WIST Quotations

Gracián, Baltasar -- The Art of Worldly Wisdom [Oráculo Manual y Arte de Prudencia], § 138 (1647) [tr. Fischer (1937)]

Dave — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 16:11:22 +0000

The way to quiet the turbulence of a mob is to withdraw your hand, and let it quiet itself; to concede today, may be the best way to succeed tomorrow.

[Sea modo de sosegar vulgares torbellinos el alzar mano y dejar sosegar; ceder al tiempo ahora será vencer después.]

Baltasar Gracián y Morales (1601-1658) Spanish Jesuit priest, writer, philosopher
The Art of Worldly Wisdom [Oráculo Manual y Arte de Prudencia], § 138 (1647) [tr. Fischer (1937)]
(Source)

(Source (Spanish)). Alternate translations:

The way then to calm popular gusts, is to be quiet. Then to yield to the times, will get the victory afterwards.
[Flesher ed. (1685)]

The way to still storms in great multitudes is to hold one's hand and let them go down of themselves. A timely giving way for the present assures victory later.
[tr. Duff (1877)]

The proper way to still the storms of the vulgar is to hold your hand and let them calm down of themselves. To give way now is to conquer by and by.
[tr. Jacobs (1892)]

Throwing up your hands is sometimes a good way to put down vulgar storms. If you bow to time for the present, you will conquer in the future.
[tr. Maurer (1992)]

Palahniuk, Chuck -- Fight Club, ch. 2 (1997)

Dave — Tue, 30 Jan 2024 16:53:20 +0000

On a long enough time line, the survival rate for everyone will drop to zero.

Chuck Palahniuk (b. 1962) American novelist and freelance journalist
Fight Club, ch. 2 (1997)
(Source)

The phrase also shows up later in the book, in ch. 24: "On a long enough time line, everyone's survival rate drops to zero."

In the 1999 movie adaptation (screenplay by Jim Uhls), the Narrator's line is "On a long enough time line the survival rate for everyone drops to zero."

Russell, Bertrand -- Interview by Woodrow Wyatt, BBC TV (1959)

Dave — Wed, 08 Nov 2023 17:29:42 +0000

One of the things that militates against happiness is worry, and that’s one respect in which I’ve become much happier as I’ve grown older. I worry much less and I found a very useful plan in regard to worry, which is to think, “Now what is the very worst thing that could happen?” And then think, “Well, after all it wouldn’t be so very bad a hundred years hence; it probably won`t matter.” After you’ve really made yourself think that, you won`t worry so much. Worry comes from not facing unpleasant possibilities.

Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Interview by Woodrow Wyatt, BBC TV (1959)

Collected in Bertrand Russell's BBC Interviews (1959) [UK] and Bertrand Russell Speaks His Mind (1960) [US]. Reprinted (abridged) in The Humanist (1982-11/12), and in Russell Society News, #37 (1983-02).

Butler, Samuel -- The Note-Books of Samuel Butler, “Sparks” (1912)

Dave — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 12:56:22 +0000

Everything matters more than we think it does, and, at the same time, nothing matters so much as we think it does. The merest spark may set all Europe in a blaze, but though all Europe be set in a blaze twenty times over, the world will wag itself right again.

Samuel Butler (1835-1902) English novelist, satirist, scholar
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler, “Sparks” (1912)
(Source)

Keynes, John Maynard -- A Tract on Monetary Reform, ch. 3 (1923)

Dave — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 14:36:23 +0000

But this long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead. Economists set themselves too easy, too useless a task, if in tempestuous seasons they can only tell us, that when the storm is long past, the ocean is flat again.

John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946) English economist
A Tract on Monetary Reform, ch. 3 (1923)
(Source)