Notable Quotes
Nov. 12, 2006
"...there exists also in
the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt
to lower the powerful to their own level, and reduces men to prefer equality in
slavery to inequality with freedom.”
Alexis de Toqueville, the French philosopher and historian
commented in 1835:
“Irrationally
held truths may be more harmful than reasoned errors.”
Thomas Henry Huxley (1825‑1895)
“A
pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the
opportunity in every difficulty.”
Winston Churchill
“Drawing on my fine command of language, I
said nothing.”
Robert Benchley (1889–1945), U.S. humorous writer.
“YES,”
I answered you last night,
“No,”
this morning, Sir, I say.
Colours seen by candle-light,
Will
not look the same by day.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-61), English
Poet. The Lady’s “Yes,” st. 1.
“History does not long entrust the care of
freedom to the weak or the timid.”
Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969), U.S.
general, Republican politician, president. Inaugural address, 20 Jan. 1953.
“A man said to the
universe:
‘Sir, I exist!’
‘The fact has not
created in me
A sense of obligation.’ ”
Stephen
Crane (1871-1900) – “A Man Said to the Universe”.
"Inequality is not only natural, it grows with the
complexity of
civilization."
Excerpts: Will and Ariel Durant, Readers Digest, April 1968
Nov. 22, 2006
"It takes centuries to create a civilization, and only
a generation or a year to destroy it."
Ariel Durant (1898-1981),
U.S. historian and writer.
"May you never meet a mouse in your cupboard with
tears in his eyes!"
J. C. Furnas (1905-2001) American writer and historian
"A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul."
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950),
Anglo-Irish playwright, critic. Everybody’s Political What’s What, ch. 30
(1944).
"Tyranny, like hell,
is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder
the conflict, the more glorious the triumph"
Thomas Paine 1737-1809 The American Crisis, No. 1
[December 23, 1776]
"It is a good thing
for an uneducated man to read books of quotations. . . . The quotations, when
engraved upon the memory, give you good thoughts. They also make you anxious to
read the authors and look for more."
Sir Winston Churchill
(1874-1965), British statesman, writer. My Eary Life, ch. 9 (1930).
Dec. 3, 2006
"The only certainty
is that nothing is certain."
Pliny The Elder (c. 23-79),
Roman scholar. Historia Naturalis, bk. 2, ch. 7.
"Myths which are
believed in tend to become true."
George Orwell (1903–50),
British author. “The English People”.
“Thank Heaven for Little
Girls,”
From the Hollywood musical
"Gigi" directed by Vincente Minnelli and with
the music of Frederick Loewe
and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner.
“Yesterday, December 7,
1941 -- a date which will live in infamy -- the United States of America was
suddenly and deliberately attacked by the naval and air forces of the Empire of
Japan."
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd president of the United States
(1933-1945) in a speech to a joint session of Congress, December 8, 1941.
Dec.
8, 2006
“My idea of an agreeable
person is a person who agrees with me.
Benjamin Disraeli (1804-81), English statesman, author."
“Nothing is clearer in
history than the adoption by successful
rebels of the methods they were accustomed to condemn in the
forces they deposed."
Excerpts: Will Durant (1885-1981), and Ariel Durant (1898-1981),
U.S. historians. Readers Digest, April
1968
“Charity begins at home,
and justice begins next door."
Charles Dickens (1812-1870),
English novelist.Tigg, in Martin Chuzzlewit, ch. 27 (1844).
For Cherie
"The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent! "
George Gordon Lord Byroon (1788- 1824). The last 4 lines "She Walks in the Night".
"Be studious in your
profession, and you will be learned. Be industrious and frugal, and you will be
rich. Be sober and temperate, and you will be healthy. Be in general virtuous,
and you will be happy. At least you will, by such conduct, stand the best
chance for such consequences."
Benjamin Franklin (1706–90),
U.S. statesman, writer. Letter, 9 Aug. 1768 (published in Complete Works, vol.
4, ed. by John Bigelow, 1887–88).
"If the past sits in judgment on the present, the
future will be lost."
Sir Winston Churchill
(1874-1965), British statesman, writer.
