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Author Cloud
Aristotle • Asimov, Isaac • Bacon, Francis • Bible • Bierce, Ambrose • Billings, Josh • Butcher, Jim • Chesterfield (Lord) • Chesterton, Gilbert Keith • Churchill, Winston • Cicero, Marcus Tullius • Einstein, Albert • Eisenhower, Dwight David • Emerson, Ralph Waldo • Franklin, Benjamin • Fuller, Thomas (1654) • Gaiman, Neil • Galbraith, John Kenneth • Gandhi, Mohandas • Hazlitt, William • Heinlein, Robert A. • Hoffer, Eric • Homer • Huxley, Aldous • Ingersoll, Robert Green • Jefferson, Thomas • Johnson, Lyndon • Johnson, Samuel • Kennedy, John F. • King, Martin Luther • La Rochefoucauld, Francois • Lewis, C.S. • Lincoln, Abraham • Mencken, H.L. • Orwell, George • Pratchett, Terry • Roosevelt, Eleanor • Roosevelt, Theodore • Russell, Bertrand • Seneca the Younger • Shakespeare, William • Shaw, George Bernard • Sophocles • Twain, Mark • Wilde, Oscar- Only the 45 most quoted authors are shown above. Full author list.
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action age America author beauty belief change character courage death democracy education ego error evil faith fear freedom future God government happiness history human nature humanity integrity liberty life love morality perspective politics power progress reality religion science society success truth virtue war wealth wisdom writing- I've been adding topics since 2014, so not all quotes have been given one. Full topic list.
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Quotations about need
Note that not all quotations have been tagged, so the Search function may find additional quotations on this topic.
“You are wise and powerful. Will you not take the Ring?”
“No!” cried Gandalf, springing to his feet. “With that power I should have power too great and terrible. And over me the Ring would gain a power still greater and more deadly.” His eyes flashed and his face was lit as by a fire within. “Do not tempt me! For I do not wish to become like the Dark Lord himself. Yet the way of the Ring to my heart is by pity, pity for weakness and the desire of strength to do good. Do not tempt me! I dare not take it, not even to keep it safe, unused. The wish to wield it would be too great for my strength. I shall have such need of it. Great perils lie before me.”
J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973) English writer, fabulist, philologist, academic [John Ronald Reuel Tolkien]
The Lord of the Rings, Vol. 1: The Fellowship of the Ring, Book 1, ch. 2 “The Shadow of the Past” (1954)
(Source)
Your calling is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.
There are only four kinds of people in this world: those who have been caregivers, those who currently are caregivers, those who will be caregivers, and those who will need caregivers.
Rosalynn Carter (b. 1927) American First Lady (1977-1981), and activist
Helping Yourself Help Others: A Book for Caregivers (1994; 2013) [with S. Golant]
(Source)
This quotation is usually attributed directly to Carter, but she is actually quoting an unnamed caregiver colleague of hers.
I am sure that in nine out of ten cases the original wish to write is the wish to make oneself felt … the non-essential writer never gets past that wish.
Necessity is the only successful adviser.
Charles Reade (1814-1884) English novelist and dramatist
(Attributed)
(Source)
In M. Ballou, Edge-Tools of Speech (1886).
Want is a master which can sometimes make
A man the gravest sacrilege commit.[Perché il bisogno a dispogliar gli altari
ra’ l’uom talvolta, che sel trova avere.]Ludovico Ariosto (1474-1533) Italian poet
Orlando Furioso, Canto 43, st. 90 (1532) [tr. Reynolds (1973)]
Alt. trans.: "For man, alas, will sometimes disarray / The altar, when he finds himself in need ...." [tr. Rose (1831)]
There is not a soul who does not have to beg alms of another, either a smile, a handshake, or a fond eye.
That the beauty of life is a thing of no moment, I suppose few people would venture to assert, and yet most civilized people act as if it were of none, and in so doing are wronging themselves and those that are to come after them; for that beauty, which is what is meant by art, using the word in its widest sense, is, I contend, no mere accident to human life, which people can take or leave as they choose, but a positive necessity of life, if we are to live as nature meant us to; that is, unless we are content to be less than men.
William Morris (1834-1896) British textile designer, writer, socialist activist
“The Beauty of Life,” lecture, Birmingham Society of Arts and School of Design (19 Feb 1880)
(Source)
The human animal needs a freedom seldom mentioned, freedom from intrusion. He needs a little privacy quite as much as he wants understanding or vitamins or exercise or praise.
