Nothing makes one so vain as being told that one is a sinner. Conscience makes egotists of us all.
Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) Irish poet, wit, dramatist
The Picture of Dorian Gray, ch. 8 [Lord Henry] (1891)
(Source)
The Argument from Intimidation is a confession of intellectual impotence.
Ayn Rand (1905-1982) Russian-American writer, philosopher
The Virtue of Selfishness (1964)
To be nobody-but-yourself — in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else — means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.
e e cummings (1894-1962) American poet and painter [Edward Estlin Cummings]
A Miscellany (1958)
I wouldn’t want to live in Tomorrowland, where the social patterns and infrastructure are all so spiff and modern and rational and well-designed that any remaining problems must needs be insoluble, and so a cause for despair.
I saw pale kings and princes too,
Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;
They cried — “La Belle Dame sans Merci
Hath thee in thrall!”
Not forgiving is like drinking rat poison and then waiting for the rat to die.
Anne Lamott (b. 1954) American novelist and non-fiction writer
Traveling Mercies, ch. 3 (1999)
On Facebook (31 Jan 2013) she further wrote:When I first got sober in '86, I first heard someone say that harboring resentment is like drinking rat poison, and waiting for the rat to die. Resenting someone is about not forgiving them -- thinking that they have done something to you so damaging or disgusting that the are beyond the pale; so therefore you are choosing to be toxic for the rest of your life, rather than to work and pray for the healing. You are willing to go through life not metabolizing the rat poison, so that this person should know what a morally repellent person you believe them to be. But the most horrible thing is that half the time, they aren't even AWARE of what it is you think they did to you. So it's a complete waste of your precious bile. When I am willing to have clogged bile ducts, because of a person who hardly thinks of me, or has no idea that he behaved like a total asshat, then I'm the crazy one.
See also Fisher.
I git thar fustest with the mostest.
Nathan Bedford Forrest (1821-1877) American / Confederate military leader
(Attributed)
Sometimes "corrected" as "I get there firstest with the mostest men," first found in print in a New York Tribune article about Civil War generals. The New York Times (28 May 1918) speculatively corrected this to "Ma'am, I get thar first with the most men."Elsewhere given as "I always make a rule to get there first with the most men."
He who does not bellow the truth when he knows the truth makes himself the accomplice of liars and forgers.
Charles Péguy (1873-1914) French poet, essayist, editor
“Basic Verities: The Honest People,” Basic Verities: Prose and Poetry [tr. A and J. Green (1943)]
I can picture in my mind a world without war, a world without hate. And I can picture us attacking that world because they’d never expect it.
Jack Handey (b. 1949) American humorist
Deep Thoughts (1992)
There is hardly any bodily blemish which a winning behaviour will not conceal, or make tolerable; and there is no external grace which ill-nature or affectation will not deform.
James Burgh (1714-1775) British politician and writer
The Dignity of Human Nature, Sec. 5 “Miscellaneous Thoughts on Prudence in Conversation” (1754)
(Source)
Depending on the kindness of strangers may not be as bad as depending on the competence of strangers.
Arthur D. Hlavaty (b. 1942) American writer, editor, publisher [a/k/a "Supergee"]
“Derogatory Reference” #100 (2002)
(Source)
If it was a worthwhile fight, it didn’t matter who won; some good was sure to come of it.
Richard Brooks (1912-1992) American screenwriter, film director, novelist
Deadline: U.S.A. [film] (1952)
Line spoken by Ethyl Barrymore.
The trouble with writing a book about yourself is that you can’t fool around. If you write about someone else, you can stretch the truth from here to Finland. If you write about yourself the slightest deviation makes you realize instantly that there may be honor among thieves, but you are just a dirty liar.
Groucho Marx (1890-1977) American comedian [b. Julius Henry Marx]
Groucho and Me (1959)
Body or mind, heart or soul, we’re all human, and we’re supposed to feel pain. You cut yourself off from it at your own risk.
