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- “Wealth and Poverty,” speech, National… (7,895)
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- “The Triumph of Stupidity” (10 May 1933) (5,109)
- Nobel prize acceptance speech (10 Dec 1962) (4,889)
- “On The Conduct of Life” (1822) (4,280)
- “In Search of a Majority,” Speech,… (3,930)
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- Letter to Clara Rilke (1 Jan 1907) (3,587)
- “A Cult of Ignorance,” Newsweek (21 Jan 1980) (3,466)
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Adams, John • Bacon, Francis • Bible • Bierce, Ambrose • Billings, Josh • Butcher, Jim • Chesterton, Gilbert Keith • Churchill, Winston • Einstein, Albert • Eisenhower, Dwight David • Emerson, Ralph Waldo • Franklin, Benjamin • Fuller, Thomas (1654) • Gaiman, Neil • Galbraith, John Kenneth • Gandhi, Mohandas • Goethe, Johann von • Hazlitt, William • Heinlein, Robert A. • Hoffer, Eric • Huxley, Aldous • Ingersoll, Robert Green • James, William • Jefferson, Thomas • Johnson, Lyndon • Johnson, Samuel • Kennedy, John F. • King, Martin Luther • La Rochefoucauld, Francois • Lewis, C.S. • Lincoln, Abraham • Mencken, H.L. • Orwell, George • Pratchett, Terry • Roosevelt, Eleanor • Roosevelt, Theodore • Russell, Bertrand • Seneca the Younger • Shakespeare, William • Shaw, George Bernard • Stevenson, Adlai • Stevenson, Robert Louis • Twain, Mark • Watterson, Bill • Wilde, Oscar- Only the 45 most quoted authors are shown above. Full author list.
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- 18-Jan-21 - "The Christian Way of Life in Human Relations," speech, General Assembly fo the National Council of Churches, St Louis (4 Dec 1957) | WIST on Letter from Birmingham Jail (16 Apr 1963).
- 8-Jan-21 - ***Dave Does the Blog on Speech to the electors of Bristol (3 Nov 1774).
- 4-Jan-21 - Doing the Numbers, 12/2020 | WIST on Republic, Book 1, 347c.
- 4-Jan-21 - Doing the Numbers, 12/2020 | WIST on “On The Conduct of Life” (1822).
- 4-Jan-21 - Doing the Numbers, 12/2020 | WIST on Nobel prize acceptance speech (10 Dec 1962).
- 4-Jan-21 - Doing the Numbers, 12/2020 | WIST on Letter to Clara Rilke (1 Jan 1907).
Quotations about sufficiency
Note that not all quotations have been tagged, so the Search function may find additional quotations on this topic.
Enough is as good as a feast.
Thomas Malory (c. 1415-1471) English writer
Le Morte d’Arthur, Winchester Ed., Book 2 (1485)
(Source)
In the original, "Inowghe is as good as a feste." This is the earliest surviving reference to this phrase, which is later labeled proverbial. The text is in the Winchester edition, not the Caxton one (at the end of Book 5, ch. 12).
He’d noticed that sex bore some resemblance to cookery: it fascinated people, they sometimes bought books full of complicated recipes and interesting pictures, and sometimes when they were really hungry they created vast banquets in their imagination — but at the end of the day they’d settle quite happily for egg and chips. If it was well done and maybe had a slice of tomato.
Solitude is not lack.
Laurie Helgoe (b. 1960) American psychologist and author
Introvert Power, ch. 2 (2008)
(Source)
Sometimes misquoted "Solitude is not a lack."
I got rhythm, I got music,
I got my man
Who could ask for anything more?Ira Gershwin (1896-1983) American lyricist [b. Israel Gershowitz]
“I Got Rhythm”, Girl Crazy, Act 1 (1930)
(Source)
Fortune to many gives too much, enough to none.
[Fortuna multis dat nimis, satis nulli.]
Martial (AD c.39-c.103) Spanish Roman poet, satirist, epigrammatist [Marcus Valerius Martialis]
Epigrams [Epigrammata], Book 12, epigram 10
Alt. trans.:
- "Fortune gives too much to many, enough to none." [tr. Bohn (1871)]
- "Fortune hath overmuch bestow'd on some; / But plenary content doth give to none." [tr. Fletcher]
- "Fortune, some say, doth give too much to many; / And yet she never gave enough to any." [tr. Harrington]
- "Fortune gives one enough, but some too much." [tr. Hay]
- "Fortune to many gives too much, enough to none." [tr. Ker (1919)]
Leave well — even “pretty well” — alone: that is what I learn as I get old.
Edward FitzGerald (1809-1883) English writer, poet, translator
Letter to W. F. Pollock (7 Dec 1869)
(Source)
Great minds, like heaven, are pleased in doing good,
Though the ungrateful subjects of their favors
Are barren in return.
Those words, “temperate and moderate,” are words either of political cowardice, or of cunning, or seduction. A thing moderately good, is not so good as it ought to be. Moderation in temper, is always a virtue; but moderation in principle, is a species of vice.
Thomas Paine (1737-1809) American political philosopher and writer
“Letter Addressed to the Addressers on the Late Proclamation” (1791)
(Source)