WIST Quotations

Billings, Josh -- Josh Billings’ Farmer’s Allminax, 1870-06 “Words Tew Housewifes” (1870 ed.)

Dave — Thu, 01 Jan 2026 21:06:01 +0000

Tew learn yure offspring to steal, make them beg hard for all that yu giv them.

[To learn your offspring to steal, make them beg hard for all that you give them.]

Josh Billings (1818–1885) American humorist, aphorist [pseud. of Henry Wheeler Shaw]
Josh Billings’ Farmer’s Allminax, 1870-06 “Words Tew Housewifes” (1870 ed.)

Orwell, George -- Essay (1948-06), “‘Such, Such Were the Joys …’,” Partisan Review (1952-09)

Dave — Wed, 21 Dec 2016 01:21:07 +0000

The weakness of the child is that it starts with a blank sheet. It neither understands nor questions the society in which it lives, and because of its credulity other people can work upon it, infecting it with the sense of inferiority and the dread of offending against mysterious, terrible laws.

George Orwell (1903–1950) English journalist, essayist, writer [pseud. of Eric Arthur Blair]
Essay (1948-06), “‘Such, Such Were the Joys …’,” Partisan Review (1952-09)

This autobiographical essay was drafted around 1939, revised around 1946, and then completed in May or June of 1948. Collected in Such, Such Were the Joys, essay 8 (1953), though the full, unredacted version was not published until 2000.

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth -- “Table-Talk,” Drift-wood (1857)

Dave — Tue, 22 Nov 2016 06:15:46 +0000

A torn jacket is soon mended; but hard words bruise the heart of a child.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) American poet
“Table-Talk,” Drift-wood (1857)

See Howell (1659).

Tawney, R. H. -- Secondary Education For All (1922)

Dave — Wed, 21 Sep 2016 00:14:45 +0000

In England it is not ungentlemanly to steal halfpennies from children, and industrial interests, it may be assumed, will oppose any reform which interferes with the supply of cheap juvenile labour.

R. H. Tawney (1880–1962) English writer, economist, historian, social critic [Richard Henry Tawney]
Secondary Education For All (1922)