"Since an intelligence common to us all makes things
known to us and formulates them in our minds, honorable actions are ascribed by
us to virtue, and dishonorable actions to vice; and only a madman would
conclude that these judgments are matters of opinion, and not fixed by
nature."
Cicero (106–43 B.C.), Roman
orator, philosopher.
"Nothing is clearer
in history than the adoption by successful
rebels of the methods they were accustomed to condemn in the
forces they deposed."
Excerpt: Will Durant
(1885-1981), and Ariel Durant (1898-1981), U.S. historians. Readers Digest, April 1968
"Those who cannot remember
the past are condemned to repeat it.
George Santayana (1863-1952),
U.S. philosopher, poet. Life of Reason, “Reason in Common Sense”, Chapter 12.
"Let me assert my
firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself."
Franklin D. Roosevelt
(1882-1945), U.S. Democratic politician, president. Speech, 2 July 1932
"Not everything that
is more difficult is more meritorious."
Saint Thomas Aquinas
(1225-1274) Italian philosopher, theologian
"To the query, 'What
is a friend?' his reply was 'A single soul dwelling in two bodies.'”
Aristotle (384-322 B.C.),
Greek philosopher.
"Necessity never made
a good bargain."
Benjamin Franklin
(1706-1790), U.S. statesman, writer.
Jan. 29, 2007
"A person who can
write a long letter with ease, cannot write ill."
Jane Austen (1775-1817),
English novelist. Pride and Prejudice,
(1813).
"I shall be telling
this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less travelled by,
And that has made all the
difference."
Robert Frost (1874-1963),
U.S. poet. The Road Not Taken.
"He travels the
fastest who travels alone."
Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936),
British author, poet. The Winners.
"He who travels
fastest travels without children"
Christine E. Hendrickson
(1968-) Mother. "Post It", February 2007.
"The perplexity of
life arises from there being too many interesting things in it for us to be
interested properly in any of them."
G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936),
British author. “The Secret of a Train”, 1909.
"There is no avoiding
war; it can only be postponed to the advantage of others."
Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527),
Italian political philosopher, statesman. The Prince (1514).
"I am not responsible
for what other people think"
Actor Gregory Peck acting the
part of James McKay while speaking to his estranged fiancee, Pat Terrill played
by the actress Carroll Baker in the movie
"The Big Country", 1958.
Feb.
13, 2007
"Question with
boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more
approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear."
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826),
U.S. president. Letter, 10 Aug. 1787.
"The passage of this legislation will signal a change
in direction in Iraq that will end the fighting and bring our troops
home,"
Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the
House, Feb. 16, 2007
"I seem to smell the
stench of appeasement in the air."
Margaret Thatcher (b. 1925),
British Conservative politician, prime minister. Independent (London, 31 Oct.
1990.
"inferiors revolt in order that they may be equal, and
equals that they may be superior. Such is the state of mind which creates
revolutions.
Aristotle (384–322 B.C.), Greek philosopher. Politics, 343 B.C.
"That is the land of lost content,
I see it shining
plain,
The happy highways
where I went
And cannot come
again"
A. E. Housman (1859-1936), British poet, "A Shropshire
Lad", no. 40.
"When angry, count ten, before you speak; if very
angry, a hundred."
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826),
U.S. president. Decalogue of Canons for observation in practical life, no. 10.
"Consensus is what many people say in chorus but do
not believe as individuals."
Abba Eban (1915-2002), Israeli politician. New Yorker
magazine, April 23, 1990.
"Society is now one polished horde,
Formed of two mighty tribes, the Bores and Bored."
Lord Byron (1788-1824), English poet. Don Juan.
"He knows nothing and
he thinks he knows everything. That points clearly to a political career."
George Bernard Shaw
(1856-1950), Anglo-Irish playwright, critic. Undershaft, in Major Barbara, act
3.
"A man is his own
easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true.
Demosthenes (c. 384-322
B.C.), Greek orator. Third Olynthiac, sct. 19 (349 B.C.).
"There is a harmony
In autumn, and a lustre in
its sky,
Which through the summer
is not heard or seen,
As if it could not be, as
if it had not been!"
Percy Bysshe Shelley
(1792-1822), English poet. Hymn to Intellectual Beauty (1816).
“Everybody is ignorant, only on different subjects.”
