WIST Quotations

Antrim, Minna -- Don’ts for Bachelors and Old Maids (1908)

Dave — Fri, 12 Nov 2021 15:11:01 +0000

Better be known as a Rampant Iconoclast than as a sonorous Echo.

Minna Antrim (1861-1950) American epigrammatist, writer
Don’ts for Bachelors and Old Maids (1908)
(Source)

Orwell, George -- Essay (1941-08), “Wells, Hitler, and the World State,” Horizon

Dave — Fri, 28 Jul 2017 01:11:42 +0000

Back in the nineteen-hundreds it was a wonderful experience for a boy to discover H. G. Wells. There you were, in a world of pedants, clergymen and golfers, with your future employers exhorting you to “get on or get out”, your parents systematically warping your sexual life, and your dull-witted schoolmasters sniggering over their Latin tags; and here was this wonderful man who could tell you about the inhabitants of the planets and the bottom of the sea, and who knew that the future was not going to be what respectable people imagined.

George Orwell (1903-1950) English journalist, essayist, writer [pseud. of Eric Arthur Blair]
Essay (1941-08), “Wells, Hitler, and the World State,” Horizon
(Source)

Asimov, Isaac -- (Attributed)

Dave — Tue, 19 Apr 2016 13:16:49 +0000

To rebel against a powerful political, economic, religious, or social establishment is very dangerous and very few people do it, except, perhaps, as part of a mob. To rebel against the “scientific” establishment, however, is the easiest thing in the world, and anyone can do it and feel enormously brave, without risking as much as a hangnail. Thus, the vast majority, who believe in astrology and think that the planets have nothing better to do than form a code that will tell them whether tomorrow is a good day to close a business deal or not, become all the more excited and enthusiastic about the bilge when a group of astronomers denounces it.

Isaac Asimov (1920-1992) Russian-American author, polymath, biochemist
(Attributed)

Keyes, Daniel -- Flowers for Algernon (novel) (1966)

Dave — Mon, 02 Nov 2015 14:26:21 +0000

Now I understand one of the important reasons for going to college and getting an education is to learn that the things you’ve believed in all your life aren’t true, and that nothing is what it appears to be.

Daniel F. Keyes (1927-2014) American author
Flowers for Algernon (novel) (1966)

Hoffman, Abbie -- Quoted in “Mourning, and Celebrating, a Radical,” New York Times (20 Apr 1989)

Dave — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 14:38:46 +0000

Sacred cows make the tastiest hamburger.

Abbie Hoffman (1936-1989) American political activist
Quoted in “Mourning, and Celebrating, a Radical,” New York Times (20 Apr 1989)
(Source)

Most likely from "Sacred cows make great hamburgers," an anonymous saying recorded in Reisner and Wechsler, Encyclopedia of Graffiti (1974).

Holmes, Oliver Wendell, Sr. -- Article (1859-05), “The Professor at the Breakfast-Table,” Atlantic Monthly

Dave — Sun, 01 Feb 2004 16:00:00 +0000

Rough work, iconoclasm, but the only way to get at truth.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809-1894) American poet, essayist, scholar
Article (1859-05), “The Professor at the Breakfast-Table,” Atlantic Monthly
(Source)

Collected in The Professor at the Breakfast-Table, ch. 5 (1859).