Jim Butcher (b. 1971) American author
Small Favor (2008)
The right to be heard would be, in many cases, of little avail if it did not comprehend the right to be heard by counsel. Even the intelligent and educated layman has small and sometimes no skill in the science of law. If charged with crime, he is incapable, generally, of determining for himself whether the indictment is good or bad. He is unfamiliar with the rules of evidence. Left without the aid of counsel he may be put on trial without a proper charge, and convicted upon incompetent evidence, or evidence irrelevant to the issue or otherwise inadmissible. He lacks both the skill and knowledge adequately to prepare his defense, even though he have a perfect one. He requires the guiding hand of counsel at every step in the proceedings against him. Without it, though he be not guilty, he faces the danger of conviction because he does not know how to establish his innocence. If that be true of men of intelligence, how much more true is it of the ignorant and illiterate, or those of feeble intellect.
George Sutherland (1862-1942) Anglo-American jurist, Supreme Court Justice (1922-1938)
Powell v. Alabama, 287 U.S. 45, 53 (1932) [majority opinion]
It’d be nice if we’d now stop hearing political appointees and MBA candidates crowing about their private sector successes, their nose for accountability and the perils of broken government. Whatever. All I hear in that is the sneering of reformers who actually don’t much like democracy. I don’t want politicians who are “above politics,” anymore then I want a plumber who’s “above toilets.”
Ta-Nehisi Coates (b. 1975) American writer, journalist, educator
“Hubris,” Atlantic (7 Apr 2011)
(Source)
He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating it’s most sacred rights of life & liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. this piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the christian king of Great Britain. determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought & sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce and that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people upon whom he also obtruded them; thus paying off former crimes committed against the liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another.
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) American political philosopher, polymath, statesman, US President (1801-09)
“Declaration of Independence,” original draft (1776-06)
(Source)
This anti-slavery clause was included in the submission to the Continental Congress. It was removed from the Declaration at the behest of the delegation from South Carolina, as a requirement for their vote.
He that flings Dirt at another dirtieth himself most.
Thomas Fuller (1654-1734) English physician, preacher, aphorist, writer
Gnomologia: Adages and Proverbs, #2107 (1732)
(Source)
An authentic faith — which is never comfortable or completely personal — always involves a deep desire to change the world, to transmit values, to leave this earth somehow better that we found it.
Francis I (b. 1936) Argentinian Catholic Pope (2013- ) [b. Jorge Mario Bergoglio]
Evangelii Gaudium, sec. 183 (24 Nov 2013)
(Source)
Those people you saw — the realborn — are born without a plan. They’re born because biology tells humans to make more humans; but it doesn’t consider what to do with them after that. Realborn go for years without the slightest clue what they’re going to do with themselves. From what I understand, some of them never actually figure it out. They just walk through life in a daze and then fall into their graves at the end of it. Sad. And inefficient.
John Scalzi (b. 1969) American writer
The Ghost Brigades, ch. 5 (2006)
I should mention that there had been many floating castles before the Interregnum. I guess the spell isn’t all that difficult, if you care to put enough work into it in the first place. The reason that they are currently out of vogue is the Interregnum itself. One day, over four hundred years ago now, sorcery stopped working … just like that. If you look around in the right places in the countryside you will still find broken husks and shattered remnants of what were once floating castles.
Steven Brust (b. 1955) American writer, systems programmer
Jhereg, ch. 7 (1983)
The whole point of society is to be less unforgiving than nature.
Arthur D. Hlavaty (b. 1942) American writer, editor, publisher [a/k/a "Supergee"]
“Derogatory Reference” #100 (2002)
(Source)
SID: It is not what you are; it’s what you don’t become that hurts.
Fannie Hurst (1889-1968) American novelist
Humoresque [film] (1946) [screenplay Clifford Odets, Zachary Gold]
Spoken by Oscar Levant.
He that applauds him who does not deserve praise, is endeavoring to deceive the public; he that hisses in malice or sport, is an oppressor and a robber.
