No mother is ever, completely, a child’s idea of what a mother should be, and I suppose it works the other way around as well.
Margaret Atwood (b. 1939) Canadian writer, literary critic, environmental activist
The Handmaid’s Tale, ch. 28 (1986)
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Quotations about:
paragon
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Lord, who may enter your Temple?
Who may worship on Zion, your sacred hill?
Those who obey God in everything
and always do what is right,
whose words are true and sincere,
and who do not slander others.
They do no wrong to their friends
nor spread rumors about their neighbors.
They despise those whom God rejects,
but honor those who obey the Lord.
They always do what they promise,
no matter how much it may cost.
They make loans without charging interest
and cannot be bribed to testify against the innocent.
Whoever does these things will always be secure.מִזְמ֗וֹר לְדָ֫וִ֥ד יְ֭הֹוָה מִי־יָג֣וּר בְּאׇהֳלֶ֑ךָ מִֽי־יִ֝שְׁכֹּ֗ן בְּהַ֣ר קׇדְשֶֽׁךָ׃]
הוֹלֵ֣ךְ תָּ֭מִים וּפֹעֵ֥ל צֶ֑דֶק וְדֹבֵ֥ר אֱ֝מֶ֗ת בִּלְבָבֽוֹ׃
לֹֽא־רָגַ֨ל ׀ עַל־לְשֹׁנ֗וֹ לֹא־עָשָׂ֣ה לְרֵעֵ֣הוּ רָעָ֑ה וְ֝חֶרְפָּ֗ה לֹא־נָשָׂ֥א עַל־קְרֹבֽוֹ׃
נִבְזֶ֤ה ׀ בְּֽעֵ֘ינָ֤יו נִמְאָ֗ס וְאֶת־יִרְאֵ֣י יְהֹוָ֣ה יְכַבֵּ֑ד נִשְׁבַּ֥ע לְ֝הָרַ֗ע וְלֹ֣א יָמִֽר׃
[כַּסְפּ֤וֹ ׀ לֹא־נָתַ֣ן בְּנֶשֶׁךְ֮ וְשֹׁ֥חַד עַל־נָקִ֗י לֹ֥א־לָ֫קָ֥ח עֹֽשֵׂה־אֵ֑לֶּה לֹ֖א יִמּ֣וֹט לְעוֹלָֽם׃ {פ}The Bible (The Old Testament) (14th - 2nd C BC) Judeo-Christian sacred scripture [Tanakh, Hebrew Bible], incl. the Apocrypha (Deuterocanonicals)
Book 19. Psalms 15: 1ff (Ps 15:1-5) [tr. GNT (1992 ed.)]
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(Source (Hebrew)). Alternate translations:Lord, who shall abide in thy tabernacle?
who shall dwell in thy holy hill?
He that walketh uprightly,
and worketh righteousness,
and speaketh the truth in his heart.
He that backbiteth not with his tongue,
nor doeth evil to his neighbour,
nor taketh up a reproach against his neighbour.
In whose eyes a vile person is contemned;
but he honoureth them that fear the Lord.
He that sweareth to his own hurt, and changeth not.
He that putteth not out his money to usury,
nor taketh reward against the innocent.
He that doeth these things shall never be moved.
[KJV (1611)]Yahweh, who has the right to enter your tent, or to live on your holy mountain?
The man whose way of life is blameless, who always does what is right, who speaks the truth from his heart,
whose tongue is not used for slander, who does no wrong to his fellow, casts no discredit on his neighbour,
looks with contempt on the reprobate, but honours those who fear Yahweh; who stands by his pledge at any cost,
does not ask interest on loans, and cannot be bribed to victimise the innocent. -- If a man does all this, nothing can ever shake him.
[JB (1966)]Yahweh, who can find a home in your tent, who can dwell on your holy mountain?
Whoever lives blamelessly, who acts uprightly, who speaks the truth from the heart,
who keeps the tongue under control, who does not wrong a comrade, who casts no discredit on a neighbour,
who looks with scorn on the vile, but honours those who fear Yahweh, who stands by an oath at any cost,
who asks no interest on loans, who takes no bribe to harm the innocent. No one who so acts can ever be shaken.
[NJB (1985)]Who can live in your tent, Lord?
Who can dwell on your holy mountain?
