WIST Quotations

Orwell, George -- Essay (1941-02-19), “The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius,” Part 1 “England Your England,” sec. 1, The Searchlight Books [ed. Fyvel and Orwell]

Dave — Fri, 16 Jan 2026 23:34:37 +0000

One cannot see the modern world as it is unless one recognises the overwhelming strength of patriotism, national loyalty. In certain circumstances it can break down, at certain levels of civilisation it does not exist, but as a positive force there is nothing to set beside it. Christianity and international Socialism are as weak as straw in comparison with it. Hitler and Mussolini rose to power in their own countries very largely because they could grasp this fact and their opponents could not.

George Orwell (1903–1950) English journalist, essayist, writer [pseud. of Eric Arthur Blair]
Essay (1941-02-19), “The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius,” Part 1 “England Your England,” sec. 1, The Searchlight Books [ed. Fyvel and Orwell]

Part of Part 1, "England Your England" with the title "The Ruling Class" was previously published in Horizon (1940-12).

Cicero, Marcus Tullius -- Philippics [Philippicae; Antonian Orations], No. 2, ch. 12 / sec. 29 (2.12/2.29) (44-10-24 BC) [tr. Berry (2006)]

Dave — Thu, 19 Jun 2025 15:29:14 +0000

Well then, is there anyone — besides those who were glad that he had turned into a king — who did not want this deed to happen, or failed to approve of it afterwards? So all are guilty. All loyal citizens, so far as was in their power, killed Caesar. Not everyone had a plan, not everyone had the courage, not everyone had the opportunity — but everyone had the will.

[Ecquis est igitur exceptis eis qui illum regnare gaudebant qui illud aut fieri noluerit aut factum improbarit? Omnes ergo in culpa. Etenim omnes boni, quantum in ipsis fuit, Caesarem occiderunt: aliis consilium, aliis animus, aliis occasio defuit; voluntas nemini.]

Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 BC) Roman orator, statesman, philosopher
Philippics [Philippicae; Antonian Orations], No. 2, ch. 12 / sec. 29 (2.12/2.29) (44-10-24 BC) [tr. Berry (2006)]

(Source (Latin)). Other translations:

Is there anyone, then, except those who rejoiced in his kingly sway, who either was unwilling that the deed should be done or has impugned it since? All therefore share in the fault, for all loyal citizens, so far as rested with them, took part in Cæsar's death. Some wanted the necessary powers of contrivance, some the courage, some the opportunity; but not one the will.
[tr. King (1877)]

Is there then any man, except those that were glad of his reign, who repudiated that deed, or disapproved of it when it was done? All therefore are to blame, for all good men, so far as their own power went, slew Caesar; some lacked a plan, others courage, others opportunity: will no man lacked.
[tr. Ker (Loeb) (1926)]

Is there any one then, except you yourself and these men who wished him to become a king, who was unwilling that that deed should be done, or who disapproved of it after it was done? All men, therefore, are guilty as far as this goes. In truth, all good men, as far as it depended on them, bore a part in the slaying of Caesar. Some did not know how to contrive it, some had not courage for it, some had no opportunity, -- every one had the inclination.
[tr. Yonge (1903)]

Yet, with the exception of the men who wanted to make an autocratic monarch of him, all were happy for this to happen -- or were glad when it had happened. So everyone is guilty! For every decent person, in so far as he had any say in the matter, killed Caesar! Plans, courage, opportunities were in some case lacking; but the desire nobody lacked.
[tr. Grant (1960)]

Is there anyone, with the exception of those who were happy that he was our king, who did not want it done or disapproved that it was done? Everyone is at fault, then. Indeed, all decent men, as far as they could, killed Caesar; some may have lacked a plan, others courage, and still others the opportunity, but no one lacked the desire.
[tr. McElduff (2011)]

Carlyle, Thomas -- Chartism, ch. 1 “Condition-of-England Question” (1840)

Dave — Thu, 02 Jan 2025 21:01:03 +0000

A feeling very generally exists that the condition and disposition of the Working Classes is a rather ominous matter at present; that something ought to be said, something ought to be done, in regard to it. […] To us individually this matter appears, and has for many years appeared, to be the most ominous of all practical matters whatever; a matter in regard to which if something be not done, something will do itself one day, and in a fashion that will please nobody.

