WIST Quotations

Ingersoll, Robert Green -- Lecture (1872-01-29), “The Gods,” Fairbury Hall, Fairbury, Illinois

Dave — Fri, 19 Dec 2025 22:45:18 +0000

Man must learn to rely upon himself. Reading bibles will not protect him from the blasts of winter, but houses, fires, and clothing will. To prevent famine, one plow is worth a million sermons, and even patent medicines will cure more diseases than all the prayers uttered since the beginning of the world.

Robert Green Ingersoll (1833-1899) American lawyer, freethinker, orator
Lecture (1872-01-29), “The Gods,” Fairbury Hall, Fairbury, Illinois
(Source)

First given on the 135th birthday of Thomas Paine. Collected in The Gods and Other Lectures (1876).

Huxley, Aldous -- (Attributed)

Dave — Sun, 12 Oct 2025 20:27:08 +0000

It’s a bit embarrassing to have been concerned with the human problem all one’s life and find at the end that one has no more to offer by way of advice than “Try to be a little kinder.”

Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) English novelist, essayist and critic
(Attributed)
(Source)

Quoted in Huston Smith, "Aldous Huxley -- A Tribute," The Psychedelic Review, Vol. 1, No. 3 (1964) (the Aldous Huxley Memorial Issue).

A variant is in Laura Huxley's biography of her husband, This Timeless Moment: A Personal View of Aldous Huxley, "One Never Loves Enough" (1968). She identified it as coming from a "public talk" not long before his death:

It is a little embarrassing that, after forty-five years of research and study, the best advice I can give to people is to be a little kinder to each other.

Barzun, Jacques -- Romanticism and the Modern Ego, ch. 1 (1943)

Dave — Wed, 24 Jul 2024 13:19:12 +0000

The one thing that unifies men in a given age is not their individual philosophies but the dominant problem that these philosophies are designed to solve.

Jacques Barzun (1907-2012) French-American historian, educator, polymath
Romanticism and the Modern Ego, ch. 1 (1943)
(Source)

Jacobs, Jane -- The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Introduction (1961)

Dave — Mon, 12 Feb 2024 18:51:35 +0000

It may be that we have become so feckless as a people that we no longer care how things do work, but only what kind of quick, easy outer impression they give. If so, there is little hope for our cities or probably for much else in our society. But I do not think this is so.

Jane Jacobs (1916-2006) American-Canadian journalist, author, urban theorist, activist
The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Introduction (1961)
(Source)

Diamond, Jared -- The World Until Yesterday: What Can We Learn from Traditional Societies?, Epilogue (2012)

Dave — Tue, 10 May 2022 19:17:09 +0000

The societies to which most readers of this book belong represent a narrow slice of human cultural diversity. Societies from that slice achieved world dominance not because of a general superiority, but for specific reasons: their technological, political, and military advantages derived from their early origins of agriculture, due in turn to their productive local wild domesticable plant and animal species. Despite those particular advantages, modern industrial societies didn’t also develop superior approaches to raising children, treating the elderly, settling disputes, avoiding non-communicable diseases, and other societal problems. Thousands of traditional societies developed a wide array of different approaches to those problems.

Jared Diamond (b. 1937) American geographer, historian, ornithologist, author
The World Until Yesterday: What Can We Learn from Traditional Societies?, Epilogue (2012)
(Source)

West, Rebecca -- In The Sunday Telegraph, London (1981)

Dave — Mon, 08 Mar 2021 18:35:31 +0000

After any disturbance (such as two world wars coinciding with a period of growing economic and monetary incomprehensibility) we find our old concepts inadequate and look for new ones. But it unfortunately happens that the troubled times which produce an appetite for new ideas are the least propitious for clear thinking.

Rebecca West (1892-1983) British author, journalist, literary critic, travel writer [pseud. for Cicily Isabel Fairfield]
In The Sunday Telegraph, London (1981)
(Source)

Johnson, Lyndon -- Speech (1964-11-28), Press Conference, LBJ Ranch, Johnson City, Texas

Dave — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 08:49:10 +0000

There are no problems which we cannot solve together, and very few that any of us can settle by himself.

Lyndon B. Johnson (1908-1973) American politician, educator, US President (1963-69)
Speech (1964-11-28), Press Conference, LBJ Ranch, Johnson City, Texas
(Source)

Regarding the Atlantic Alliance (NATO). Variant: "There are no problems we cannot solve together, and very few that we can solve by ourselves."

King, Martin Luther -- Strength to Love, ch. 2 “Transformed Nonconformist,” sec. 3 (1963)

Dave — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 14:13:25 +0000

The saving of our world from pending doom will come, not through the complacent adjustment of the conforming majority, but through the creative maladjustment of a nonconforming minority.

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman, civil rights leader, social activist, preacher
Strength to Love, ch. 2 “Transformed Nonconformist,” sec. 3 (1963)
(Source)

Szasz, Thomas -- “Mental Illness,” The Second Sin (1973)

Dave — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 14:48:56 +0000

Doubt is to certainty as neurosis is to psychosis. The neurotic is in doubt and has fears about persons and things; the psychotic has convictions and makes claims about them. In short, the neurotic has problems, the psychotic has solutions.

Thomas Szasz (1920-2012) Hungarian-American psychiatrist, educator
“Mental Illness,” The Second Sin (1973)
(Source)