WIST Quotations

Colton, Charles Caleb -- Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Vol. 1, Preface (1820)

Dave — Tue, 08 Jul 2014 12:58:27 +0000

We should have a glorious conflagration if all who cannot put fire into their works would only consent to put their works into the fire.

Charles Caleb "C. C." Colton (1780-1832) English cleric, writer, aphorist
Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Vol. 1, Preface (1820)
(Source)

Sayre, Wallace -- Sayre’s Third Law

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

The politics of the university are so intense because the stakes are so low.

Wallace Sayre (1905-1972) U.S. political scientist, academic
Sayre’s Third Law

One of several formulations of the same sentiment, which has also been attributed to Richard Neustadt, Jesse Unruh, Henry Kissinger ("University politics are vicious precisely because the stakes are so small"), Charles Philip Issawi ("In any dispute the intensity of feeling is inversely proportional to the value of the issues at stake. That is why academic politics are so bitter"), Lawrence Peter, C.P. Snow, and others, with antecedents by Samuel Johnson and Woodrow Wilson. Most of the attributions come in the early-mid 1970s, though Herbert Kaufman, a colleague, claimed Sayres had used the phrase for decades.

See also Quote Investigator, Quote Verifier, and Wikipedia for more discussion.

Millay, Edna St. Vincent -- “Figs from Thistles: First Fig” in Poetry: A Magazine of Verse (1918-06)

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

My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night:
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends —
It gives a lovely light!

Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950) American poet
“Figs from Thistles: First Fig” in Poetry: A Magazine of Verse (1918-06)
(Source)

Collected in A Few Figs From Thistles (1921).