The person who
lives free of blame,
does what is right,
and speaks the truth sincerely;
who does no damage with their talk,
does no harm to a friend,
doesn’t insult a neighbor;
someone who despises
those who act wickedly,
but who honors those
who honor the Lord;
someone who keeps their promise even when it hurts;
someone who doesn’t lend money with interest,
who won’t accept a bribe against any innocent person.
Whoever does these things will never stumble.
[CEB (2011)]O Lord, who may abide in your tent?
Who may dwell on your holy hill?
Those who walk blamelessly and do what is right
and speak the truth from their heart;
who do not slander with their tongue
and do no evil to their friends
nor heap shame upon their neighbors;
in whose eyes the wicked are despised
but who honor those who fear the Lord;
who stand by their oath even to their hurt;
who do not lend money at interest
and do not take a bribe against the innocent.
Those who do these things shall never be moved.
[NRSV (2021 ed.)]God, who may sojourn in Your tent,
who may dwell on Your holy mountain?
Anyone who lives without blame,
who does what is right,
and in their heart acknowledges the truth;
whose tongue is not given to evil;
who has never done harm to a compatriot,
or borne reproach for [acts toward] a neighbor;
for whom someone contemptible is abhorrent,
but who honors those who fear God;
who keeps an oath even when it hurts;
who has never lent money at interest,
or accepted a bribe against the innocent.
One who acts thus shall never be shaken.
[RJPS (2023 ed.)]
FAUSTUS: Si peccasse negamus, fallimur, et nulla est in nobis veritas;
“If we say that we have no sin,
We deceive ourselves, and there’s no truth in us.”
Why, then, belike we must sin,
And so consequently die.
Ay, we must die an everlasting death.Christopher "Kit" Marlowe (1564-1593) English dramatist and poet
The Tragicall History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus, Act 1, sc. 1 (sc. 1), l. 70ff (1594; 1604 “A” text)
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The quote is from the Bible, 1 John 1:8; Faustus ignores verse 9 which speaks of forgiveness.
The same words are used in the "B" text (w. 1594; pub. 1616), l. 68ff.
I had no idea that such individuals exist outside of stories.
Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930) British writer and physician
Story (1886-04), “A Study in Scarlet,” Part 1, ch. 2 [Watson], Beeton’s Christmas Annual, Vol. 28 (1887-11-21)
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Watson to Holmes, comparing him to Edgar Allan Poe's Dupin (a comparison that Holmes sniffs at).
Published in novel form 1888-07.
Hero-worship exists, has existed, and will forever exist, universally among mankind.
Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) Scottish essayist and historian
Sartor Resartus, Book 3, ch. 7 (1834)
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Quoting Herr Teufelsdröckh.
This passage first appeared in Fraser's Magazine for Town and Country, Vol. 10, No. 55 (1834-07).
There are a handful of people whom money won’t spoil, and we all count ourselves among them.
Mignon McLaughlin (1913-1983) American journalist and author
The Second Neurotic’s Notebook, ch. 9 (1966)
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I kant help but respekt the man who haint got enny failings, but i dont seem to luv him, he iz too diffrent from me.
[I can’t help but respect the man who ain’t got any failings, but I don’t seem to love him; he is too different from me.]
Models of manly beauty are rare out of novels, and seldom interesting in them.
F. Anstey (1856-1934) English novelist and journalist (pseud. of Thomas Anstey Guthrie)
The Brass Bottle, ch. 1 “Horace Ventimore Receives a Commission” (1900)
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I don’t believe any man ever existed without vanity, and if he did he would be an extremely uncomfortable person to have anything to do with. He would, of course, be a very good man, and we should respect him very much. He would be a very admirable man — a man to be put under a glass case and shown round as a specimen — a man to be stuck upon a pedestal and copied, like a school exercise — a man to be reverenced, but not a man to be loved, not a human brother whose hand we should care to grip. Angels may be very excellent sort of folk in their way, but we, poor mortals, in our present state, would probably find them precious slow company. Even mere good people are rather depressing.
Jerome K. Jerome (1859-1927) English writer, humorist [Jerome Klapka Jerome]
Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow, “On Vanity and Vanities” (1886)
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It always will seem funny to us United Staters that we are about the only ones that really know how to do everything right. I don’t know how a lot of these other Nations have existed as long as they have till we could get some of our people around and show ’em really how to be Pure and Good like us.