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) English writer, lexicographer, critic
The Idler, #25 (7 Oct 1758)
(Source)
No President should fear public scrutiny of his program. For from that scrutiny comes understanding; and from that understanding comes support or opposition. And both are necessary.
John F. Kennedy (1917-1963) US President (1961-63)
Speech, American Newspaper Publishers Association (27 Apr 1961)
(Source)
If you do not tell the truth about yourself you cannot tell it about other people.
Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) English modernist writer [b. Adeline Virginia Stephen]
“The Leaning Tower,” Lecture, Workers’ Educational Association, Brighton (May 1940)
DARLA: You really think that safety can be plucked from the arms of an evil deed?
Steven S. DeKnight (b. 1964) American television screenwriter, producer
Angel, 4×17 “Inside Out” (2 Apr 2003)
An eagerness and zeal for dispute on every subject, and with every one, shows great self-sufficiency, that never-failing sign of great self-ignorance.
William Pitt the Elder (1708-1778) British statesman, orator [1st Earl of Chatham]
Correspondence of William Pitt, vol 4 (1840) [ed. Taylor and Pringle]
There is nothing that makes more cowards and feeble men than public opinion.
Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887) American clergyman and orator
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit (1887)
My own personal theory is that this is the very dawn of the world. We’re hardly more than an eyeblink away from the fall of Troy, and scarcely an interglaciation removed from the Altamira cave painters. We live in extremely interesting ancient times. I like this idea. It encourages us to be earnest and ingenious and brave, as befits ancestral peoples; but keeps us from deciding that because we don’t know all the answers, they must be unknowable and thus unprofitable to pursue.
O, what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge has wither’d from the lake,
And no birds sing.
Administrivia: Fortune and Glory, Kid!
I just discovered there’s a reference to WIST in the English Language Arts (ELA) text exemplars for the Common Core curriculum as implemented by the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction (NCDPI). These are “sample texts intended to guide educators as they thoughtfully select texts to use as vehicles for teaching the ELA Common Core State Standards (CCSS).”
On Page 8 of the PDF, under Informational Texts for grades 9-10, we have a reference to Learned Hand’s “I Am an American Day Address”, pointing to this WIST page.
WIST: Doing Its Part to Educate Kids (at least in North Carolina).
The system isn’t about ideals. The country doesn’t elect great leaders. It elects fucked-up people who for reasons of ego want to run the world. Then the citizenry makes them become great.
Tony Kushner (b. 1956) American playwright and screenwriter
Interview with Ben Greenman, “Tony Kushner, Radical Pragmatist,” Mother Jones (Nov/Dec 2003)
(Source)
From the sublime to the ridiculous is but a step.
Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) French emperor, military leader
Comment to the Abbé du Pradt (10 Dec 1812)
(Source)
During the retreat from Moscow, a repeated comment during a discussion with one of his ambassadors. Quoted by Archibald Alison, History of Europe from the Commencement of the French Revolution in 1789, to the Restoration of the Bourbons in 1815, Vol. 16, ch. 73 (1842). See also Paine.
Alt. trans.:
- "There is but one step from the sublime to the ridiculous."
- "There is only one step from the sublime to the ridiculous."
- "From the sublime to the ridiculous there is but a step."
Men of Athens, I honor and love you; but I shall obey God rather than you, and while I have life and strength I shall never cease from the practice and teaching of philosophy, exhorting anyone whom I meet and saying to him after my manner: You, my friend — a citizen of the great and mighty and wise city of Athens — are you not ashamed of heaping up the greatest amount of money and honor and reputation, and caring so little about wisdom and truth and the greatest improvements of the soul, which you never regard or heed at all?
Socrates (c.470-399 BC) Greek philosopher
In Plato, Apology, sec. 29 [tr. Jowett (1894)]
If you mean to make your side of the argument appear plausible, do not prejudice the people against what you think truth by your passionate manner of defending it.
