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:

 

Nov. 13, 2006

 

“Irrationally held truths may be more harmful than reasoned errors.”

 

Thomas Henry Huxley (1825‑1895)

English biologist

 

Nov. 14, 2006

 

“A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.”

 

 Winston Churchill

 

Nov. 15, 2006

 

 “Drawing on my fine command of language, I said nothing.”

 

 Robert Benchley (1889–1945), U.S. humorous writer.

 

Nov. 16, 2006

 “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.

 

Nov. 17 and 18, 2006

 

“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.

 

Nov. 19, 2006

 

“A man said to the universe:

‘Sir, I exist!’

‘However, ‘ replied the universe

‘The fact has not created in me

A sense of obligation.’ ”

 

Stephen Crane (1871-1900) – “A Man Said to the Universe”.

 

Nov. 21, 2006

 

"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.

 

Nov. 24, 2006

 

 

"May you never meet a mouse in your cupboard with tears in his eyes!"

 

  J. C. Furnas (1905-2001) American writer and historian

 

Nov. 26-28, 2006

 

"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).

 

Nov. 29, 2006

 

"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]

 

Dec. 1, 2006

 

"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.

 

Dec. 5, 2006

 

"Myths which are believed in tend to become true."

 

George Orwell (1903–50), British author. “The English People”.

 

Dec. 6, 2006

 

“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.

 

Dec. 7, 2006

 

“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."

 

Dec. 11, 2006

 

“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

 

Dec. 13, 2006

 

“Charity begins at home, and justice begins next door."

 

Charles Dickens (1812-1870), English novelist.Tigg, in Martin Chuzzlewit, ch. 27 (1844).

 

Dec. 18, 2006

 

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".

 

Dec. 19, 2006

 

"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).

 

Dec. 22, 2006

 

"If the past sits in judgment on the present, the future will be lost."

 

Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965), British statesman, writer.

 

Jan. 3, 2007

 

"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.

 

Jan. 7, 2007

 

"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

 

Jan. 10,  2007

 

"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.

 

Jan. 14, 2007

 

"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

 

Jan. 21, 2007

 

"Not everything that is more difficult is more meritorious."

 

Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) Italian philosopher, theologian

 

Jan. 23, 2007

 

"To the query, 'What is a friend?' his reply was 'A single soul dwelling in two bodies.'”

 

Aristotle (384-322 B.C.), Greek philosopher.

 

Jan. 25, 2007

 

"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).

 

Feb. 1, 2007

 

"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.

 

Feb. 3, 2007

 

"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.

 

Feb. 5, 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.

 

Feb. 9, 2007

 

"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).

 

Feb. 11, 2007

 

"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.

 

Feb. 15, 2007

 

"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.

 

Feb. 19, 2007

 

"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.

 

Feb. 21, 2007

 

"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.

 

Feb. 23, 2007

 

"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.

 

Feb. 25, 2007

 

"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.

 

Feb. 28, 2007

 

"Society is now one polished horde,

Formed of two mighty tribes, the Bores and Bored."

 

Lord Byron (1788-1824), English poet. Don Juan.

 

Mar. 2, 2007

 

"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.

 

Mar. 5, 2007

 

"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.).

 

Mar. 7, 2007

 

"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).

 

Mar. 12, 2007

 

 “Everybody is ignorant, only on different subjects.”

 

Will Rogers (1879–1935), U.S. humorist. The Illiterate Digest, “Defending My Soup Plate Position” (1924).

 

 

Mar. 19, 2007

 

 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).

 

 

Mar. 22, 2007

 

"Oh yet we trust that somehow good

Will be the final goal of ill!"

 

 

Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809-1892), English poet. In Memoriam.

 

Mar. 23, 2007

 

"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.

 

Mar. 27, 2007

 

"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.

 

Apr. 2, 2007

 

"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.

 

Apr. 5, 2007

 

"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.

 

Apr. 8, 2007

 

"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.

 

Apr. 10, 2007

 

"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).

 

Apr. 12, 2007

 

"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).

 

Apr. 18, 2007

 

"Who knows...what evil...lurks in the hearts of men?"

 

Introduction to the old radio program "The Shadow" (1937-1954)

Mutual Broadcasting System.

 

Apr. 20, 2007

 

"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.

 

Apr. 22, 2007

 

"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).

 

Apr. 26, 2007

 

"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).

 

Apr. 28, 2007

 

"Never attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity"

 

 [Anonymous]

May 2, 2007

 

"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).

 

May 15, 2007

 

 

"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.

 

May 24, 2007

 

"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.

 

May 31, 2007

 

"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.

 

June 2, 2007

 

"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.

 

June 8, 2007

 

"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.

 

June 13, 2007

 

"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.

 

June 18, 2007

 

"Golf is a good walk spoiled."

 

 

Mark Twain (attributed to) (1835-1910), U.S. author. Quoted in: Greatly Exaggerated, “Golf”.

 

June 21, 2007

 

"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).

 

June 26, 2007

 

"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).

 

July 3, 2007

 

"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.

 

July 6, 2007

 

"Oh yet we trust that somehow good

Will be the final goal of ill!"

 

Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809-1892), English poet.

 

July 9, 2007

 

"I’m not confused, I’m just well mixed."

 

Robert Frost (1874-1963), U.S. poet. Quoted in: Wall Street Journal,  Aug. 5, 1969.

 

July 15, 2007

 

"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).

 

July 19, 2007

 

"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.

 

July 22, 2007

 

"The urge to save humanity is always a false front for the urge to rule it"


H. L. Mencken (1880-1956), U.S. Journalist

 

July 25, 2007

 

"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.

 

July 28, 2007

 

They also serve who only stand and wait.

 

John Milton (1608–74), English poet. Sonnet 16, On His Blindness.

 

Aug. 1, 2007

 

“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.

 

Aug. 5, 2007

 

"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.

 

Aug. 7, 2007

 

“If you believe everything you read, better not read”.

 

Japanese proverb

 

Aug. 20, 2007

 

“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.

 

Sep. 26, 2007

 

"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).

 

Oct. 3, 2007

 

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).

 

Oct. 7, 2007

 

"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.

 

Oct. 9, 2007

 

"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).

 

Oct. 15, 2007

 

We must not always judge of the generality of the opinion by the noise of the acclamation.

 

Edmund Burke (1729-97), Irish phil