WIST Quotations

Serling, Rod -- Seven Days in May, film (1964)

Dave — Fri, 21 Feb 2025 17:32:10 +0000

LYMAN: He’s not the enemy. Scott, the Joint Chiefs, even the very emotional, very illogical lunatic fringe: they’re not the enemy. The enemy’s an age — a nuclear age. It happens to have killed man’s faith in his ability to influence what happens to him. And out of this comes a sickness, and out of sickness a frustration, a feeling of impotence, helplessness, weakness. And from this, this desperation, we look for a champion in red, white, and blue. Every now and then a man on a white horse rides by, and we appoint him to be our personal god for the duration. For some men it was a Senator McCarthy, for others it was a General Walker, and now it’s a General Scott.

Rod Serling (1924–1975) American screenwriter, playwright, television producer, narrator
Seven Days in May, film (1964)

Based on the 1962 novel by Fletcher Knebel and Charles W. Bailey II.

These lines are almost all Serling's. By wording, the only parallel I could find in the original novel was this:

The nuclear age, by killing man’s faith in his ability to influence what happens, could destroy the United States even if no bombs were ever dropped.
[Source]

Dempsey, Jack -- (Attributed)

Dave — Wed, 04 Apr 2018 17:00:40 +0000

A champion is someone who gets up when he can’t.

William Harrison "Jack" Dempsey (1895–1983) American professional boxer ("Kid Blackie," "The Manassa Mauler")
(Attributed)

Comment after his fight with Luis Ángel Firpo (14 Sep 1923).

King, Billie Jean -- Billie Jean (1982)

Dave — Thu, 02 Apr 2015 12:53:07 +0000

The trouble with being number one in the world — at anything — is that it takes a certain mentality to attain that position in the first place, and that is something of a driving, perfectionist attitude, so that once you do achieve number one, you don’t relax and enjoy it.

Billie Jean King (b. 1943) American tennis player
Billie Jean (1982)

Goldsmith, Oliver -- The Traveller: Or, A Prospect of Society (1764)

Dave — Thu, 07 Aug 2014 12:52:27 +0000

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)