James Burgh (1714-1775) British politician and writer
The Dignity of Human Nature, Sec. 5 “Miscellaneous Thoughts on Prudence in Conversation” (1754)
(Source)
The main rule of writing is that if you do it with enough assurance and confidence, you’re allowed to do whatever you like. (That may be a rule for life as well as for writing. But it’s definitely true for writing.) So write your story as it needs to be written. Write it honestly, and tell it as best you can. I’m not sure that there are any other rules. Not ones that matter.
Neil Gaiman (b. 1960) British author, screenwriter, fabulist
In “Ten Rules for Writing Fiction,” The Guardian (20 Feb 2010)
(Source)
Generally speaking, everybody is reactionary on the subjects he knows about.
Robert Conquest (b. 1917) Anglo-American historian, diplomat, poet
“Conquest’s Law”Attributed in Kingsley Amis, Memoirs (1991)
Variant: "Everyone is a reactionary about subjects he understands."
Shoot straight you bastards. Don’t make a mess of it.
(Other Authors and Sources)
Harry “Breaker” Morant, to the firing squad (27 Feb 1902)
It always pains me greatly to discover how some Christian communities, and even consecrated persons, can tolerate different forms of enmity, division, calumny, defamation, vendetta, jealousy and the desire to impose certain ideas at all costs, even to persecutions which appear as veritable witch hunts. Whom are we going to evangelize if this is the way we act?
Francis I (b. 1936) Argentinian Catholic Pope (2013- ) [b. Jorge Mario Bergoglio]
Evangelii Gaudium, sec. 100 (24 Nov 2013)
(Source)
What’s the point of being in charge if you can’t indulge in pointless favoritism?
John Scalzi (b. 1969) American writer
Old Man’s War, ch. 7 (2005)
Cleverness is a gift, kindness is a choice. Gifts are easy — they’re given after all. Choices can be hard. You can seduce yourself with your gifts if you’re not careful, and if you do, it’ll probably be to the detriment of your choices.
Jeff Bezos (b. 1964) American business magnate, entrepreneur, investor
Commencement Speech, Princeton University (2010)
(Source)
The strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must.
Thucydides (c. 460-400 BC) Greek historian
History of the Peloponnesian War, Book 5, ch. 89 [tr. Crawley and Wick (1982)]
It is a salutary discipline to consider the vast number of books that are written, the fair hopes with which their authors see them published, and the fate which awaits them. What chance is there that any book will make its way among that multitude? And the successful books are but the successes of a season. Heaven knows what pains the author has been at, what bitter experiences he has endured and what heartache suffered, to give some chance reader a few hours’ relaxation or to while away the tedium of a journey. And if I may judge from the reviews, many of these books are well and carefully written; much thought has gone into their composition; to some even has been given the anxious labour of a lifetime. The moral I draw is that the writer should seek his reward in the pleasure of his work and in release from the burden of his thoughts; and, indifferent to aught else, care nothing for praise or censure, failure or success.
W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965) English novelist and playwright [William Somerset Maugham]
The Moon and Sixpence (1919)
“So?” Bob said. “Hat up, go kill her. Problem solved.”
“Bob,” I said. “You can’t just go around killing people.”
“I know. That’s why you should do it.”
“No, no. I can’t go around killing people, either.”Jim Butcher (b. 1971) American author
Grave Peril (2001)
A nuisance may be merely a right thing in the wrong place — like a pig in the parlor instead of the barnyard.
George Sutherland (1862-1942) Anglo-American jurist, Supreme Court Justice (1922-1938)
Euclid v. Ambler Realty Co., 272 U.S. 365, 388 (1926)
I cannot criticize my parents for hoping that I would never experience poverty. They had been poor themselves, and I have since been poor. And I quite agree with them that it is not an ennobling experience. Poverty entails fear, and stress, and sometimes depression. It means a thousand petty humiliations and hardships. Climbing out of poverty by your own efforts, that is something on which to pride yourself. But poverty itself is romanticized only by fools.
