WIST Quotations

Carlyle, Thomas -- Sartor Resartus, Book 3, ch. 3 (1834)

Dave — Thu, 02 Oct 2025 19:58:29 +0000

Speech is too often not, as the Frenchman defined it, the art of concealing Thought; but of quite stifling and suspending Thought, so that there is none to conceal.

Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) Scottish essayist and historian
Sartor Resartus, Book 3, ch. 3 (1834)
(Source)

Referring to Talleyrand. Quoting Herr Teufelsdröckh.

This passage first appeared in Fraser's Magazine for Town and Country, Vol. 9, No. 54 (1834-06).

Commager, Henry Steele -- Essay (1949-11-05), “What Ideas Are Safe?” Saturday Review

Dave — Wed, 30 Mar 2022 16:03:55 +0000

If we establish a standard of safe thinking, we will end up with no thinking at all. That is the only “safe” way, and that is, needless to say, the most precarious, dangerous, of all ways.

Henry Steele Commager (1902-1998) American historian, writer, activist
Essay (1949-11-05), “What Ideas Are Safe?” Saturday Review
(Source)

Collected in Freedom and Order (1966).

Arendt, Hannah -- Lecture (1971), “Thinking and Moral Considerations,” Social Research (1971 Fall)

Dave — Thu, 18 Mar 2021 20:12:22 +0000

Clichés, stock phrases, adherence to conventional, standardized codes of expression and conduct have the socially recognized function of protecting us against reality, that is, against the claim on our thinking attention that all events and facts make by virtue of their existence.

Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) German-American philosopher, political theorist
Lecture (1971), “Thinking and Moral Considerations,” Social Research (1971 Fall)
(Source)

Referring to Adolf Eichmann's use of "cliché-ridden language" as a sign of his "thoughtlessness."

Collected in The Life of the Mind, Part 1 "Thinking," Introduction (1974).

Orwell, George -- Nineteen Eighty-Four, Part 1, ch. 5 [Symes] (1949)

Dave — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 14:42:01 +0000

Orthodoxy means not thinking — not needing to think. Orthdoxy is unconsciousness.

George Orwell (1903-1950) English journalist, essayist, writer [pseud. of Eric Arthur Blair]
Nineteen Eighty-Four, Part 1, ch. 5 [Symes] (1949)
(Source)

Lec, Stanislaw -- Unkempt Thoughts [Myśli nieuczesane] (1957) [tr. Gałązka (1962)]

Dave — Sun, 01 Feb 2004 16:00:00 +0000

Thoughts, like fleas, jump from man to man. But they don’t bite everybody.

Stanislaw Lec (1909-1966) Polish aphorist, poet, satirist
Unkempt Thoughts [Myśli nieuczesane] (1957) [tr. Gałązka (1962)]
(Source)