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish essayist and historian
Chartism, ch. 1 “Condition-of-England Question” (1840)

Taylor, Barbara Brown -- An Altar in the World, Introduction (2009)

Dave — Tue, 10 Dec 2024 19:09:03 +0000

To make bread or love, to dig in the earth, to feed an animal or cook for a stranger — these activities require no extensive commentary, no lucid theology. All they require is someone willing to bend, reach, chop, stir. Most of these tasks are so full of pleasure that there is no need to complicate things by calling them holy. And yet these are the same activities that change lives, sometimes all at once and sometimes more slowly, the way dripping water changes stone. In a world where faith is often construed as a way of thinking, bodily practices remind the willing that faith is a way of life,

Barbara Brown Taylor (b. 1951) American minister, academic, author
An Altar in the World, Introduction (2009)

Jones, Van -- The Green Collar Economy (2008)

Dave — Fri, 18 Feb 2022 01:17:51 +0000

To change our laws and culture, the green movement must attract and include the majority of all people, not just the majority of affluent people.

Anthony Kapel "Van" Jones (b. 1968) American news commentator, author, lawyer
The Green Collar Economy (2008)

Baudelaire, Charles -- Les Fleurs du Mal [The Flowers of Evil], Part 1, #28 “Avec ses vêtements ondoyants et nacrés,” st. 1 (1857) [tr. Campbell (1952)]

Dave — Mon, 31 Jan 2022 23:50:59 +0000

With waving opalescence in her gown,
Even when she walks along, you think she’s dancing.
Like those long snakes which charmers, while entrancing,
Wave with their wands, in cadence, up and down.

[Avec ses vêtements ondoyants et nacrés,
Même quand elle marche on croirait qu’elle danse,
Comme ces longs serpents que les jongleurs sacrés
Au bout de leurs bâtons agitent en cadence.]

Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867) French poet, essayist, art critic
Les Fleurs du Mal [The Flowers of Evil], Part 1, #28 “Avec ses vêtements ondoyants et nacrés,” st. 1 (1857) [tr. Campbell (1952)]

(Source (French)). Other translations:

Robed in a silken robe that shines and shakes,
She seems to dance whenever she treads the sod,
Like the long serpent that a fakir makes
Dance to the waving cadence of a rod.
[tr. Sturm (1905)]

With pearly robes that wave within the wind,
Even when she walks, she seems to dance,
Like swaying serpents round those wands entwined
Which fakirs wave in rhythmic elegance.
[tr. Scott (1909)]

with all her undulant pearly draperies,
she moves in measures lovelier than a dance,
as in the fakirs' Indian sorceries
tall cobras 'neath a moving rod advance
[tr. Shanks (1931)]

With her pearly, undulating dresses,
Even when she's walking, she seems to be dancing
Like those long snakes which the holy fakirs
Set swaying in cadence on the end of their staffs.
[tr. Aggeler (1954)]

With her dresses undulating, pearly,
Even walking one would think her dancing,
Like those long serpents which holy charmers
Move in harmony at the tips of their batons.
[tr. Wagner (1974)]

Even when she walks she seems to dance!
Her garments writhe and glisten like long snakes
obedient to the rhythm of the wands
by which a fakir wakens them to grace.
[tr. Howard (1982)]

With her undulating, iridescent clothes, even when she walks you would think she is dancing, like those long snakes that sacred jugglers shake rhythmically on the ends of their sticks.
[tr. Clark (1995), #17]

She doesn’t walk; she rather dances through salons
Within her buoyant gowns of glittering, silver nacre,
Curling like the snake of a turbaned Hindu fakir,
Unrolled from in between his undulant batons.
[tr. Eriksson]

Even when she walks one would believe that she dances.
[Common rendering]

Eliot, George -- Felix Holt, the Radical, ch. 46 (1866)

Dave — Wed, 16 Jun 2021 16:50:42 +0000

I hold it blasphemy to say that a man ought not to fight against authority: there is no great religion and no great freedom that has not done it, in the beginning.

George Eliot (1819–1880) English novelist [pseud. of Mary Ann Evans]
Felix Holt, the Radical, ch. 46 (1866)

Kendrick, Alexander -- Prime Time: The Life of Edward R. Murrow (1969)

Dave — Fri, 29 Jan 2021 15:12:11 +0000

There are those in the industry who believe broadcasting can move men, and even some who believe it could move mountains, but they are outnumbered by those who believe all it has to do is move goods.

