WIST Quotations

Colton, Charles Caleb -- Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Vol. 1, § 370 (1820)

Dave — Fri, 11 Jul 2025 22:37:26 +0000

There are some truths, the force and validity of which we readily admit, in all cases except our own; and there are other truths so self-evident that we dare not deny them, but so dreadful, that we dare not believe them.

Charles Caleb "C. C." Colton (1780-1832) English cleric, writer, aphorist
Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Vol. 1, § 370 (1820)
(Source)

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth -- “Table-Talk”

Dave — Fri, 16 Apr 2021 16:18:31 +0000

Truths that startled the generation in which they were first announced become in the next age the commonplaces of conversation; as the famous airs of operas which thrilled the first audiences come to be played on hand-organs in the streets.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882) American poet
“Table-Talk”
(Source)

Garfield, James A. -- Speech to the “Boys in Blue,” Madison Square Park, New York City (6 Aug 1880)

Dave — Fri, 04 Dec 2020 16:53:32 +0000

Gentlemen, ideas outlive men; ideas outlive all earthly things. You who fought in the war for the Union fought for immortal ideas, and by their might you crowned the war with victory. But victory was worth nothing except for the truths that were under it, in it, and above it.

James A. Garfield (1831-1881) US President (1881), lawyer, lay preacher, educator
Speech to the “Boys in Blue,” Madison Square Park, New York City (6 Aug 1880)
(Source)

De Stael, Germaine -- Delphine, Preface (1802)

Dave — Tue, 22 Dec 2015 15:46:24 +0000

It seems to me that life’s circumstances, being ephemeral, teach us less about durable truths than the fictions based on those truths; and that the best lessons of delicacy and self-respect are to be found in novels where the feelings are so naturally portrayed that you fancy you are witnessing real life as you read.

Germaine de Staël (1766-1817) Swiss-French writer, woman of letters, critic, salonist [Anne Louise Germaine de Staël-Holstein, Madame de Staël, Madame Necker]
Delphine, Preface (1802)

King, Martin Luther -- Emancipation Proclamation Centennial Address, New York City (12 Sep 1962)

Dave — Wed, 12 Nov 2014 14:02:11 +0000

If our nation had done nothing more in its whole history than to create just two documents, its contribution to civilization would be imperishable. The first of these documents is the Declaration of Independence and the other is that which we are here to honor tonight, the Emancipation Proclamation. All tyrants, past, present and future, are powerless to bury the truths in these declarations, no matter how extensive their legions, how vast their power and how malignant their evil.

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman, civil rights leader, social activist, preacher
Emancipation Proclamation Centennial Address, New York City (12 Sep 1962)
(Source)

Gaiman, Neil -- Sandman, Book 3. Dream Country, # 19 “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” (1990)

Dave — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 15:52:24 +0000

DREAM: Things need not have happened to be true. Tales and dreams are the shadow-truths that will endure when mere facts are dust and ashes, and forgot.

Neil Gaiman (b. 1960) British author, screenwriter, fabulist
Sandman, Book 3. Dream Country, # 19 “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” (1990)
(Source)