- WIST is my personal collection of quotations, curated for thought, amusement, turn of phrase, historical significance, or sometimes just (often-unintentional) irony.
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- “Wealth and Poverty,” speech, National… (7,249)
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- “The Triumph of Stupidity” (10 May 1933) (4,967)
- Nobel prize acceptance speech (10 Dec 1962) (4,876)
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Adams, John • Bacon, Francis • Bible • Bierce, Ambrose • Billings, Josh • Butcher, Jim • Chesterton, Gilbert Keith • Churchill, Winston • Einstein, Albert • Eisenhower, Dwight David • Emerson, Ralph Waldo • Franklin, Benjamin • Fuller, Thomas (1654) • Gaiman, Neil • Galbraith, John Kenneth • Gandhi, Mohandas • Goethe, Johann von • Hazlitt, William • Heinlein, Robert A. • Hoffer, Eric • Huxley, Aldous • Ingersoll, Robert Green • James, William • Jefferson, Thomas • Johnson, Lyndon • Johnson, Samuel • Kennedy, John F. • King, Martin Luther • La Rochefoucauld, Francois • Lewis, C.S. • Lincoln, Abraham • Mencken, H.L. • Orwell, George • Pratchett, Terry • Roosevelt, Eleanor • Roosevelt, Theodore • Russell, Bertrand • Seneca the Younger • Shakespeare, William • Shaw, George Bernard • Stevenson, Adlai • Stevenson, Robert Louis • Twain, Mark • Watterson, Bill • Wilde, Oscar- Only the 45 most quoted authors are shown above. Full author list.
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Quotations about balance
Note that not all quotations have been tagged, so the Search function may find additional quotations on this topic.
The crucial task of age is balance, a veritable tightrope of balance; keeping just well enough, just brave enough, just gay and interested and starkly honest enough to remain a sentient human being.
Florida Scott-Maxwell (1883-1979) American-British playwright, author psychologist
The Measure of My Days (1968)
(Source)
During the greater part of the nineteenth century the significance of the opposition between the two principles of individual rights and social functions was masked by the doctrine of the inevitable harmony between private interests and public good. Competition, it was argued, was an effective substitute for honesty. Today … few now would profess adherence to the compound of economic optimism and moral bankruptcy which led a nineteenth century economist to say: “Greed is held in check by greed, and the desire for gain sets limits to itself.”
R. H. Tawney (1880-1962) English writer, economist, historian, social critic [Richard Henry Tawney]
The Acquisitive Century, ch. 3 “The Acquisitive Society” (1920)
(Source)
[T.E. Lawrence] is one of those great men for whom one feels intensely sorry because he was nothing but a great man.
Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) English novelist, essayist and critic
Letter to Virginia Ocampo (12 Dec 1946)
If individuality has no play, society does not advance; if individuality breaks out of all bounds, society perishes.
T. H. Huxley (1825-1895) English biologist [Thomas Henry Huxley]
“Administrative Nihilism” (1871)
There is — in world affairs — a steady course to be followed between an assertion of strength that is truculent and a confession of helplessness that is cowardly.
Dwight David Eisenhower (1890-1969) American general, US President (1953-61)
State of the Union Address (2 Feb 1953)
Almost every wise saying has an opposite one, no less wise, to balance it.
George Santayana (1863-1952) Spanish-American poet and philosopher [Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruíz de Santayana y Borrás]
The Life of Reason or The Phases of Human Progress, Vol. 5 “Reason in Science,” ch. 8 “Prerational Morality” (1905)
(Source)
Perhaps it is impossible for a person who does no good not to do harm.
Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896) American author
Uncle Tom’s Cabin, ch. 28 “Reunion” (1852)
(Source)
A strong mind is one which does not lose its balance even under the most violent excitement.
Karl von Clausewitz (1780-1831) Prussian soldier, historian, military theorist
On War, Book 1, ch. 3 (1832) [tr. J. Graham (1873)]
(Source)
Alt. trans.: "A strong character is one that will not be unbalanced by the most powerful emotions." [tr. Howard & Paret (1976)]
You should not confuse your career with your life.
Dave Barry (b. 1947) American humorist
“25 Things I Have Learned In 50 Years,” #20 (1997)
When you have only two pennies left in the world, buy a loaf of bread with one, and a lily with the other.
Other Authors and Sources
Chinese proverb
It is only a step from victory to disaster. My experience is that, in a crisis, some detail always decides the issue.
Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) French emperor, military leader
Letter to Tallyrand (7 Oct 1797)
(Source)
Napoleon's Letters [tr. J. M. Thompson (1934)]
