WIST Quotations

Adams, Douglas -- Hitchhiker’s Guide No. 5, Mostly Harmless, ch. 17 (1992)

Dave — Wed, 01 Apr 2026 19:12:10 +0000

“So what’s the point of showing me something I can’t see?”
“So that you understand that just because you see something, it doesn’t mean to say it’s there. And if you don’t see something, it doesn’t mean to say it’s not there. It’s only what your senses bring to your attention.”

Douglas Adams (1952–2001) English author, humorist, screenwriter
Hitchhiker’s Guide No. 5, Mostly Harmless, ch. 17 (1992)

Random and the bird Guide.

Commager, Henry Steele -- Essay (1965-12-18), “The Problem of Dissent,” Saturday Review

Dave — Mon, 02 Feb 2026 23:08:29 +0000

But this we can say with certainty: a government and a society that silences those who dissent is one that has lost its way. This we can say: that what is essential in a free society is that there should be an atmosphere where those who wish to dissent and even to demonstrate can do so without fear of recrimination or vilification.

Henry Steele Commager (1902–1998) American historian, writer, activist
Essay (1965-12-18), “The Problem of Dissent,” Saturday Review

Reprinted in Freedom and Order, Part 6 (1966).

Commager, Henry Steele -- Essay (1965-12-18), “The Problem of Dissent,” Saturday Review

Dave — Mon, 26 Jan 2026 16:38:41 +0000

The rich and respectable have always had their ways of making their discontent heard; the poor and unorganized must resort to protests and marches and demonstrations.

Henry Steele Commager (1902–1998) American historian, writer, activist
Essay (1965-12-18), “The Problem of Dissent,” Saturday Review

Reprinted in Freedom and Order, Part 6 (1966).

Augustine of Hippo -- (Spurious)

Dave — Sun, 04 Aug 2024 19:51:59 +0000

The world is a book, and those who do not leave home read but one page.

Augustine of Hippo (354–430) Christian church father, philosopher, saint [b. Aurelius Augustinus]
(Spurious)

This quotation, and variants, are widely attributed to Augustine, but, though he did on occasion write of the world as a a text or book, it was not in the sense of encouraging travel (which Augustine did not like), but in the sense that anyone could read the message of God in the world around them, even if they could not read Scripture itself. For example in Exposition of the Psalms [Enarrationes in Psalmos] on Psalm 45, sec. 7 (v. 4), he writes:

The page of divine scripture is open for you to read, and the wide world is open for you to see. Only the literate can read the books, but even the illiterate can read the book of the world.
[tr. Boulding (2000)]

May the sacred page be a book for you, so that you may hear, may the globe of the earth be a book for you, so that you may see; in these books only those who know letters read these things; in the whole world, even the fool can read.
[tr. Mews (2004)]

[Liber tibi sit pagina diuina, ut haec audias; liber tibi sit orbis terrarum, ut haec uideas. in istis codicibus non ea legunt, nisi qui litteras nouerunt; in toto mundo legat et idiota.]

If this was the source of the original quote -- which begins to show up in English in the late 18th Century -- it was significantly distorted. Early appearances of the version we know today:

The world is a great book, and none study this book so much as a traveler. They that never stir from their home read only one page of this book.
[ed. Feltham, The English Enchiridion (1799), paraphrasing]

The world is a great book, of which they that never stir from home read only a page.
[ed. Fiedling, Select Proverbs of All Nations (1824)]

It is in turn possible that Augustine's "world is a book" metaphor was somehow conflated with this original expression in Fougeret de Monbron, Le Cosmopolite (opening words) (1750):

The universe is a sort of book, whose first page one has read when one has seen only one's own country.

[L'Univers est une espece de livre dont on n'a lû que la prémiére page, quand on n'a vû que son Païs.]

More discussion:

West, Rebecca -- “Pleasure Be Your Guide,” The Nation, “Living Philosophies” series #10 (25 Feb 1939)

Dave — Mon, 26 Apr 2021 15:29:15 +0000

Christ by his crucifixion demonstrated exactly what the assault of cruelty on the innocent means; and the subsequent services devised by the early church commemorated the beauty of the virtue that was slain and the beastliness shown by the slayer, and reiterated the warning that this was the kind of crime man was inherently likely to commit unless he watched himself. There could be no more proper medicine for the human disease. But the church has poured as much of the draft as possible down the drain by its attempts to account for the crucifixion of Christ as an atonement for the sins of man instead of a demonstration of them.

Rebecca West (1892–1983) British author, journalist, literary critic, travel writer [pseud. for Cicily Isabel Fairfield]
“Pleasure Be Your Guide,” The Nation, “Living Philosophies” series #10 (25 Feb 1939)

Adapted into Clifton Fadiman, I Believe: The Personal Philosophies of Certain Eminent Men and Women of Our Time (1952).

Emerson, Ralph Waldo -- “Poetry and Imagination,” Letters and Social Aims (1876)

Dave — Mon, 11 Sep 2017 23:58:16 +0000

A man’s action is only a picture-book of his creed.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
“Poetry and Imagination,” Letters and Social Aims (1876)

Ward, William Arthur -- Thoughts of a Christian Optimist (1968)

Dave — Fri, 11 Aug 2017 23:42:47 +0000

The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.

William Arthur Ward (1921–1994) American aphorist, author, educator
Thoughts of a Christian Optimist (1968)

Ebner-Eschenbach, Marie von -- Aphorisms [Aphorismen], No. 91 (1880) [tr. Wister (1883)]

Dave — Mon, 07 Aug 2017 17:54:30 +0000

There is only one proof of ability — action.

[Für das Können gibt es nur einen Beweis: das Tun.]

Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach (1830–1916) Austrian writer
Aphorisms [Aphorismen], No. 91 (1880) [tr. Wister (1883)]

(Source (German)). Other translation:

There is only one proof of ability: doing it.
[tr. Scrase/Mieder (1994)]

Huxley, T. H. -- Essay (1889-02), “Agnosticism,” The Nineteenth Century, Vol. 25, No. 144

Dave — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 14:15:51 +0000

Agnosticism, in fact, is not a creed, but a method, the essence of which lies in the rigorous application of a single principle. That principle is of great antiquity; it is as old as Socrates; as old as the writer who said, “Try all things, hold fast by that which is good”; it is the foundation of the Reformation, which simply illustrated the axiom that every man should be able to give a reason for the faith that is in him, it is the great principle of Descartes; it is the fundamental axiom of modern science. Positively the principle may be expressed: In matters of the intellect, follow your reason as far as it will take you, without regard to any other consideration. And negatively: In matters of the intellect, do not pretend that conclusions are certain which are not demonstrated or demonstrable. That I take to be the agnostic faith, which if a man keep whole and undefiled, he shall not be ashamed to look the universe in the face, whatever the future may have in store for him.

T. H. Huxley (1825–1895) English biologist [Thomas Henry Huxley]
Essay (1889-02), “Agnosticism,” The Nineteenth Century, Vol. 25, No. 144

Collected in Henry Wace (ed.), Christianity and Agnosticism, ch. 2 (1889).