WIST Quotations

Parker, Dorothy -- “Interior,” st. 3, Sunset Gun (1928)

Dave — Thu, 12 Sep 2024 14:02:26 +0000

Her mind lives tidily, apart
From cold and noise and pain,
And bolts the door against her heart,
Out wailing in the rain.

Dorothy Parker (1893-1967) American writer, poet, wit
“Interior,” st. 3, Sunset Gun (1928)
(Source)

Lehane, Dennis -- A Drink Before the War, ch. 7 [Kenzie] (1996)

Dave — Mon, 19 Feb 2024 23:22:48 +0000

Vanity is a weakness. I know this. It’s a shallow dependence on the exterior self, on how one looks instead of what one is. I know this well. But I have a scar the size and texture of a jellyfish on my abdomen already, and you’d be surprised how your sense of self changes when you can’t take your shirt off at the beach. In my more private moments, I pull up my shirt and look at it, tell myself it doesn’t matter, but every time a woman has felt it under her palm late at night, propped herself up on a pillow and asked me about it, I’ve made my explanation as quick as possible, closed the doors to my past as soon as they’ve opened, and not once, even when Angie’s asked, have I told the truth. Vanity and dishonesty may be vices, but they’re also the first forms of protection I ever knew.

Dennis Lehane (b. 1965) American novelist, screenwriter
A Drink Before the War, ch. 7 [Kenzie] (1996)
(Source)

Brodsky, Joseph -- “Speech at the Stadium,” Commencement Address, University of Michigan (18 Dec 1988)

Dave — Tue, 15 Jun 2021 14:48:00 +0000

Try not to pay attention to those who will try to make life miserable for you. There will be a lot of those — in the official capacity as well as the self-appointed. Suffer them if you can’t escape them, but once you have steered clear of them, give them the shortest shrift possible.

Joseph Brodsky (1940-1996) Russian-American poet, essayist, Nobel laureate, US Poet Laureate [Iosif Aleksandrovič Brodskij]
“Speech at the Stadium,” Commencement Address, University of Michigan (18 Dec 1988)
(Source)

Angelou, Maya -- In Jeffrey M. Elliot, “Maya Angelou Raps,” Sepia (Oct 1977)

Dave — Wed, 02 Dec 2020 18:00:10 +0000

One must learn to care for oneself first, so that one can then dare to care for someone else. That’s what it takes to make the caged bird sing.

Maya Angelou (1928-2014) American poet, memoirist, activist [b. Marguerite Ann Johnson]
In Jeffrey M. Elliot, “Maya Angelou Raps,” Sepia (Oct 1977)
(Source)

Stross, Charles -- The Annihilation Score, ch. 16 (2015)

Dave — Wed, 02 Aug 2017 00:27:59 +0000

Most of the activities of any bureaucracy are devoted not to the organization’s ostensible goals, but to ensuring that the organization survives: because if they aren’t, the bureaucracy has a life expectancy measured in days before some idiot decision maker decides that if it’s no use to them they can make political hay by destroying it. It’s no consolation that some time later someone will realize that an organization was needed to carry out the original organization’s task, so a replacement is created: you still lost your job and the task went undone. The only sure way forward is to build an agency that looks to its own survival before it looks to its mission statement. Just another example of evolution in action.

Charles "Charlie" Stross (b. 1964) British writer
The Annihilation Score, ch. 16 (2015)
(Source)

Mill, John Stuart -- On Liberty, ch. 1 (1859)

Dave — Wed, 05 Aug 2015 14:13:12 +0000

The sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection. That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant. He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forbear because it will be better for him to do so, because it will make him happier, because, in the opinions of others, to do so would be wise, or even right. These are good reasons for remonstrating with him, or reasoning with him, or persuading him, or entreating him, but not for compelling him, or visiting him with any evil in case he do otherwise. To justify that, the conduct from which it is desired to deter him must be calculated to produce evil to some one else. The only part of the conduct of any one, for which he is amenable to society, is that which concerns others. In the part which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.

John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) English philosopher and economist
On Liberty, ch. 1 (1859)
(Source)

Carlyle, Thomas -- Lecture (1840-05-22), “The Hero as King,” Home House, Portman Square, London

Dave — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 13:12:13 +0000

Money? He will say: “Take my money, since you can, and it is so desirable to you; take it, — and take yourself away with it; and leave me alone to my work here. I am still here; can still work, after all the money you have taken from me!” But if they come to him, and say, “Acknowledge a Lie; pretend to say you are worshipping God, when you are not doing it: believe not the thing that you find true, but the thing that I find, or pretend to find true!” He will answer: “No; by God’s help, no! You may take my purse; but I cannot have my moral Self annihilated. The purse is any Highwayman’s who might meet me with a loaded pistol: but the Self is mine and God my Maker’s; it is not yours; and I will resist you to the death, and revolt against you, and, on the whole, front all manner of extremities, accusations and confusions, in defence of that!”

Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) Scottish essayist and historian
Lecture (1840-05-22), “The Hero as King,” Home House, Portman Square, London
(Source)

The lecture notes were collected by Carlyle into On Heroes, Hero-Worship, & the Heroic in History, Lecture 6 (1841).

Burke, Edmund -- Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)

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

A state without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation.

Edmund Burke (1729-1797) Anglo-Irish statesman, orator, philosopher
Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)
(Source)