Joanne "Jo" Rowling (b. 1965) British novelist [writes as J. K. Rowling and Robert Galbraith]
“The Fringe Benefits of Failure and the Importance of Imagination,” Commencement Address, Harvard (5 Jun 2008)
(Source)
I regret nothing, says arrogance; I will regret nothing, says inexperience.
Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach (1830-1916) Austrian writer
Aphorisms (1890-1905) [tr. Scrase & MIeder (1994)]
Almost every man wastes part of his life in attempts to display qualities which he does not possess, and to gain applause which he cannot keep.
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) English writer, lexicographer, critic
The Rambler, #189 (7 Jan 1752)
(Source)
The very word “secrecy” is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths and to secret proceedings. We decided long ago that the dangers of excessive and unwarranted concealment of pertinent facts far outweighed the dangers which are cited to justify it. Even today, there is little value in opposing the threat of a closed society by imitating its arbitrary restrictions. Even today, there is little value in insuring the survival of our nation if our traditions do not survive with it. And there is very grave danger that an announced need for increased security will be seized upon by those anxious to expand its meaning to the very limits of official censorship and concealment. That I do not intend to permit to the extent that it is in my control. And no official of my Administration, whether his rank is high or low, civilian or military, should interpret my words here tonight as an excuse to censor the news, to stifle dissent, to cover up our mistakes or to withhold from the press and the public the facts they deserve to know.
John F. Kennedy (1917-1963) US President (1961-63)
Speech, American Newspaper Publishers Association (27 Apr 1961)
(Source)
Once you begin to take yourself seriously as a leader or as a follower, as a modern or as a conservative, then you become a self-conscious, biting, and scratching little animal whose work is not of the slightest value or importance to anybody.
Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) English modernist writer [b. Adeline Virginia Stephen]
“A Letter to a Young Poet,” The Death of the Moth and Other Essays (1942)
This is your time, and it feels normal to you. But, really, there is no “normal.” There’s only change, and resistance to it, and then more change.
The very man who has argued you down, will sometimes be found, years later, to have been influenced by what you said.
C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) English writer, literary scholar, lay theologian [Clive Staples Lewis]
Reflections on the Psalms (1964)
By your own soul, learn to live
And if men thwart you take no heed.
If men hate you have no care.
Sing your song, dream your dream,
Hope your hope and pray your prayer.Pakenham Beatty (1855-1930) English poet
“Self Reliance”
Just because you’re on their side doesn’t mean they’re on your side.
Teresa Nielsen Hayden (b. 1956) American editor, writer, essayist
Making Light, “Commonplaces”
(Source)
You are always new. The last of your kisses was ever the sweetest; the last smile the brightest; the last movement the gracefullest.
John Keats (1795-1821) English poet
Letter to Fanny Brawne (Mar 1820)
Listen, here’s the thing about politics: It’s not an expression of your moral purity and your ethics and your probity and your fond dreams of some utopian future. Progressive people constantly fail to get this.
Tony Kushner (b. 1956) American playwright and screenwriter
Interview with Ben Greenman, “Tony Kushner, Radical Pragmatist,” Mother Jones (Nov/Dec 2003)
(Source)
The sublime and the ridiculous are often so nearly related, that it is difficult to class them separately. One step above the sublime, makes the ridiculous; and one step above the ridiculous, makes the sublime again.
Thomas Paine (1737-1809) American political philosopher and writer
The Age of Reason, Part 2 (1794)
Silence is the first thing within the power of the enslaved to shatter. From that shattering, everything else spills forth.
Robin Morgan (b. 1941) American poet, author, activist, journalist
The Demon Lover, ch. 10 (1989)
Men repent speaking ten times, for once that they repent keeping silence.
James Burgh (1714-1775) British politician and writer
The Dignity of Human Nature, Sec. 5 “Miscellaneous Thoughts on Prudence in Conversation” (1754)
(Source)
Remember that, sooner or later, before it ever reaches perfection, you will have to let it go and move on and start to write the next thing. Perfection is like chasing the horizon. Keep moving.
