WIST Quotations

Rickover, Hyman -- Speech (1982-01-28), Joint Economic Committee, U.S. Congress, 97th Congress, 2nd Session

Dave — Tue, 24 Feb 2026 00:09:43 +0000

A preoccupation with the so-called bottom line of profit and loss statements, coupled with a lust for expansion, is creating an environment in which fewer businessmen honor traditional values; where responsibility is increasingly disassociated from the exercise of power; where skill in financial manipulation is valued more than actual knowledge and experience in the business; where attention and effort is directed mostly to short-term considerations, regardless of longer range consequences.

Hyman Rickover (1900-1986) Polish-American naval engineer, admiral [b. Chaim Gdala Rykower]
Speech (1982-01-28), Joint Economic Committee, U.S. Congress, 97th Congress, 2nd Session
(Source)

Lindbergh, Anne Morrow -- Diary (1932-09-27), Hour of Gold, Hour of Lead (1973)

Dave — Wed, 25 Sep 2024 23:18:01 +0000

It isn’t for the moment you are struck that you need courage, but for the long uphill climb back to sanity and faith and security.

Anne Morrow Lindbergh (1906-2001) American writer, pilot
Diary (1932-09-27), Hour of Gold, Hour of Lead (1973)
(Source)

Approximately six months after the kidnapping/murder of her son, Charles, Jr., and a month after the birth of her second son, Jon.

Gates, Bill -- The Road Ahead, “Afterword” (1996 ed.)

Dave — Tue, 31 Jan 2023 22:16:15 +0000

People often overestimate what will happen in the next two years and underestimate what will happen in ten.

Bill Gates (b. 1955) American software magnate [William Henry Gates III]
The Road Ahead, “Afterword” (1996 ed.)
(Source)

First use of this specific formulation, but similar phrases can be traced back to the 1960s. More discussion of variations on this theme: People Tend To Overestimate What Can Be Done In One Year And To Underestimate What Can Be Done In Five Or Ten Years – Quote Investigator®.

Goethe, Johann von -- “Symbolum” (1815) [tr. Carlyle (1843)]

Dave — Tue, 16 Aug 2022 16:09:33 +0000

But heard are the voices,
Heard are the sages,
The Worlds and the Ages:
“Choose well: your choice is
Brief, and yet endless.”

[Doch rufen von drüben
Die Stimmen der Geister
Die Stimmen der Meister:
Bersäumt nich zu üben
Die Kräfte des Guten.]

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) German poet, statesman, scientist
“Symbolum” (1815) [tr. Carlyle (1843)]
(Source)

(Source (German)).

Carlyle's loose translation first appears in Past and Present, Book 2, ch. 17 "The Beginnings" (1843), then is expanded in a speech at the University of Edinburgh (2 Apr 1866), reprinted (with Goethe's original) in On the Choice of Books (1877).

"Choose well: your choice is brief and yet endless," is sometimes attributed to Ella Winter. She references it in an anecdote in And Not to Yield: An Autobiography (1963).

West, Jessamyn -- The Life I Really Lived (1979)

Dave — Thu, 04 Aug 2022 15:30:32 +0000

You make what seems a simple choice: choose a man or a job or a neighborhood — and what you have chosen is not a man or a job or a neighborhood, but a life.

Jessamyn West (1902-1984) American writer, Quaker
The Life I Really Lived (1979)
(Source)

Emerson, Ralph Waldo -- “Montaigne; or, The Skeptic,” Representative Men, Lecture 4 (1850)

Dave — Mon, 28 Oct 2019 21:08:38 +0000

Things seem to tend downward, to justify despondency, to promote rogues, to defeat the just; and by knaves as well as by martyrs the just cause is carried forward. Although knaves win in every political struggle, although society seems to be delivered over from the hands of one set of criminals into the hands of another set of criminals, as fast as the government is changed, and the march of civilization is a train of felonies, yet, general ends are somehow answered.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
“Montaigne; or, The Skeptic,” Representative Men, Lecture 4 (1850)
(Source)

Carlyle, Thomas -- Letter (1822-03-15) to John Carlyle

Dave — Wed, 15 Jul 2015 19:02:26 +0000

The last quality, perseverance, I particularly respect: it is the very hinge of all virtues. — On looking over the world, the cause of nine parts in ten of the lamentable failures which occur in men’s undertakings & darken and degrade so much of their history, lies not in the want of talents or the will to use them, but in the vacillating and desultory mode of using them — in flying from object to object, in starting away at each little disgust, and thus applying the force which might conquer any one difficulty to a series of difficulties so large that no human force can conquer them.
The smallest brook on earth, by continual running, has hollowed out for itself a considerable valley to flow in: the wildest tempest, by its occasional raging, over-turns a few cottages, uproots a few trees, and leaves after a short space no mark behind it. Commend me therefore to the Dutch virtue of perseverance! Without it all the rest are little better than fairy gold, which glitters in your purse, but when taken to the market proves to be — slate or cinders.

Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) Scottish essayist and historian
Letter (1822-03-15) to John Carlyle
(Source)

Writing to his brother.

Clarke, James F. -- “Wanted, a Statesman!”, Old and New Magazine (Dec 1870)

Dave — Fri, 19 Sep 2014 12:04:04 +0000

A politician, for example, is a man who thinks of the next election; while the statesman thinks of the next generation.

James Freeman Clarke (1810-1888) American theologian and author
“Wanted, a Statesman!”, Old and New Magazine (Dec 1870)
(Source)

Often paraphrased: "A politician thinks of the next election; a statesman thinks of the next generation."

Roosevelt, Theodore -- Essay (1900-06), “Latitude and Longitude Among Reformers,” The Century Magazine, Vol. 60, No. 2

Dave — Tue, 28 Aug 2012 14:04:28 +0000

It is not possible to lay down an inflexible rule as to when compromise is right and when wrong; when it is a sign of the highest statesmanship to temporize, and when it is merely a proof of weakness. Now and then one can stand uncompromisingly for a naked principle and force people up to it. This is always the attractive course; but in certain great crises it may be a very wrong course. Compromise, in the proper sense, merely means agreement; in the proper sense opportunism should merely mean doing the best possible with actual conditions as they exist.
A compromise which results in a half-step toward evil is all wrong, just as the opportunist who saves himself for the moment by adopting a policy which is fraught with future disaster is all wrong; but no less wrong is the attitude of those who will not come to an agreement through which, or will not follow the course by which, it is alone possible to accomplish practical results for good.

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, statesman, conservationist, writer, US President (1901–1909)
Essay (1900-06), “Latitude and Longitude Among Reformers,” The Century Magazine, Vol. 60, No. 2
(Source)

Collected in Roosevelt, The Strenuous Life: Essays and Addresses (1902).