Will Rogers (1879–1935), U.S.
humorist. The Illiterate Digest, “Defending My Soup Plate Position” (1924).
“I am now quite cured of seeking pleasure in society, be it country or town. A sensible man ought to find sufficient company in himself.”
Emily Brontë (1818-1848),
English novelist, poet. Mr. Lockwood, in Wuthering Heights (1847).
"Oh yet we trust that
somehow good
Will be the final goal of
ill!"
Alfred Lord Tennyson
(1809-1892), English poet. In Memoriam.
"The mind is its own
place, and in itself
Can make a Heaven of Hell,
a Hell of Heaven."
John Milton (1608-1674), English
poet. Satan, in Paradise Lost.
"You see things; and
you say 'Why?' But I dream things that
never were; and I say 'Why not?"
George Bernard Shaw
(1856-1950), Anglo-Irish playwright, critic. The Serpent, in Back to
Methuselah, “In the Beginning,” act 1.
"Farming looks mighty
easy when your plow is a pencil, and you’re a thousand miles from the corn
field.
Dwight D. Eisenhower
(1890-1969), U.S. general, Republican president. Speech, 25 Sept. 1956, Peoria, Ill.
"I know of no pursuit
in which more real and important services can be rendered to any country than
by improving its agriculture, its breed of useful animals, and other branches
of a husbandman’s cares."
George Washington (1732-1799),
U.S. general, president. Letter, 20 July 1794.
"Nothing comes from
nothing: Nothing ever could"
From the 'Sound of Music' by
Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein.
Note: I include this quote for those following the
ongoing debates in quantum mechanics.
"Washington is a very
easy city for you to forget where you came from and why you got there in the
first place."
Harry S Truman (1884-1972),
U.S. Democratic politician, president.
Merle Miller, Plain Speaking: Conversations with Harry S. Truman, ch. 11
(1973).
"I am extraordinarily
patient provided I get my own way in the end."
Margaret Thatcher (1925-),
British Conservative politician, prime minister. The Observer (London, 2 Jan. 1983).
"Who knows...what evil...lurks in the hearts of
men?"
Introduction to the old radio
program "The Shadow" (1937-1954)
Mutual Broadcasting System.
"Why don’t we just stop playing games here, okay? I mean
you probably don’t know a feather duster from a duck’s ass, do you?
Agent Fox Mulder played by David Duchovny to the blind
woman Marty Glenn (actress Lili Taylor).
"The X Files" (1993-2002), "Minds Eye", 1998,
Episode 16.
"Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but
follows religiously the new.
Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), U.S. philosopher, author,
naturalist. Walden, “Economy” (1854).
"We cannot play innocents abroad in a world that is
not innocent.
Ronald Reagan (1911-2004), U.S. Republican politician,
president. Speech, 6 Feb. 1985 (published in Speaking My Mind, “The Wit and
Wisdom of Ronald Reagan,” 1989).
"Never attribute to malice what can be explained by
stupidity"
[Anonymous]
"I wish to preach, not the doctrine of ignoble ease,
but the doctrine of the strenuous life.
Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919), U.S. Republican politician,
president. Speech, 10 April 1899, Chicago, Ill.
May
8, 2007
"The belief in a
supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of
every wickedness."
Joseph Conrad (1857-1924),
Polish-born English novelist. The “dame de compagnie,” in Under Western Eyes,
pt. 2, ch. 4 (1911).
"This above all: to thine own self be true,/And it
must follow, as the night the day,/Thou cans't not be false to any man"
William Shakespeare (1564-1616). Hamlet, Act II.
May 21, 2007
"I believe it because I want to believe it"
Lord Gainsford (actor Hugh Buckler) to members of his club
concerning the existence of the mythical city of Shangri-La. From the movie "Lost Horizon",
directed by Frank Capra. 1937.
"Any coward can fight
a battle when he’s sure of winning, but give me the man who has pluck to fight
when he’s sure of losing. That’s my
way, sir; and there are many victories worse than a defeat."
George Eliot (1819-1880),
English novelist (pen name for Mary Anne or Marian Evans).
Mr. Dempster, in Janet’s Repentance,
ch. 8.
"An appeaser is one
who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last."
Sir Winston Churchill
(1874-1965), British statesman, writer. The Reader’s Digest, December, 1954.