While we are poor, the necessarys ov life are the luxurys; after we git ritch, the luxurys are the necessarys.
[While we are poor, the necessaries of life are the luxuries; after we get rich, the luxuries are the necessaries.]
Josh Billings (1818-1885) American humorist [pseud. of Henry Wheeler Shaw]
Everybody’s Friend, Or; Josh Billing’s Encyclopedia and Proverbial Philosophy of Wit and Humor, “Mollassis Kandy” (1874)
(Source)
The abdomen is the reason why man does not easily take himself for a god.
A bone to the dog is not charity. Charity is the bone shared with the dog, when you are just as hungry as the dog.
Your spirit, youth, and valour give me heart, not to mention necessity, which makes even the timid brave.
[Animus, aetas, virtus vostra me hortantur, praeterea necessitudo, que etiam timidos fortis facit.]
Sallust (c. 86-35 BC) Roman historian and politician [Gaius Sallustius Crispus]
Bellum Catilinae [The War of Catiline; The Conspiracy of Catiline], ch. 58, sent. 19 [tr. Rolfe (1931)]
(Source)
Catiline, addressing his troops. Usually shortened to "Necessity makes even the timid brave" [Necessitas etiam timidos fortes facit.]. Original Latin.
Alt. trans.:
- "From your youthful vigor and undaunted courage I expect every advantage. Even the difficulties of our situation inspire me with confidence; for difficulties have often produced prodigies of valor." [tr. Murphy (1807)]
- "Your spirit, your age, your virtue encourage me; and our necessity, too, which even inspires cowards with bravery." [tr. Rose (1831), ch. 61]
- "Your spirit, your age, your valour encourage me, the necessity moreover which makes even the timid brave." [Source (1841)]
- "Your spirit, your age, your valor, give me confidence; to say nothing of necessity, which makes even cowards brave." [tr. Watson (1867)]
- "Your resolution, your age, and your courage, and above all the inevitable nature of the encounter, which often makes even the timid brave, exhort me to this." [tr. Pollard (1882)]
Necessity can make a doubtful action innocent, but it cannot make it commendable.
Necessity can make a doubtful action innocent, but it cannot make it commendable.
So spake the Fiend, and with necessity,
The Tyrant’s plea, excus’d his devilish deeds.
ANDREA: Unhappy the land that has no heroes! …
GALILEO: No, Unhappy the land that needs heroes.[ANDREA: Unglücklich das Land, das keine Helden hat! …
GALILEO: Nein, Unglücklich das Land, das Helden nötig hat.]
You can’t always get what you want.
But if you try sometimes,
You just might find
You get what you need.Michael Philip "Mick" Jagger (b. 1943) English musician, songwriter, producer, actor
“You Can’t Always Get What You Want” [with Keith Richards] (1969)
(Source)
Unhappiness is not knowing what we want and killing ourselves to get it.
Don Herold (1889-1966) American humorist, cartoonist, author
(Attributed)
(Source)
Quoted in Lawrence Peter, Peter's People (1979) as "Herold's Law."
One of the oldest human needs is having someone to wonder where you are when you don’t come home at night.
The one thing we can never get enough of is love. And the one thing we never give enough is love.
Perhaps the sentiments contained in the following pages, are not YET sufficiently fashionable to procure them general favour; a long habit of not thinking a thing WRONG, gives it a superficial appearance of being RIGHT, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason.
Thomas Paine (1737-1809) American political philosopher and writer
Common Sense (14 Feb 1776)
Source essay
I now perceive one immense omission in my Psychology— the deepest principle of Human Nature is the craving to be appreciated, and I left it out altogether from the book, because I had never had it gratified till now.
William James (1842-1910) American psychologist and philosopher
Letter to his Philosophy 2A class at Radcliffe College (6 Apr 1896)
The class had sent him a potted azalea at Easter. Full letter:
Dear Young Ladies, I am deeply touched by your remembrance. It is the first time anyone ever treated me so kindly, so you may well believe that the impression on the heart of the lonely sufferer will be even more durable than the impression on your minds of all the teachings of Philosophy 2A. I now perceive one immense omission in my Psychology—the deepest principle of Human Nature is the craving to be appreciated, and I left it out altogether from the book, because I had never had it gratified until now. I fear that you have let lose a demon in me, and that all my actions will now be for the sake of such rewards.