WIST Quotations

Horace -- Epistles [Epistularum, Letters], Book 1, ep. 1 “To Maecenas,” l. 38ff (1.1.38-40) (20 BC) [tr. Creech (1684)]

Dave — Fri, 22 Aug 2025 16:20:26 +0000

The Rash, the Lazy, Lover, none’s so wild,
But may be tame, and may be wisely mild,
If they consult true Vertue’s Rules with care,
And lend to good advice a patient ear.

[Invidus, iracundus, iners, vinosus, amator,
nemo adeo ferus est, ut non mitescere possit,
si modo culturae patientem commodet aurem.]

Horace (65–8 BC) Roman poet, satirist, soldier, politician [Quintus Horatius Flaccus]
Epistles [Epistularum, Letters], Book 1, ep. 1 “To Maecenas,” l. 38ff (1.1.38-40) (20 BC) [tr. Creech (1684)]
(Source)

(Source (Latin)). Other translations:

Th'envyouse, angrye, drunken, slowe, the lover lewde and wylde
None so outeragiouse, but in tyme he maye become full mylde.
If he to good advertisemente will retche his listenyng eare,
And meekely byde with pacience the counsaile he shall heare.
[tr. Drant (1567)]

The Envious, Wrathful, Sluggish, Drunkard, Lover:
No Beast so wild, but may be tam'd, if he
Will unto Precepts listen patiently.
[tr. Fanshawe; ed. Brome (1666)]

The slave to envy, anger, wine, or love,
The wretch of sloth, its excellence shall prove:
Fierceness itself shall hear its rage away.
When listening calmly to the instructive lay.
[tr. Francis (1747)]

The heart with envy cold -- with anger hot,
The libertine, the sluggard and the sot --
No wretch so savage, but, if he resign
His soul to culture, wisdom can refine.
[tr. Howes (1845)]

The envious, the choleric, the indolent, the slave to wine, to women -- none is so savage that he can not be tamed, if he will only lend a patient ear to discipline.
[tr. Smart/Buckley (1853)]

Run through the list of faults; whate'er you be,
Coward, pickthank, spitfire, drunkard, debauchee,
Submit to culture patiently, you'll find
Her charms can humanize the rudest mind.
[tr. Conington (1874)]

However coarse in grain a man may be,
Drone, brawler, makebate, drunkard, debauchee,
A patient ear to culture let him lend,
He's sure to turn out gentler in the end.
[tr. Martin (1881)]

Are you envious, irascible, inert, given to wine or immorality? No person is so savage that he cannot grow milder, provided he lend a patient ear to civilization's culture.
[tr. Elgood (1893)]

The slave to envy, anger, sloth, wine, lewdness -- no one is so savage that he cannot be tamed, if only he lend to treatment a patient ear.
[tr. Fairclough (Loeb) (1926)]

The envious, passionate, slothful, drunken, lewd —
No man so savage but he drops the mood,
Lend he but patient ear to counsel good.
[tr. Murison, ed. Kraemer (1936)]

The envious man,
The sorehead, the lazy lout, the drinker, the lover:
No one is such a beast as not to be tamed
By lending a patient ear to moral advice.
[tr. Palmer Bovie (1959)]

Envious, wrathful, lazy, drunken men, lewd lovers too,
none is so thoroughly wild a beast he can't be tamed,
if only he'll lend for cultivation's sake an open ear.
[tr. Fuchs (1977)]

Jealousy,
Anger, laziness, drunkenness, lust: everything
Can be cured, nothing is so wild
That patient teaching will ever fail you.
[tr. Raffel (1983)]

Nobody's so far gone in savagery --
A slave of envy, wrath, lust, drunkenness, sloth --
That he can't be civilized, if he'll only listen
Patiently to the doctor's good advice.
[tr. Ferry (2001)]

Whether he’s envious, choleric, indolent, drunken or lustful --
no one is so unruly that he can’t become more gentle,
if only he listens with care to what his trainer tells him.
[tr. Rudd (2005 ed.)]

Envious, irascible, idle, drunken, lustful,
No man’s so savage he can’t be civilised,
If he’ll attend patiently to self-cultivation.
[tr. Kline (2015)]

Hemry, John G. -- Triumphant, ch. 16 (2019) [as Jack Campbell]

Dave — Mon, 23 Jun 2025 21:15:40 +0000

You’d be amazed how quickly traditions and policies can be undermined by men and women with clever minds, clever tongues, and no principles.

