WIST Quotations

Billings, Josh -- Josh Billings’ Farmer’s Allminax, 1871-07 (1871 ed.)

Dave — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 16:19:06 +0000

Man iz mi brother, and i konsider that i am nearer related tew him through hiz vices, than i am through hiz virtews.

[Man is my brother, and I consider that I am nearer related to him through his vices, than I am through his virtues.]

Josh Billings (1818-1885) American humorist, aphorist [pseud. of Henry Wheeler Shaw]
Josh Billings’ Farmer’s Allminax, 1871-07 (1871 ed.)
(Source)

Addison, Joseph -- Essay (1711-11-17), The Spectator, No. 225

Dave — Mon, 29 Dec 2025 19:25:11 +0000

There are many more shining qualities in the mind of man, but there is none so useful as discretion; it is this, indeed, which gives a value to all the rest, which sets them at work in their proper times and places, and turns them to the advantage of the person who is possessed of them. Without it, learning is pedantry, and wit impertinence; virtue itself looks like weakness; the best parts only qualify a man to be more sprightly in errors, and active to his own prejudice.

Joseph Addison (1672-1719) English essayist, poet, statesman
Essay (1711-11-17), The Spectator, No. 225
(Source)

Carlyle, Thomas -- “Goethe,” Foreign Review No. 3 (1828-08)

Dave — Thu, 30 Nov 2023 17:10:33 +0000

We are firm believers in the maxim that for all right judgment of any man or thing it is useful, nay, essential, to see his good qualities before pronouncing on his bad.

Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) Scottish essayist and historian
“Goethe,” Foreign Review No. 3 (1828-08)
(Source)

Reviewing Goethe's Sämmtliche Werke, Vollständige Ausgabe Letzter Hand (1827). Reprinted in Carlyle, Critical and Miscellaneous Essays (1845).

Roosevelt, Theodore -- Letter to S. Stanwood Menken (10 Jan 1917)

Dave — Wed, 29 Jan 2014 13:23:43 +0000

Everything is un-American that tends either to government by a plutocracy, or government by a mob. To divide along the lines of section or caste or creed is un-American. All privilege based on wealth, and all enmity to honest men merely because they are wealthy, are un-American — both of them equally so. Americanism means the virtues of courage, honor, justice, truth, sincerity, and hardihood — the virtues that made America. The things that will destroy America are prosperity-at-any-price, peace-at-any-price, safety-first instead of duty-first, the love of soft living, and the get-rich-quick theory of life.

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, statesman, conservationist, writer, US President (1901–1909)
Letter to S. Stanwood Menken (10 Jan 1917)