"Sherif, is there not
one thing in your life that is worth losing everything for?”
The Mulay Achmed Mohammed
el-Raisuli the Magnificent (actor Sean Connery) to the Sherif of Wazan (actor
Nadim Sawalha) in the movie "The Wind and the Lion", 1975. John Milius, director.
"We have no more
right to consume happiness without producing it than to consume wealth without
producing it."
George Bernard Shaw
(1856-1950), Anglo-Irish playwright, critic. Morell, in Candida, act 1.
"I would rather have
peace in the world than be President."
Harry S Truman (1884-1972),
U.S. Democratic politician, president. Christmas Message, 24 Dec. 1948.
"Golf is a good walk
spoiled."
Mark Twain (attributed to)
(1835-1910), U.S. author. Quoted in: Greatly Exaggerated, “Golf”.
"He that fails in his
endeavours after wealth or power will not long retain either honesty or
courage."
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784),
English author, lexicographer. Adventurer, no. 99 (16 Oct. 1753; repr. in Works
of Samuel Johnson, vol. 2, ed. by W. J. Bate, John M. Bullitt, and L. F.
Powell, 1963).
"The genius of
democracies is seen not only in the great number of new words introduced but
even more in the new ideas they express."
Alexis de Tocqueville
(1805-1859), French social philosopher. Democracy in America, vol. 2, pt. 1,
ch. 16 (1840).
"Most of the change
we think we see in life
Is due to truths being in
and out of favor."
Robert Frost (1874-1963),
U.S. poet. Black Cottage.
"Oh yet we trust that
somehow good
Will be the final goal of
ill!"
Alfred Lord Tennyson
(1809-1892), English poet.
"I’m not confused,
I’m just well mixed."
Robert Frost (1874-1963),
U.S. poet. Quoted in: Wall Street Journal,
Aug. 5, 1969.
"In these times you
have to be an optimist to open your eyes when you wake in the morning."
Carl Sandburg (1878-1967),
U.S. poet. Quoted from the New York
Post, September 9, 1960).
"For of all sad words
of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these: 'It
might have been!'"
John Greenleaf Whittier
(1807-1892), U.S. poet. Maud Muller.
"The urge to save
humanity is always a false front for the urge to rule it"
H. L. Mencken (1880-1956), U.S. Journalist
"The object in life
is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the
ranks of the insane."
Marcus Aurelius (121–180
A.D.), Roman emperor, philosopher.
“They also serve who
only stand and wait.”
John Milton (1608–74),
English poet. Sonnet 16, On His Blindness.
“Forgive your enemies, but
never forget their names."
Attributed to John F. Kennedy
(1917-1963), U.S. Democratic politician, 35th president of the United States.
"Perhaps one of the most important accomplishments of my administration has been minding my own business."
Calvin Coolidge (1872-1933),
30th U.S. president and Republican politician.
March 1, 1929, Washington, D.C, as quoted by reporters.
“If you believe everything you read, better not read”.
Japanese proverb
“To be seventy years young is sometimes far more cheerful
and hopeful than to be forty years old."
Oliver Wendell, Sr. Holmes
(1809-94), U.S. writer, physician. Letter, 27 May 1889, to Julia Ward
Howe on her seventieth birthday.
"It is possible to believe that all the past is but
the beginning of a beginning, and that all that is and has been is but the
twilight of the dawn. It is possible to believe that all the human mind has
ever accomplished is but the dream before the awakening."
H. G. Wells (1866-1946), British author. “The Discovery of
the Future,” Lecture at the Royal Institute in London. (Published in Nature,
no. 65, 1902).
“If there were no bad people there would be
no good lawyers.”
Charles Dickens
(1812-1870), English novelist. Mr. Brass, in The Old Curiosity Shop, ch. 56
(1841).
"I don’t know who my grandfather was; I am much more
concerned to know what his grandson will be."
Attributed to Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865), Sixteenth
President of the United States.
"Every immigrant who comes here should be required
within five years to learn English or leave the country."
Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919), (R), 26th president of the
United States. Kansas City Star (27
April 1918).
“We
must not always judge of the generality of the opinion by the noise of the
acclamation.”
Edmund Burke (1729-97), Irish phil