Alexander Kendrick (1910–1991) American journalist
Prime Time: The Life of Edward R. Murrow (1969)

Solnit, Rebecca -- Facebook (2016-10-17)

Dave — Wed, 14 Oct 2020 21:23:10 +0000

Build movements. Vote with your values, but vote strategically. Voting isn’t a Valentine. It’s a chess move.

Rebecca Solnit (b. 1961) American writer, historian, activist
Facebook (2016-10-17)

Solnit is credited with the core message of the last two sentences. She indicates (including from that Facebook post) that it was something she had said that was extracted and perhaps tweaked by May Boeve. E.g., "That 2016 aphorism that I sort of said and May Boeve made into this stand-alone slogan" (2018-11-01). "I said that off the cuff in 2016 and May Boeve caught it and it went on to have a nice life. It's also not the only chess move you get" (2020-08-11).

Variants:

"Voting is a chess move, not a valentine. And here's the joy of being politically engaged all year round every year; you get to work with a whole lot of chess pieces and players and strategies and long-term visions, so you don't agonize over whether this little hop with a pawn we call voting defines you. You get to define yourself by what you're passionately committed to, by who you align with, by your dreams and your visions, you get to move a lot of pieces a lot of times, you get heroic allies, and you play to win above, beyond, around elections. But you vote, because you know it matters too." (2016-11-07)
"I think of voting as a chess move, not a valentine. It’s just a little part of the picture of how we make the world." ("The 2000 Election Unleashed Disaster on the World. We Can’t Let that Happen Again in 2016," The Nation (2016-11-03))
"A vote is not a valentine. You are not confessing your love for the candidate. It's a chess move for the world you want to live in."
"Voting isn't a valentine, it's a chess move. Just one of many with one of your many pieces, if you're using what you've been given."

Catt, Carrie Chapman -- “Is Woman Suffrage Progressing?” speech, Sixth Convention of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance, Stockholm (13 Jun 1911)

Dave — Thu, 17 Sep 2020 19:14:07 +0000

When a just cause reaches its flood-tide … whatever stands in the way must fall before its overwhelming power.

Carrie Chapman Catt (1859–1947) American women's suffrage activist
“Is Woman Suffrage Progressing?” speech, Sixth Convention of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance, Stockholm (13 Jun 1911)

Stalin, Josef -- Leninism, Vol. 2 (1926) [tr. Paul (1933)]

Dave — Tue, 01 Sep 2020 19:04:07 +0000

The art of leadership is a serious matter. One must not lag behind a movement, because to do so is to become isolated from the masses. But one must not rush ahead, for to rush ahead is to lose contact with the masses. He who wishes to lead a movement and at the same time keep touch with the vast masses, must conduct a fight on two fronts, against those who lag behind and against those who rush ahead.

Josef Stalin (1879–1953) Georgian revolutionary and Soviet dictator
Leninism, Vol. 2 (1926) [tr. Paul (1933)]

Often elided, "He who wishes to lead a movement must conduct a fight on two fronts, against those who lag behind and against those who rush ahead."

Arendt, Hannah -- Origins of Totalitarianism, Part 3, ch. 10 “A Classless Society,” sec. 1 (1951)

Dave — Tue, 09 Jun 2020 19:55:34 +0000

The disturbing factor in the success of totalitarianism is rather the true selflessness of its adherents: it may be understandable that a Nazi or Bolshevik will not be shaken in his conviction by crimes against people who do not belong to the movement or are even hostile to it; but the amazing fact is that neither is he likely to waver when the monster begins to devour its own children, and not even if he becomes a victim of persecution himself, if he is framed and condemned, if he is purged from the party and sent to a forced-labor or concentration camp. On the contrary, to the wonder of the whole civilized world, he may even be willing to help in his own prosecution and frame his own death sentence if only his status as a member of the movement is not touched.

Hannah Arendt (1906–1975) German-American philosopher, political theorist
Origins of Totalitarianism, Part 3, ch. 10 “A Classless Society,” sec. 1 (1951)

See Buchner (1835).

Kempton, Murray -- Part of Our Time: Some Ruins & Monuments of the Thirties, Prelude (1955)

Dave — Fri, 29 May 2020 21:54:16 +0000

The bearers of the myth of every decade seem to carry in their hands the ax and the spade to execute and inter the myth of the previous one.

