WIST Quotations

Hoffer, Eric -- Passionate State of Mind, Aphorism 130 (1955)

Dave — Thu, 14 Aug 2025 16:02:14 +0000

The people we meet are the playwrights and stage managers of our lives: they cast us in a role, and we play it whether we will or not. It is not so much the example of others we imitate as the reflection of ourselves in their eyes and the echo of ourselves in their words.

Eric Hoffer (1902-1983) American writer, philosopher, longshoreman
Passionate State of Mind, Aphorism 130 (1955)
(Source)

Carlyle, Thomas -- Sartor Resartus, Book 3, ch. 8 (1834)

Dave — Thu, 14 Sep 2023 21:45:45 +0000

Philosophy complains that Custom has hoodwinked us, from the first; that we do everything by Custom, even Believe by it; that our very Axioms, let us boast of Free-thinking as we may, are oftenest simply such Beliefs as we have never heard questioned. Nay, what is Philosophy throughout but a continual battle against Custom; an ever-renewed effort to transcend the sphere of blind Custom, and so become Transcendental?

Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) Scottish essayist and historian
Sartor Resartus, Book 3, ch. 8 (1834)
(Source)

Quoting Herr Teufelsdröckh.

This chapter first appeared in Fraser's Magazine for Town and Country, Vol. 10, No. 55 (1834-07).

Burke, Edmund -- Letters on a Regicide Peace, Letter 1 (1796)

Dave — Thu, 07 Sep 2017 15:46:38 +0000

Manners are of more importance than laws. Upon them, in a great measure, the laws depend. The law touches us but here and there, and now and then. Manners are what vex or soothe, corrupt or purify, exalt or debase, barbarize or refine us, but a constant, steady, uniform, insensible operation, like that of the air we breathe in. They give their whole form and color to our lives. According to their quality, they aid morals, they supply them, or they totally destroy them.

Edmund Burke (1729-1797) Anglo-Irish statesman, orator, philosopher
Letters on a Regicide Peace, Letter 1 (1796)
(Source)

Ericsson, Graham -- Journal (2016-11-02)

Dave — Thu, 03 Nov 2016 03:50:10 +0000

Imposed virtues are not virtuous — they are conformist.

Graham Ericsson (b. 1961) American technologist, writer, aphorist
Journal (2016-11-02)

Emerson, Ralph Waldo -- “Solitude and Society,” Atlantic Monthly (1857-12)

Dave — Tue, 24 May 2016 13:38:27 +0000

For behavior, men learn it, as they take diseases, one of another.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
“Solitude and Society,” Atlantic Monthly (1857-12)

Paraphrase of Shakespeare, King Henry IV, Part 2, Act 5, sc. 1: "It is certain that either wife bearing or ignorant carriage is caught, as men take diseases, one of another: therefore let men take heed of their company." Sometimes misattributed to Francis Bacon.

Holmes, Oliver Wendell, Sr. -- Article (1872-12), “The Poet at the Breakfast-Table,” Atlantic Monthly

Dave — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 15:44:17 +0000

We are all tattooed in our cradles with the beliefs of our tribe; the record may seem superficial, but it is indelible. You cannot educate a man wholly out of the superstitious fears which were early implanted in his imagination; no matter how utterly his reason may reject them, he will still feel as the famous woman did about ghosts, Je ne crois pas, mais je les crains, — “I don’t believe in them, but I am afraid of them, nevertheless.”

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809-1894) American poet, essayist, scholar
Article (1872-12), “The Poet at the Breakfast-Table,” Atlantic Monthly
(Source)

Collected in The Poet at the Breakfast-Table, ch. 12 (1872).

~Other -- Animaniacs, The Warner Bros.

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

Early to rise, early to bed,
Makes a man healthy but socially dead.

(Other Authors and Sources)
Animaniacs, The Warner Bros.

See Franklin.