WIST Quotations

Rogers, Will -- Column (1930-04-28), “Daily Telegram: Will Rogers Sees No Value in All the Time We Save”

Dave — Tue, 18 Jun 2024 20:25:44 +0000

Half our life is spent trying to find something to do with the time we have rushed through life trying to save.

Will Rogers (1879-1935) American humorist
Column (1930-04-28), “Daily Telegram: Will Rogers Sees No Value in All the Time We Save”
(Source)

Written while in Beverly Hills. Collected in The Autobiography of Will Rogers, ch. 15 (1949) [ed. Donald Day].

Bukowski, Charles -- “The Telephone” (c. 1991), The Last Night of the Earth (1992)

Dave — Wed, 06 Oct 2021 15:01:55 +0000

Each person is only given so many
Evenings
And each wasted evening is
A gross violation against the
Natural course of
Your only
Life ….

Charles Bukowski (1920-1994) German-American author, poet
“The Telephone” (c. 1991), The Last Night of the Earth (1992)
(Source)

Orwell, George -- Coming up for Air, ch. 5 (1939)

Dave — Tue, 26 May 2020 22:32:01 +0000

There’s some devil in us that drives us to and fro on everlasting idiocies. There’s time for everything except the things worth doing. Think of something you really care about. Then add hour to hour and calculate the fraction of your life that you’ve actually spent in doing it. And then calculate the time you’ve spent on things like shaving, riding to and fro on buses, waiting in railway, junctions, swapping dirty stories, and reading the newspapers.

George Orwell (1903-1950) English journalist, essayist, writer [pseud. of Eric Arthur Blair]
Coming up for Air, ch. 5 (1939)
(Source)

Coolidge, Calvin -- The Autobiography of Calvin Coolidge (1929)

Dave — Mon, 11 Jan 2016 17:37:06 +0000

In the discharge of the duties of the office there is one rule of action more important than all others. It consists in never doing anything that someone else can do for you. Like many other good rules, it is proven by its exceptions. But it indicates a course that should be very strictly followed in order to prevent being so entirely to trifling details that there will be little opportunity to give the necessary consideration to policies of larger importance.

Calvin Coolidge (1872-1933) American lawyer, politician, US President (1925-29)
The Autobiography of Calvin Coolidge (1929)
(Source)

Often given as "One rule of action more important than all others consists in never doing anything that someone else can do for you" or "Don't do anything yourself that someone else can do for you."