John G. Hemry (b. 1956) American naval officer, author [pseud. Jack Campbell]
Triumphant, ch. 16 (2019) [as Jack Campbell]
(Source)

Stanley, Jason -- How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them (2018)

Dave — Wed, 04 May 2022 15:22:21 +0000

Fascist politics lures its audiences with the temptation of freedom from democratic norms while masking the fact that the alternative proposed is not a form of freedom that can sustain a stable nation state and can scarcely guarantee liberty.

Jason Stanley (b. 1969) American philosopher, epistemologist, academic
How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them (2018)

Friedan, Betty -- The Feminine Mystique, Epilogue (1974 ed.)

Dave — Thu, 10 Mar 2022 20:56:10 +0000

Men weren’t really the enemy — they were fellow victims suffering from an outmoded masculine mystique that made them feel unnecessarily inadequate when there were no bears to kill.

Betty Friedan (1921–2006) American writer, feminist, activist
The Feminine Mystique, Epilogue (1974 ed.)
(Source)

Sometimes paraphrased: "Man is not the enemy here, but the fellow victim."

Springer, Jerry -- Interview by Stephanie Ruhle, MSNBC, @1:12 (1 Nov 2019)

Dave — Wed, 07 Jul 2021 21:12:28 +0000

We can’t function as a society unless we have norms of how to behave. You can’t pass enough laws to take care of every human interaction.

Jerry Springer (b. 1944) Anglo-American broadcaster, actor, producer, politician
Interview by Stephanie Ruhle, MSNBC, @1:12 (1 Nov 2019)
(Source)

Loofbourow, Lili -- “This Is America,” Slate (19 Aug 2018)

Dave — Tue, 22 Jun 2021 16:56:24 +0000

The problem isn’t that our national character is too invested in civility. It’s that a certain segment of our population is desperate to be freed from it.

Lili Loofbourow (contemp.) American essayist, critic, author
“This Is America,” Slate (19 Aug 2018)
(Source)

Gessen, Masha -- “The Fundamental Uncertainty of Mueller’s Russia Indictments,” The New Yorker (20 Feb 2018)

Dave — Mon, 07 Jun 2021 20:14:51 +0000

Perhaps the hardest thing for humans to do is to imagine the world as it is imagined by others. We tend to confuse acting in accordance with the goals and values of the society in which we live with rationality; we tend to confuse intelligence with thinking in accordance with those goals and values. And, of course, we are always inclined to see events as predetermined — and we are almost always wrong.

Masha Gessen (b. 1967) Russian-American journalist, author, translator, activist
“The Fundamental Uncertainty of Mueller’s Russia Indictments,” The New Yorker (20 Feb 2018)
(Source)

Arendt, Hannah -- Essay (1964-08), “Personal Responsibility Under Dictatorship,” The Listener Magazine

Dave — Tue, 04 Aug 2020 23:20:06 +0000

The total moral collapse of respectable society during the Hitler regime may teach us that under such circumstances those who cherish values and hold fast to moral norms and standards are not reliable: we now know that moral norms and standards can be changed overnight, and that all that then will be left is the mere habit of holding fast to something.
Much more reliable will be the doubters and skeptics, not because skepticism is good or doubting wholesome, but because they are used to examine things and to make up their own minds.
Best of all will be those who know only one thing for certain: that whatever else happens, as long as we live we shall have to live together with ourselves.

Hannah Arendt (1906–1975) German-American philosopher, political theorist
Essay (1964-08), “Personal Responsibility Under Dictatorship,” The Listener Magazine
(Source)

Collected in Responsibility and Judgment, Part 1 "Responsibility" (2003).

Sinclair, Upton -- Mammonart, ch. 2 “Who Owns the Artists?” (1925)

Dave — Thu, 02 Jul 2020 20:46:37 +0000

All art is propaganda. It is universally and inescapably propaganda; sometimes unconsciously, but often deliberately, propaganda.

As commentary on the above, we add, that when artists or art critics make the assertion that art excludes propaganda, what they are saying is that their kind of propaganda is art, and other kinds of propaganda are not art. Orthodoxy is my doxy, and heterodoxy is the other fellow’s doxy.

Upton Sinclair (1878–1968) American writer, journalist, activist, politician
Mammonart, ch. 2 “Who Owns the Artists?” (1925)
(Source)

Porter, Cole -- “Anything Goes” (1934)

Dave — Thu, 19 Jan 2017 19:51:20 +0000

In olden days, a glimpse of stocking
Was looked on as something shocking,
But now, God knows,
Anything goes.

