Men will readily enough avow cruelty, passion, even avarice, but never cowardice, because such an admission would bring them, among savages and even in civilized society, into mortal danger.
[Les hommes avouent volontiers la cruauté, la colère, l’avarice même, mais jamais la lâcheté, parce que cet aveu les mettrait, chez les sauvages et même dans une société polie, en un danger mortel.]
Anatole France (1844-1924) French poet, journalist, novelist, Nobel Laureate [pseud. of Jaques-Anatole-François Thibault]
The Gods Will Have Blood [Les Dieux Ont Soif], ch. 19 [Brotteaux] (1912) [tr. Allinson (1913), The Gods Are Athirst]
(Source)
(Source (French)). Alternate translation:
Men willingly post of their cruelty, their anger, their greed even, but never of their cowardice, because to admit such a thing would put them, whether in a primitive or a civilized society, in mortal peril.
[tr. Davies (1979)]
Quotations about:
taboo
Note not all quotations have been tagged, so Search may find additional quotes on this topic.
The American People will take Socialism, but they won’t take the label. I certainly proved it in the case of EPIC. Running on the Socialist ticket I got 60,000 votes, and running on the slogan to “End Poverty in California” I got 879,000. I think we simply have to recognize the fact that our enemies have succeeded in spreading the Big Lie. There is no use attacking it by a front attack, it is much better to out-flank them.
Upton Sinclair (1878-1968) American writer, journalist, activist, politician
Letter to Norman Thomas (25 Sep 1951)
(Source)
As for language, almost everything goes now. That is not to say that verbal taboos have disappeared, but merely that they have shifted somewhat. In my youth, for example, there were certain words you couldn’t say in front of a girl; now you can say them, but you can’t say “girl.”
Tom Lehrer (b. 1928) American mathematician, satirist, songwriter
“In His Own Words: On Life, Lyrics and Liberals,” Washington Post (3 Jan 1982)
Fashions in sin change.
Lillian Hellman (1905-1984) American playwright, screenwriter
Watch on the Rhine (1941)
Sin? Sin like love was a word hard to define. It came in two bitter but vastly different flavors. The first lay in violating the taboos of your tribe … The other meaning of sin was easier to define because it was not molded by the murky concepts of religion and taboo: Sin is behavior that ignores the welfare of others.
Robert A. Heinlein (1907-1988) American writer
Time Enough For Love (1973)
For why should my liberty be subject to the judgment of someone else’s conscience?
The Bible (The New Testament) (AD 1st - 2nd C) Christian sacred scripture
1 Corinthians 10:29 [NRSV (1989)]
(Source)
On not eating food which someone else considers religiously wrong to eat. Alternate translations:
For why is my liberty judged of another man's conscience?
[KJV (1611)]
Why should my freedom depend on somebody else’s conscience?
[Jerusalem (1966)]
“Well, then,” someone asks, “why should my freedom to act be limited by another person's conscience?
[GNT (1976)]
Laws are sand, customs are rock. Laws can be evaded and punishment escaped, but an openly transgressed custom brings sure punishment.
Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
“The Gorky Incident” (1906)
I have no use for the strictures of You must. You must not.
[無可無不可]
Confucius (c. 551- c. 479 BC) Chinese philosopher, sage, politician [孔夫子 (Kǒng Fūzǐ, K'ung Fu-tzu, K'ung Fu Tse), 孔子 (Kǒngzǐ, Chungni), 孔丘 (Kǒng Qiū, K'ung Ch'iu)]
The Analects [論語, 论语, Lúnyǔ], Book 18, verse 8 (18.8.5) (6th C. BC) [ed. Lao-Tse, tr. Hinton (1998)]
(Source)
(Source (Chinese)). Alternate translations:
I have no course for which I am predetermined, and no course against which I am predetermined.
[tr. Legge (1861)]
I will take no liberties, I will have no curtailing of my liberty.
[tr. Jennings (1895); in the footnote he gives a more raw translation, "Without possibilities (or freedom to act) -- without impossibilities"]
With me there is no inflexible "thou shalt" or 'thou shalt not."
[tr. Soothill (1910)]
I have no categoric can and cannot.
[tr. Pound (1933)]
I have no "thou shalt" or "thou shalt not."
[tr. Waley (1938)]
I accept life as it comes. [tr. Ware (1950)]I have no preconceptions about the permissible and the impermissible.
[tr. Lau (1979)]
I avoid saying what should or should not be done.
[tr. Dawson (1993)]
I follow no rigid prescriptions on what should, or should not, be done.
[tr. Leys (1997)]
I have neither favorable nor unfavorable situation. [tr. Huang (1997)]I have not any stubborn positiveness or negation.
[tr. Cai/Yu (1998)]
I do not have presuppositions as to what may and may not be done.
[tr. Ames/Rosemont (1998)]
I have no "may" and no "may not."
[tr. Brooks/Brooks (1998)]
I have no preconceptions about what one can or cannot do.
[tr. Annping Chin (2014)]
This may be the source of Lin-Yutang, ed. The Wisdom of Confucius (1938):
The superior man goes through his life without any one preconceived course of action or any taboo. He merely decides for the moment what is the right thing to do.