Neil Gaiman (b. 1960) British author, screenwriter, fabulist
In “Ten Rules for Writing Fiction,” The Guardian (20 Feb 2010)
(Source)
Every organization appears to be headed by secret agents of its opponents.
Robert Conquest (b. 1917) Anglo-American historian, diplomat, poet
“Conquest’s Second Law”
Attributed in Kingsley Amis, Memoirs (1991). Also known as "Conquest's Law of Organizations."Variants:
- "Every organisation behaves as if it is run by secret agents of its opponents."
- "The behavior of any organization can best be predicted on the assumption that it is headed by a secret cabal of its enemies."
I’m proud that I’m a politician. A politician is a man who understands government, and it takes a politician to run a government. A statesman is a politician who’s been dead 10 or 15 years.
Harry S Truman (1884-1972) US President (1945-1953)
Speech, Reciprocity Club, Washington (11 Apr 1958)
See Thomas Reed.
The road to truth is long, and lined the entire way with annoying bastards.
Alexander Jablokov (b. 1956) American writer
“The Place of No Shadows” (1990)
The thirst for power and possessions knows no limits. In this system, which tends to devour everything which stands in the way of increased profits, whatever is fragile, like the environment, is defenseless before the interests of a deified market, which become the only rule.
Francis I (b. 1936) Argentinian Catholic Pope (2013- ) [b. Jorge Mario Bergoglio]
Evangelii Gaudium, sec. 56 (24 Nov 2013)
(Source)
The problem with aging is not that it’s one damn thing after another — it’s every damn thing, all at once, all the time.
John Scalzi (b. 1969) American writer
Old Man’s War, ch. 1 (2005)
Do not wait to strike till the iron is hot; but make it hot by striking.
William Buell Sprague (1795-1876) American clergyman, philographer, biographer
(Attributed)
The moral dilemma that is presented to the weak in a world governed by the strong: Break the rules or perish.
George Orwell (1903-1950) English writer [pseud. of Eric Arthur Blair]
“Such, Such Were the Joys” (1947)
Readers usually grossly underestimate their own importance. If a reader cannot create a book along with the writer, the book will never come to life. Creative involvement: that’s the difference between reading a book and watching TV. In watching TV, we are passive — sponges; we do nothing. In reading, we must become creators, imagining the setting of the story, seeing the facial expressions, hearing the inflection of the voices. The author and the reader “know” each other; they meet on the bridge of words.
Madeleine L'Engle (1918-2007) American writer
Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art (1982)
It isn’t good to hold on too hard to the past. You can’t spend your whole life looking back. Not even when you can’t see what lies ahead. All you can do is keep on keeping on, and try to believe that tomorrow will be what it should be — even if it isn’t what you expected.
Jim Butcher (b. 1971) American author
Death Masks (2003)
Noise isn’t authority, and there’s no sense in ripping and roaring and cussing around the office when things don’t please you. For when a fellow’s given to that, his men secretly won’t care a cuss whether he’s pleased or not. They’ll jump when he speaks, because they value their heads, not his good opinion. […] One of the first things a boss must lose is his temper — and it must stay lost. […] The world is full of fellows who could take the energy which they put into useless cussing of their men, and double their business with it.
George Horace Lorimer (1867-1937) American journalist, author, magazine editor
Old Gorgon Graham: More Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son, ch. 12 (1903)
(Source)
Peace means something different from “not fighting.” Those aren’t peace advocates, they’re “stop fighting” advocates. Peace is an active and complex thing and sometimes fighting is part of what it takes to get it.
Jo Walton (b. 1964) Welsh-Canadian writer and poet
(Attributed)
It is a good rule in life never to apologize. The right sort of people do not want apologies, and the wrong sort take a mean advantage of them.