Murray Kempton (1917–1997) American journalist.
Part of Our Time: Some Ruins & Monuments of the Thirties, Prelude (1955)

Hoffer, Eric -- True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements, Part 3, ch. 14, § 77 (3.14.77) (1951)

Dave — Tue, 28 Mar 2017 21:34:42 +0000

There is also this: when we renounce the self and become part of a compact whole, we not only renounce personal advantage but are also rid of personal responsibility. There is no telling to what extremes of cruelty and ruthlessness a man will go when he is freed from the fears, hesitations, doubts and the vague stirrings of decency that go with individual judgement. When we lose our individual independence in the corporateness of a mass movement, we find a new freedom — freedom to hate, bully, lie, torture, murder and betray without shame and remorse. Herein undoubtedly lies part of the attractiveness of a mass movement.

Eric Hoffer (1902–1983) American writer, philosopher, longshoreman
True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements, Part 3, ch. 14, § 77 (3.14.77) (1951)

Adams, John Quincy -- Journal (11 Dec 1838)

Dave — Tue, 01 Nov 2016 01:58:06 +0000

The conflict between the principle of liberty and the fact of slavery is coming gradually to an issue. Slavery has now the power, and falls into convulsions at the approach of freedom. That the fall of slavery is predetermined in the counsels of Omnipotence I cannot doubt; it is a part of the great moral improvement in the condition of man, attested by all the records of history. But the conflict will be terrible, and the progress of improvement perhaps retrograde before its final progress to consummation.

John Quincy Adams (1767–1848) US President (1825–29)
Journal (11 Dec 1838)

Emerson, Ralph Waldo -- “Politics,” Essays: Second Series (1844)

Dave — Fri, 05 Aug 2016 00:26:11 +0000

What the tender poetic youth dreams, and prays, and paints to-day, but shuns the ridicule of saying aloud, shall presently be the resolutions of public bodies, then shall be carried as grievance and bill of rights through conflict and war, and then shall be triumphant law and establishment for a hundred years, until it gives place, in turn, to new prayers and pictures.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
“Politics,” Essays: Second Series (1844)

This quotation is more often given as the paraphrase used by another speaker of the era, the abolitionist Wendell Phillips:

What the tender and poetic youth dreams to-day, and conjures up with inarticulate speech, is to-morrow the vociferated result of public opinion, and the day after is the charter of nations.

Phillips used this phrase, prefixed with, "As Emerson says," and in quotation marks, at least twice. First in his lecture "Harper's Ferry" (1 Nov 1859), Brooklyn. Second, in a different context, in "The Scholar in a Republic" (30 Jun 1881), a famous speech at the centennial of the Phi Beta Kappa society at Harvard University.

Emerson did not use this shorter phrasing, however, in any of his written works, and frequent attributions of it to him are in error.

Roosevelt, Theodore -- Comment to Mrs. J. A. Roosevelt (25 Dec 1851)

Dave — Thu, 28 Jul 2016 04:15:37 +0000

Get action. Seize the moment. Man was never intended to become an oyster.

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, statesman, conservationist, writer; US President (1901–09)
Comment to Mrs. J. A. Roosevelt (25 Dec 1851)

Quoted in David McCullough, Mornings on Horseback (1981), sourced from the W. Sheffield Cowles, Jr. Collection (private). Usually given as a quote in full to his children, McCullough only notes the last sentence ("Man ... oyster") as an actual quotation.

~Proverbs and Sayings -- Chinese proverb

Dave — Mon, 07 Dec 2015 17:17:17 +0000

Not the cry, but the flight of a wild duck, leads the flock to fly and follow.

Proverbs, Sayings, and Adages
Chinese proverb

First recorded by Jean Paul [Johann Paul Friedrich Richter] (1763-1825), Levana, sec. 8 (1807): "Nicht das Geschrei, sagt ein chinesischer Autor, sondern der Ausflug einer wilden Ente treibt die Heerde zur Folge und zum Nachfliegen." (See H. A., A Book of Thoughts (1865))

Woolf, Virginia -- “A Letter to a Young Poet,” The Death of the Moth and Other Essays (1942)

Dave — Mon, 18 Aug 2014 12:05:49 +0000

Once you begin to take yourself seriously as a leader or as a follower, as a modern or as a conservative, then you become a self-conscious, biting, and scratching little animal whose work is not of the slightest value or importance to anybody.

Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English modernist writer [b. Adeline Virginia Stephen]
“A Letter to a Young Poet,” The Death of the Moth and Other Essays (1942)

Tavris, Carol -- “Anger in an Unjust World,” Anger: The Misunderstood Emotion (1982)

Dave — Tue, 11 Mar 2014 12:44:44 +0000

Rebels and dissidents challenge the complacent belief in a just world, and, as the theory would predict, they are usually denigrated for their efforts. While they are alive, they may be called “cantankerous,” “crazy,” “hysterical,” “uppity,” or “duped.” Dead, some of them become saints and heroes, the sterling characters of history. It’s a matter of proportion. One angry rebel is crazy, three is a conspiracy, fifty is a movement.

Carol Tavris (b. 1944) American social psychologist and author
“Anger in an Unjust World,” Anger: The Misunderstood Emotion (1982)

Jefferson, Thomas -- Letter (1786-05-06) to C. W. F. Dumas

Dave — Wed, 22 May 2013 13:41:56 +0000

The animosities of sovereigns are temporary, and may be allayed; but those which seize the whole body of people, and of a people too, dictate their own measures, produce calamities of long duration.

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) American political philosopher, polymath, statesman, US President (1801–09)
Letter (1786-05-06) to C. W. F. Dumas

Joubert, Joseph -- Pensées [Thoughts], ch. 4 “De la Nature des Esprits [On the Nature of Minds]” ¶ 19 (1850 ed.) [tr. Calvert (1866)]

Dave — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 12:09:58 +0000

Some find activity only in repose, and others repose only in movement.

[Les uns ne peuvent trouver d’activité que dans le repos, el les autres de repos que dans le mouvement.]

Joseph Joubert (1754–1824) French moralist, philosopher, essayist, poet
Pensées [Thoughts], ch. 4 “De la Nature des Esprits [On the Nature of Minds]” ¶ 19 (1850 ed.) [tr. Calvert (1866)]

(Source (French)). Other translation:

There are some who can only find activity in repose, and others who can only find repose in movement.
[tr. Lyttelton (1899), ch. 2, ¶ 11]

Hoffer, Eric -- True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements, Part 3, ch. 14, § 65 (3.14.65) (1951)

Dave — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 12:58:09 +0000

Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a God, but never without belief in a devil.

Eric Hoffer (1902–1983) American writer, philosopher, longshoreman
True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements, Part 3, ch. 14, § 65 (3.14.65) (1951)

Hoffer, Eric -- “The Negro Revolution,” The Temper of Our Time (1967)

Dave — Tue, 14 Dec 2010 14:11:11 +0000

Up to now, America has not been a good milieu for the rise of a mass movement. What starts out here as a mass movement ends up as a racket, a cult, or a corporation. Unlike those anywhere else, the masses in America have never despaired of the present and are not willing to sacrifice it for a new life and a new world.

Eric Hoffer (1902–1983) American writer, philosopher, longshoreman
“The Negro Revolution,” The Temper of Our Time (1967)

Frequently misquoted as "Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket."

Originally published in the New York Times Magazine (1964-11-29).

Bronowski, Jacob -- The Ascent of Man, ch. 3 (1973)

Dave — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 15:12:35 +0000

The world can only be grasped by action, not by contemplation. The hand is more important than the eye. We are active; and indeed we know, as something more than a symbolic accident in the evolution of man, that it is the hand that drives the subsequent evolution of the brain. We find tools today made by man before he became man. Benjamin Franklin in 1778 called man “a tool-making animal,” and that is right.

Jacob Bronowski (1908–1974) Polish-English humanist and mathematician
The Ascent of Man, ch. 3 (1973)

Hoffer, Eric -- True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements, Part 2, ch. 5, § 26 (1951)

Dave — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 14:36:01 +0000

Unless a man has talents to make something of himself, freedom is an irksome burden. Of what avail is freedom to choose if the self be ineffectual? We join a mass movement to escape individual responsibility, or, in the words of the ardent young Nazi, “to be free from freedom.” It was not sheer hypocrisy when the rank-and-file Nazis declared themselves not guilty of all the enormities they had committed. They considered themselves cheated and maligned when made to shoulder responsibility for obeying orders. Had they not joined the Nazi movement in order to be free from responsibility?

