WIST Quotations

Burke, Edmund -- (Attributed)

Dave — Wed, 04 Jun 2025 15:02:35 +0000

If an idiot were to tell you the same story every day for a year, you would end by believing it.

Edmund Burke (1729–1797) Anglo-Irish statesman, orator, philosopher
(Attributed)

Quoted without citation in John Frederick Boyes, Lacon in Council, "Literature, Poetry, Oratory, Genius, &c." (1865). That is the earliest reference I could find for this quote.

Sometimes misattributed to Horace Mann.

Butler, Octavia -- Parable of the Talents, ch. 18, epigram (1998)

Dave — Fri, 24 Sep 2021 14:11:41 +0000

Beware:
All too often,
We say
What we hear others say.
We think
What we’re told that we think.
We see
What we’re permitted to see.
Worse!
We see what we’re told that we see.
Repetition and pride are the keys to this.
To hear and to see
Even an obvious lie
Again
And again and again
May be to say it,
Almost by reflex
Then to defend it
Because we’ve said it
And at last to embrace it
Because we’ve defended it
And because we cannot admit
That we’ve embraced and defended
An obvious lie.

Thus, without thought,
Without intent,
We make
Mere echoes
Of ourselves —
And we say
What we hear others say.

Octavia Butler (1947–2006) American writer
Parable of the Talents, ch. 18, epigram (1998)

Internally cited to the book's scripture, Earthseed: The Books of the Living,, and to a poem, "Warrior," written by the protagonist's uncle, Marcos Duran.

Voltaire -- “Superstition,” Philosophical Dictionary (1764) [tr. Fleming (1901)]

Dave — Fri, 09 Jun 2017 04:14:48 +0000

The superstitious man is to the knave, what the slave is to the tyrant; nay more — the superstitious man is governed by the fanatic, and becomes a fanatic himself.

Voltaire (1694–1778) French writer [pseud. of Francois-Marie Arouet]
“Superstition,” Philosophical Dictionary (1764) [tr. Fleming (1901)]

Alt. trans.: "The superstitious man is to the rascal what the slave is to the tyrant." [tr. Besterman (1971)]

Bonhoeffer, Dietrich -- “On Stupidity” (1942)

Dave — Wed, 22 Mar 2017 16:13:24 +0000

The fact that the stupid person is often stubborn must not blind us to the fact that he is not independent. In conversation with him, one virtually feels that one is dealing not at all with him as a person, but with slogans, catchwords, and the like that have taken possession of him. He is under a spell, blinded, misused, and abused in his very being. Having thus become a mindless tool, the stupid person will also be capable of any evil and at the same time incapable of seeing that it is evil. This is where the danger of diabolical misuse lurks, for it is this that can once and for all destroy human beings.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) German Lutheran pastor, theologian, martyr
“On Stupidity” (1942)

Ingersoll, Robert Green -- Trial of C.B. Reynolds for blasphemy (May 1887)

Dave — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 14:13:12 +0000

What is blasphemy? I will give you a definition; I will give you my thought upon this subject. What is real blasphemy?
To live on the unpaid labor of other men — that is blasphemy.
To enslave your fellow-man, to put chains upon his body — that is blasphemy.
To enslave the minds of men, to put manacles upon the brain, padlocks upon the lips — that is blasphemy.
To deny what you believe to be true, to admit to be true what you believe to be a lie — that is blasphemy.
To strike the weak and unprotected, in order that you may gain the applause of the ignorant and superstitious mob — that is blasphemy.
To persecute the intelligent few, at the command of the ignorant many — that is blasphemy.
To forge chains, to build dungeons, for your honest fellow-men — that is blasphemy.
To pollute the souls of children with the dogma of eternal pain — that is blasphemy.
To violate your conscience — that is blasphemy.
The jury that gives an unjust verdict, and the judge who pronounces an unjust sentence, are blasphemers.
The man who bows to public opinion against his better judgment and against his honest conviction, is a blasphemer.

Robert Green Ingersoll (1833–1899) American lawyer, freethinker, orator
Trial of C.B. Reynolds for blasphemy (May 1887)