman, scientist, philosopher, aphorist
“A Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity” (1725)
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