P. G. Wodehouse (1881-1975) Anglo-American humorist, playwright and lyricist [Pelham Grenville Wodehouse]
The Man Upstairs (1914)
It is harder to avoid censure than to gain applause; for this may be done by one great or wise action in an age. But to escape censure a man must pass his whole life without saying or doing one ill or foolish thing.
David Hume (1711-1776) Scottish philosopher, economist, historian, empiricist
(Attributed)
(Source)
Quoted in The Home Circle (Jan 1855)
The education of our people should be a lifelong process by which we continue to feed new vigor into the lifestream of the Nation through intelligent, reasoned decisions. Let us not think of education only in terms of its costs, but rather in terms of the infinite potential of the human mind that can be realized through education. Let us think of education as the means of developing our greatest abilities, because in each of us there is a private hope and dream which, fulfilled, can be translated into benefit for everyone and greater strength for our Nation.
John F. Kennedy (1917-1963) US President (1961-63)
“Proclamation 3422 – American Education Week, 1961” (25 Jul 1961)
(Source)
Though we see the same world, we see it through different eyes. Any help we can give you must be different from that you can give yourselves, and perhaps the value of that help may lie in the fact of that difference.
Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) English modernist writer [b. Adeline Virginia Stephen]
Three Guineas, ch. 1 (1938)
One of the greatest delusions in the world is the hope that the evils of the world can be cured by legislation.
Thomas Brackett Reed (1839-1902) American politician, Speaker of the House (1889-91, 1895-99)
(Attributed)
What Tully said of war may be applied to disputing: “It should be always so managed as to remember that the only true end of it is peace.” But generally true disputants are like true sportsmen, — their whole delight is in the pursuit; and the disputant no more cares for the truth than the sportsman for the hare.
Good humor may be said to be one of the very best articles of dress one can wear in society.
William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-1863) English novelist
Sketches and Travels in London, “On Tailoring — and Toilets in General” (1856)
Prejudice, not being founded on reason, cannot be removed by argument.
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) English writer, lexicographer, critic
(Spurious)
(Source)
Frequently attributed without citation, and not found in Johnson's works. However, the phrase can be found in other contexts:
- "This objection on the score of color is founded upon prejudice, and hence cannot be removed by argument, for prejudice is blind and listens not to reason." -- Rep. Godlove S. Orth of Indiana, speech before the House of Representatives (5 Apr 1869) on the question of admitting the Dominican Republic as a US territory.
- "This persuasion of the power of the priest is, as we have said, a traditional prejudice; it is not founded on any reasons or proofs addressed to the understanding, and therefore it cannot be removed by argument." -- John Eliot Howard, The Island of the Saints (1855), quoting from the Achill Herald (Jun 1855).
If this spirit ever be so far debased as to tolerate a law not obligatory on the legislature as well as on the people, the people will be able to tolerate anything but liberty.
James Madison (1751-1836) American statesman, political theorist, US President (1809-17)
The Federalist #57 “The Alleged Tendency of the New Plan to Elevate the Few at the Expense of the Many” (19 Feb 1788)
Every absurdity has now a champion to defend it: and as he is generally much in the wrong, so he has always much to say; for error is ever talkative.
Oliver Goldsmith (1730-1774) Irish poet, playwright, novelist
The Traveller: Or, A Prospect of Society (1764)
It is almost impossible to remain silent in the face of tyranny without, by this very act of silence, becoming an agent of that tyranny.
Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson (b. 1941) American author
Against Therapy, Conclusion (1988)
Deep learning will make you acceptable to the learned; but it is only an obliging and easy behaviour, and entertaining conversation, that will make you agreeable to all companies.
James Burgh (1714-1775) British politician and writer
The Dignity of Human Nature, Sec. 5 “Miscellaneous Thoughts on Prudence in Conversation” (1754)
(Source)
Remember: when people tell you something’s wrong or doesn’t work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong.
Neil Gaiman (b. 1960) British author, screenwriter, fabulist
In “Ten Rules for Writing Fiction,” The Guardian (20 Feb 2010)
(Source)
Great writing is the world’s cheapest special effect.
