WIST Quotations

Twain, Mark -- Essay (1906), “The Gorky Incident,” Letters from the Earth (c. 1909; pub. 1962) [ed. DeVoto (1939)]

Dave — Fri, 15 May 2026 17:38:27 +0000

Laws are coldly reasoned out and established upon what the lawmakers believe to be a basis of right. But customs are not. Customs are not enacted, they grow gradually up, imperceptibly and unconsciously, like an oak from its seed. In the fullness of their strength they can stand up straight in front of a world of argument and reasoning and yield not an inch.

Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
Essay (1906), “The Gorky Incident,” Letters from the Earth (c. 1909; pub. 1962) [ed. DeVoto (1939)]
(Source)

Commenting on the eviction of Maxim Gorky from multiple hotels in New York City because the woman he was traveling with was not his wife. Twain was a supporter of Gorky's efforts to foment revolution in Tsarist Russia.

The essay was not published in Twain's lifetime. It's original publication was in the Slavonic and East European Review (1944-08), also edited by DeVoto.

Ivins, Molly -- Essay (1995-12-24), “Look to the Children of the Poor in This Season of Budget-Slashing,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram

Dave — Wed, 22 Apr 2026 16:18:27 +0000

How the American right managed to convince itself that the programs to alleviate poverty are responsible for the consequences of poverty will someday be studied as a notorious mass illusion. In the meantime, real children — kids who get earaches and like Big Bird and are crabby when they aren’t fed and whose eyes widen in wonder when they meet Santa Claus — will pay the price for this pernicious folly.

Molly Ivins (1944-2007) American writer, political columnist [Mary Tyler Ivins]
Essay (1995-12-24), “Look to the Children of the Poor in This Season of Budget-Slashing,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram
(Source)

Collected in You Got to Dance with Them What Brung You (1998).

Berry, Wendell -- Speech (2005-05-14), Commencement, Lindsey Wilson College, Columbia, Kentucky

Dave — Mon, 22 Dec 2025 17:05:11 +0000

We make war, we are told, for the love of peace. We subvert our Bill of Rights and impose our will abroad for the sake of freedom and the rule of law. We honor greed and waste with the name of economy. We allow ever greater wealth and power to accumulate in the hands of a privileged few only to provide jobs for working people and charity to the poor. And we sanctify all this as Christian, though the Gospels support none of it by so much as a line or a word.

Wendell Berry (b. 1934) American farmer, educator, poet, conservationist
Speech (2005-05-14), Commencement, Lindsey Wilson College, Columbia, Kentucky
(Source)

This was either excerpted from, or included in, his undated essay "Letter to Daniel Kemmis," collected in The Way of Ignorance and Other Essays, Part 2 (2005).

Berry, Wendell -- Endorsement blurb for Charles E. Little, The Dying of the Trees (1997)

Dave — Mon, 01 Dec 2025 18:08:50 +0000

Whether we and our politicians know it or not, Nature is party to all our deals and decisions, and she has more votes, a longer memory, and a sterner sense of justice than we do.

Wendell Berry (b. 1934) American farmer, educator, poet, conservationist
Endorsement blurb for Charles E. Little, The Dying of the Trees (1997)
(Source)

Ivins, Molly -- Essay (1991-02), “Season of Drear,” The Progressive

Dave — Wed, 17 Sep 2025 14:51:24 +0000

Seems to me it’s a simple concept — the concentration of wealth is a Bad Idea. Since capital tends to concentrate, it is one of the functions of government to oppose this tendency. That’s why we used to have antimonopoly laws and the like.
When you see government encouraging the concentration of wealth, check your wallet.

Molly Ivins (1944-2007) American writer, political columnist [Mary Tyler Ivins]
Essay (1991-02), “Season of Drear,” The Progressive
(Source)

Lincoln, Abraham -- Speech (1848-06-20), “Internal Improvements,” US House of Representatives, Washington, D.C.

Dave — Tue, 16 Sep 2025 15:35:22 +0000

The true rule, in determining to embrace, or reject any thing, is not whether it have any evil in it; but whether it have more of evil, than of good. There are few things wholly evil, or wholly good. Almost every thing, especially of governmental policy, is an inseparable compound of the two; so that our best judgment of the preponderance between them is continually demanded.

Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) American lawyer, politician, US President (1861-65)
Speech (1848-06-20), “Internal Improvements,” US House of Representatives, Washington, D.C.
(Source)

Speaking on internal improvements (infrastructure) as part of governmental policy. Taken from the copy of the speech Lincoln submitted to the Congressional Globe Appendix and the Illinois Journal (1848-07-20).