Cole Porter (1891–1964) American composer and songwriter
“Anything Goes” (1934)

Emerson, Ralph Waldo -- Journal (1840-05-10)

Dave — Tue, 06 Dec 2016 04:33:22 +0000

Conformity is the ape of harmony.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
Journal (1840-05-10)
(Source)

Cicero, Marcus Tullius -- Epistulae ad Familiares [Letters to Friends], Book 4, Letter 3, sec. 1 (4.3.1), to Servius Sulpitas Rufus (46 BC ) [tr. Williams (Loeb) (1928)]

Dave — Thu, 13 Oct 2016 01:15:17 +0000

After a survey of all our civil wars, with a wealth of detail you urged the Senate, while they feared the warnings of the civil wars within their memory, to draw the inference that, as the earlier combatants had shown a ruthlessness hitherto quite unprecedented in the Republic, so whosoever should subsequently succeed in crushing the Republic by force of arms would display a tyranny far more intolerable. For men assume that what is done by precedent is also done by right; but they add to that precedent and contribute to it something, nay rather, a great deal of their own.

[Accuratissime monuisti senatum conlectis omnibus bellis civilibus, ut et illa timerent, quae meminissent, et scirent, cum superiores nullo tali exemplo antea in re publica cognito tam crudeles fuissent, quicumque postea rem publicam oppressisset armis, multo intolerabiliorem futurum. nam, quod exemplo fit, id etiam iure fieri putant, ipsi aliquid atque adeo multa addunt et adferunt de suo.]

Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 BC) Roman orator, statesman, philosopher
Epistulae ad Familiares [Letters to Friends], Book 4, Letter 3, sec. 1 (4.3.1), to Servius Sulpitas Rufus (46 BC ) [tr. Williams (Loeb) (1928)]
(Source)

(Source (Latin)). Other translation:

You admonished the Senate, to take heed, by the calamities that were past: and to thinke how much more intollerable those would be, which oppressed the Country in these times, seeing they had beene so cruell, who oppressed it heretofore, having thereof no former president or example: in that men, doe usually thinke, that they may in all reason doe, what they have example for; nay, and to doe worse, then their president allowes.
[tr. Webbe (1620)]

You prudently endeavoured to awaken our fears, by enumerating those civil wars that had happened within our own memories. And if the authors of these, you told the house, unsupported by a single example of the same kind to give a colour to their conduct, had exercised such dreadful cruelties; whoever in future times should successfully turn his arms against the republic, would most assuredly prove a much more intolerable tyrant. For they that act by precedent, you observed, generally think they act by right: and in cases of this nature seldom fail of iimproving on their model.
[tr. Melmoth (1753), 9.1; (1814 ed) # 106]

You warned the senate in the most impressive terms, both to fear those they remembered, and to feel assured, since the last generation had been so cruel -- to an extent up to that time unprecedented in the Republic -- that whoever thenceforth overpowered the Republic by arms would be much more difficult to endure. For what is done on a precedent, they Consider as even legally justifiable: but they add and Contribute something, or rather a great deal, of their own to it.
[tr. Shuckburgh (1899), # 492]

Using the shorter, more commonly quoted Quod exemplo fit, id etiam jure fieri putant, there are two common translations used in various sources:

Men think they may justly do that for which they have a precedent.
[E.g. (1882)]

What is shown by example, men think they may justly do.
[E.g. (1937)]

Dumas, Alexandre pere -- (Attributed)

Dave — Fri, 22 Jul 2016 04:32:13 +0000

The custom and fashion of to-day will be the awkwardness and outrage of to-morrow. So arbitrary are these transient laws.

Alexandre Dumas, père (1802–1870) French novelist and dramatist
(Attributed)

Quoted in James Comper Gray, The Biblical Museum: Old Testament, vol. 3 (1878 ed.).

Cuomo, Mario -- “Religious Belief and Public Morality,” John A. O’Brien Lecture, U. of Notre Dame (13 Sep 1984)

Dave — Mon, 04 May 2015 12:05:53 +0000

Our public morality, then — the moral standards we maintain for everyone, not just the ones we insist on in our private lives — depends on a consensus view of right and wrong. The values derived from religious belief will not — and should not — be accepted as part of the public morality unless they are shared by the pluralistic community at large, by consensus. That values happen to be religious values does not deny them acceptability as a part of this consensus. But it does not require their acceptability, either.

Mario Cuomo (1932–2015) American politician
“Religious Belief and Public Morality,” John A. O’Brien Lecture, U. of Notre Dame (13 Sep 1984)
(Source)

Fuller, Thomas (1654) -- Introductio ad Prudentiam, Vol. 1, # 135 (1725)

Dave — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 10:58:50 +0000

Do as most do; and few will speak ill of thee.

Thomas Fuller (1654–1734) English physician, preacher, aphorist, writer
Introductio ad Prudentiam, Vol. 1, # 135 (1725)
(Source)