Teresa Nielsen Hayden (b. 1956) American editor, writer, essayist
Making Light, “Commonplaces”
(Source)
A statesman is a successful politician who is dead.
Thomas Brackett Reed (1839-1902) American politician, Speaker of the House (1889-91, 1895-99)
(Attributed)
Quoted in Henry Cabot Lodge, The Democracy of the Constitution, ch. 7 (1915).
Guard your honor. Let your reputation fall where it will. And outlive the bastards.
Lois McMaster Bujold (b. 1949) American author
A Civil Campaign (1999)
Just as the commandment “Thou shalt not kill” sets a clear limit in order to safeguard the value of human life, today we also have to say “thou shalt not” to an economy of exclusion and inequality. Such an economy kills. How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points? This is a case of exclusion. Can we continue to stand by when food is thrown away while people are starving? This is a case of inequality. Today everything comes under the laws of competition and the survival of the fittest, where the powerful feed upon the powerless. As a consequence, masses of people find themselves excluded and marginalized: without work, without possibilities, without any means of escape.
Francis I (b. 1936) Argentinian Catholic Pope (2013- ) [b. Jorge Mario Bergoglio]
Evangelii Gaudium, sec. 53 (24 Nov 2013)
(Source)
Many people believe geekdom is defined by a love of a thing, but I think — and my experience of geekdom bears on this thinking — that the true sign of a geek is a delight in sharing a thing. It’s the major difference between a geek and a hipster, you know: When a hipster sees someone else grooving on the thing they love, their reaction is to say “Oh, crap, now the wrong people like the thing I love.” When a geek sees someone else grooving on the thing they love, their reaction is to say “ZOMG YOU LOVE WHAT I LOVE COME WITH ME AND LET US LOVE IT TOGETHER.”
John Scalzi (b. 1969) American writer
“Who Gets To Be a Geek? Anyone Who Wants to Be,” blog entry (26 Jul 2012)
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When liberty is mentioned, we must observe whether it is not really the assertion of private interests which is thereby designated.
Georg Hegel (1770-1831) German philosopher
The Philosophy of History Sec. 3, ch. 2 (1821-1831)
(Source)
You may either win your peace or buy it: win it, by resistance to evil; buy it, by compromise with evil.
John Ruskin (1819-1900) English art critic, painter, writer, social thinker
The Two Paths, Lecture 5 (1859)
The best fame is a writer’s fame: it’s enough to get a table at a good restaurant, but not enough that you get interrupted when you eat.
Fran Lebowitz (b. 1950) American journalist
In The Observer (30 May 1993)
There are things you can’t walk away from. Not if you want to live with yourself afterward.
Jim Butcher (b. 1971) American author
Death Masks (2003)
The real reason why the name of the boss doesn’t appear on the time-sheet is not because he’s a bigger man than any one else in the place, but because there shouldn’t be any one around to take his time when he gets down and when he leaves.
George Horace Lorimer (1867-1937) American journalist, author, magazine editor
Old Gorgon Graham: More Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son, ch. 10 (1903)
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Everybody gets so much information all day long that they lose their common sense.
Gertrude Stein (1874-1946) American expatriate author, feminist
“Reflection on the Atomic Bomb” (1946), Yale Poetry Review (Dec 1947)
(Source)
I apologize if I get an erection, and I apologize if I don’t.
(Other Authors and Sources)
George C. Scott
Comment to an actress with whom he was shooting a love scene in bed.
When the million applaud you, seriously ask yourself what harm you have done; when they censure you, what good!
Charles Caleb "C. C." Colton (1780-1832) English cleric, writer, aphorist
Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Vol. 1, § 183 (1820)
(Source)
Geography has made us neighbors. History has made us friends. Economics has made us partners. And necessity has made us allies. Those whom nature hath so joined together, let no man put asunder.
John F. Kennedy (1917-1963) US President (1961-63)
Speech, Canadian Parliament (17 May 1961)