Mencken, H. L. -- A Little Book in C Major, ch. 3, § 19 (1916)

Dave — Wed, 29 Nov 2023 16:39:31 +0000

If all public questions were settled by shooting dice, fifty percent of them would be settled correctly. This would be five times as good a score as we make now.

H. L. Mencken (1880-1956) American writer and journalist [Henry Lewis Mencken]
A Little Book in C Major, ch. 3, § 19 (1916)
(Source)

Adams, John -- Letter (1813-07-09) to Thomas Jefferson

Dave — Thu, 23 Feb 2017 01:53:08 +0000

While all other Sciences have advanced, that of Government is at a Stand; little better understood; little better practiced now than 3 or 4 thousand years ago. What is the Reason? I say Parties and Factions will not Suffer, or permit Improvements to be made. As Soon as one Man hints at an improvement his Rival opposes it. No sooner has one Party discovered or invented an Amelioration of the condition of Man or the order of Society, than the opposite Party, belies it, misconstrues it, misrepresents it, ridicules it, insults it, and persecutes it.

John Adams (1735–1826) American lawyer, Founding Father, statesman, US President (1797–1801)
Letter (1813-07-09) to Thomas Jefferson
(Source)

Aeschylus -- The Eumenides

Dave — Fri, 04 Nov 2016 03:10:09 +0000

And from your policy do not wholly banish fear,
For what man living, freed from fear, will still be just?

Aeschylus (525-456 BC) Greek dramatist (Æschylus)
The Eumenides

Roosevelt, Franklin Delano -- Letter (1930-05-12) to John A. Kingsbury

Dave — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 13:10:27 +0000

There is no question in my mind that it is time for the country to become fairly radical for a generation. History shows that where this occurs occasionally, nations are saved from revolution.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882–1945) American lawyer, politician, statesman, US President (1933–1945)
Letter (1930-05-12) to John A. Kingsbury
(Source)

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

Dave — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 14:40:27 +0000

All men in whose character there is not an element of hardened baseness must admit the need in our public life of those qualities which we somewhat vaguely group together when we speak of “reform,” and all men of sound mind must also admit the need of efficiency.
There are, of course, men of such low moral type, or of such ingrained cynicism, that they do not believe in the possibility of making anything better, or do not care to see things better. There are also men who are slightly disordered mentally, or who are cursed with a moral twist which makes them champion reforms less from a desire to do good to others than as a kind of tribute to their own righteousness, for the sake of emphasizing their own superiority. From neither of these classes can we get any real help in the unending struggle for righteousness.
There remains the great body of the people, including the entire body of those through whom the salvation of the people must ultimately be worked out. All these men combine or seek to combine in varying degrees the quality of striving after the ideal, that is, the quality which makes men reformers, and the quality of so striving through practical methods — the quality which makes men efficient. Both qualities are absolutely essential. The absence of either makes the presence of the other worthless or worse.

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).

Stevenson, Adlai -- Speech (1955-10-29), “The Crisis in Agriculture,” Democratic Rally, Duluth, Minnesota

Dave — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 13:42:24 +0000

The government must be the trustee for the little man because no one else will be. The powerful can usually help themselves — and frequently do.

Adlai Stevenson (1900–1965) American diplomat, statesman
Speech (1955-10-29), “The Crisis in Agriculture,” Democratic Rally, Duluth, Minnesota
(Source)

Jackson, Robert H. -- Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U.S. 1, 26-27 (1947) [dissent]

Dave — Fri, 09 May 2008 21:35:13 +0000

The effect of the religious freedom Amendment to our Constitution was to take every form of propagation of religion out of the realm of things which could directly or indirectly be made public business, and thereby be supported in whole or in part at taxpayers’ expense. That is a difference which the Constitution sets up between religion and almost every other subject matter of legislation, a difference which goes to the very root of religious freedom and which the Court is overlooking today. This freedom was first in the Bill of Rights because it was first in the forefathers’ minds; it was set forth in absolute terms, and its strength is its rigidity. It was intended not only to keep the states’ hands out of religion, but to keep religion’s hands off the state, and, above all, to keep bitter religious controversy out of public life by denying to every denomination any advantage from getting control of public policy or the public purse.

Robert H. Jackson (1892-1954) US Supreme Court Justice (1941-54), lawyer, jurist, politician
Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U.S. 1, 26-27 (1947) [dissent]
(Source)