Eric Hoffer (1902–1983) American writer, philosopher, longshoreman
True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements, Part 2, ch. 5, § 26 (1951)

Publilius Syrus -- Sententiae [Moral Sayings], # 524

Dave — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 12:24:44 +0000

A rolling stone gathers no moss.

Publilius Syrus (d. 42 BC) Assyrian slave, writer, philosopher [less correctly Publius Syrus]
Sententiae [Moral Sayings], # 524

Heraclitus -- (Attributed)

Dave — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 11:51:08 +0000

All things are in motion, and nothing is at rest. … You cannot step into the same [river] twice, for fresh waters are ever flowing in upon you.

[Πάντα ῥεῖ καὶ οὐδὲν μένει]

Heraclitus of Ephesus (c.540-c.480 BC) Greek philosopher [Ἡράκλειτος, Herákleitos, Heracleitus]
(Attributed)

Paraphrased by Socrates in Plato, Cratylus, l. 402 [tr. B Jowett (1894)] and by Diogenes Laërtius in Lives of the Philosophers Bk 9, sec 8

Alt trans.:

Everything flows, nothing stays still
Everything flows and nothing stays.
Everything flows and nothing abides.
Everything gives way and nothing stays fixed.
Everything flows; nothing remains.
All is flux, nothing is stationary.
All is flux, nothing stays still.

You cannot step twice into the same river; for other waters are continually flowing in.
You cannot step twice into the same stream. For as you are stepping in, other waters are ever flowing on to you.
You cannot step twice into the same river.
It is impossible to step into the same river twice.
No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.

Pratchett, Terry -- Good Omens, 2. “Eleven Years Ago” (1990) [with Neil Gaiman]

Dave — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 12:42:44 +0000

Most of the members of the convent were old-fashioned Satanists, like their parents and grandparents before them. They’d been brought up to it and weren’t, when you got right down to it, particularly evil. Human beings mostly aren’t. They just get carried away by new ideas, like dressing up in jackboots and shooting people, or dressing up in white sheets and lynching people, or dressing up in tie-dye jeans and playing guitars at people. Offer people a new creed with a costume and their hearts and minds will follow.

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author
Good Omens, 2. “Eleven Years Ago” (1990) [with Neil Gaiman]

Lec, Stanislaw -- More Unkempt Thoughts [Myśli nieuczesane nowe] (1964) [tr. Gałązka (1969)]

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

No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible.

[Żaden płatek śniegu nie czuje się odpowiedzialny za lawinę.]

Stanislaw Lec (1909–1966) Polish aphorist, poet, satirist
More Unkempt Thoughts [Myśli nieuczesane nowe] (1964) [tr. Gałązka (1969)]

Another translation: "Each snowflake in an avalanche pleads not guilty."

More discussion of this quotation here: No Snowflake in an Avalanche Ever Feels Responsible – Quote Investigator.

Glasgow, Ellen -- In Clifton Fadiman, I Believe: The Personal Philosophies of Certain Eminent Men and Women of Our Time (1939 ed.)

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

All change is not growth; all movement is not forward.

Ellen Glasgow (1874–1945) American author
In Clifton Fadiman, I Believe: The Personal Philosophies of Certain Eminent Men and Women of Our Time (1939 ed.)

Holmes, Oliver Wendell, Sr. -- Article (1858-02), “The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table,” Atlantic Monthly

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

I find the great thing in this world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving: To reach the port of heaven, we must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it, — but we must sail, and not drift, nor lie at anchor.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–1894) American poet, essayist, scholar
Article (1858-02), “The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table,” Atlantic Monthly

Collected in The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, ch. 4 (1858).

Russell, Bertrand -- “On Being Modern-Minded,” The Nation (1937-01-09)

Dave — Sun, 01 Feb 2004 19:00:00 +0000

All movements go too far.

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) English mathematician and philosopher
“On Being Modern-Minded,” The Nation (1937-01-09)

Full context:

All movements go too far, and this is certainly true of the movement toward subjectivity, which began with Luther and Descartes as an assertion of the individual and has culminated by an inherent logic in his complete subjection.

Collected in Unpopular Essays (1950).

Barry, Dave -- “25 Things I Have Learned In 50 Years,” #25 (1997)

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

Nobody cares if you can’t dance well. Just get up and dance.

Dave Barry (b. 1947) American humorist, author, columnist
“25 Things I Have Learned In 50 Years,” #25 (1997)