Will Rogers (1879-1935) American humorist
Article (1932-02-27), “Letter of a Self-Made Diplomat to His President,” Saturday Evening Post
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Collected in More Letters of a Self-Made Diplomat to His President (1928) [ed. Steven Gragert].
Using Superman’s greatest vulnerability against him — that he is powerless to resist how he is written — to deliberately misrepresent the intentions of his creators or portray him in a way that would best suit some other character strikes me as an oddly blinkered refusal on the part of otherwise imaginative people to even try to conceive what might go on in the mind and motivations of a fictional paragon created to do the right thing with no thought for his own safety.
Grant Morrison (b. 1960) Scottish comic book writer and playwright
“SUPERMAN and THE AUTHORITY annotations Pt 2,” blog entry (16 Feb 2022)
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To undermine the fundamental appeal of superheroes like Superman and Supergirl by re-casting them as anti-heroes at best or outright monsters — dragging imaginary childhood paragons off their pedestals to reinforce a fairly facile point about the tendency of real world heroes to exhibit feet of clay — struck me and strikes me still as imaginatively lazy.
Grant Morrison (b. 1960) Scottish comic book writer and playwright
“SUPERMAN and THE AUTHORITY annotations Pt 2,” blog entry (16 Feb 2022)
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If the road to social transformation can be paved only by saints who never make mistakes, the road will never be built.
Anthony Kapel "Van" Jones (b. 1968) American news commentator, author, lawyer
In Thomas L. Friedman, “The Green-Collar Solution,” New York Times (17 Oct 2007)
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No one has ever been known to decline to serve on a committee to investigate radicals on the ground that so much exposure to their doctrines would weaken his patriotism, nor on a vice commission on the ground that it would impair his morals. Anything may happen inside the censor, but what counts is that in his outward appearances after his ordeal by temptation he is more than ever a paragon of the conforming virtues. Perhaps his appetites are satisfied by an inverted indulgence, but to a clear-sighted conservative that does not really matter. The conservative is not interested in innocent thoughts. He is interested in loyal behavior.
Walter Lippmann (1889-1974) American journalist and author
Men of Destiny, ch. 8 “The Nature of the Battle Over Censorship,” sec. 2 (1927)
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I must respekt thoze, I suppose, who never make enny blunders, but I don’t luv them.
[I must respect those, I suppose, who never make any blunders, but I don’t love them.]
A revolution requires of its leaders a record of unbroken infallibility; if they do not possess it, they are expected to invent it.
Murray Kempton (1917-1997) American journalist.
Part of Our Time: Some Ruins & Monuments of the Thirties, ch. 3 (1955)
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There is a loftier ambition than merely to stand high in the world. It is to stoop down and lift mankind a little higher. There is a nobler character than that which is merely incorruptible. It is the character which acts as an antidote and preventive of corruption.
Henry Van Dyke (1852-1933) American clergyman and writer
“Salt,” Baccalaureate Sermon, Harvard University (19 Jun 1898)
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Anyone who idolizes you is going to hate you when he discovers that you are fallible. He never forgives. He has deceived himself, and he blames you for it.
Elbert Hubbard (1856-1915) American writer, businessman, philosopher
An American Bible [ed. Alice Hubbard] (1918)
Heroism is a model. It is worthwhile to the extent that it is useful. Humans are all full of glory and garbage, and to dwell too long on one or the other robs us of that very humanity.
Graham Ericsson (b. 1947) American writer, aphorist
What Have You Done To Me Lately?, ch. 1 (2014)
We so want heroes, and we want to think that someone who is good and inspirational in some ways is good and inspirational in all ways — a dubious proposition even in modern times, let along fifty, a hundred, two hundred years ago or more. Which then lets us exercise that other instinctive desire: we so want villains ….
Graham Ericsson (b. 1947) American writer, aphorist
What Have You Done To Me Lately?, ch. 1 (2014)
Our faults and sins seem all the bigger when they are seen by the world against the excessively self-righteous picture that is our official version of ourselves.
Walter Lippmann (1889-1974) American journalist and author
“The Grace of Humility,” New York Herald Tribune (24 Sep 1957)
Many people genuinely do not wish to be saints, and it is probable that some who achieve or aspire to sainthood have never felt much temptation to be human beings.
George Orwell (1903-1950) English journalist, essayist, writer [pseud. of Eric Arthur Blair]
Essay (1949-01), “Reflections on Gandhi,” Partisan Review
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