WIST

Singer, Isaac Bashevis

2008-07-24T06:59:01Z

Although I came to doubt all revelation, I can never accept the idea that the Universe is a physical or chemical accident, a result of blind evolution. Even though I learned to recognize the lies, the clichés and the idolatries of the human mind, I still cling to some truths which I think all of us might accept some day. There must be a way for man to attain all possible pleasures, all the powers and knowledge that nature can grant him, and still serve God — a God who speaks in deeds, not in words, and whose vocabulary is the Cosmos.

-- Isaac Bashevis Singer (1904-1991) Polish-American writer, Nobel laureate (b. Icek-Hersz Zynger) • Nobel Lecture (8 Dec 1978) •

Full text.

Adams, Scott

2008-07-24T06:58:12Z

We are growing serious, and,
Let me tell you, that's the very next step to being dull.

-- Scott Adams (b. 1957) American cartoonist • The Drummer (1716) Act IV, sc. vi

Sayers, Dorothy

2008-07-24T06:57:14Z

"Why doesn't God smite this dictator dead?" is a question a little remote from us. Why, madam, did He not strike you dumb and imbecile before you uttered that baseless and unkind slander the day before yesterday? Or me, before I behaved with such cruel lack of consideration to that well-meaning friend? And why, sir, did He not cause your hand to rot off at the wrist before you signed your name to that dirty little bit of financial trickery?

-- Dorothy Sayers (1893-1957) English author, translator, apologist • The Man Born to Be King (1943)

Shenstone, William

2008-07-24T06:56:20Z

Zealous men are ever displaying to you the strength of their belief, while judicious men are shewing you the grounds of it.

-- William Shenstone (1714-1763) English poet • Essays on Men and Manners, "Of Men and Manners" •

Full text.

Franklin, Benjamin

2008-07-24T06:55:31Z

We hear of the conversion of water into wine at the marriage in Cana as of a miracle. But this conversion is, through the goodness of God, made every day before our eyes. Behold the rain which descends from heaven upon our vineyards; there it enters the roots of the vines, to be changed into wine; a constant proof that God loves us, and loves to see us happy.

-- Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) American statesman, scientist, philosopher • Letter to Abbé Morellet (1779)

Adams, Scott

2008-07-23T13:08:16Z

Normal people don't understand this concept; they believe that if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Engineers believe that if it ain't broke, it doesn't have enough features yet.

-- Scott Adams (b. 1957) American cartoonist • The Dilbert Principle (1996)

Sandburg, Carl

2008-07-23T13:05:31Z

Not often in the story of mankind does a man arrive on earth who is both steel and velvet, who is as hard as rock and soft as drifting fog, who holds in his heart and mind the paradox of terrible storm and peace unspeakable and perfect.

-- Carl Sandburg (1878-1967) American poet, biographer • Address to Congress on 150th Anniversary of Lincoln's birth (12 Feb 1959) •

Quoted in Congressional Record, vol. 105, p. 2265.

Chesterton, Gilbert Keith

2008-07-23T13:03:27Z

As enunciated today, "progress" is simply a comparative of which we have not settled the superlative.

-- Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936) English journalist and writer • Heretics, ch. 2 (1905)

Santayana, George

2008-07-23T13:01:58Z

All living souls welcome whatever they are ready to cope with; all else they ignore, or pronounce to be monstrous and wrong, or deny to be possible.

-- George Santayana (1863-1952) Spanish-American poet and philosopher [Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruíz de Santayana y Borrás] • Dialogues in Limbo (1926)

Voltaire

2008-07-23T13:01:16Z

Let us read, and let us dance; these two amusements will never do any harm to the world.

[Laissez lire, et laissez danser; ces deux amusements ne feront jamais de mal au monde.]

-- Voltaire (1694-1778) French writer [pseud. of Francois-Marie Arouet] • Dictionnaire philosophique, "Liberty of the Press" (1785-1789)

Jackson, Robert H.

2008-07-22T14:22:59Z

The day that this country ceases to be free for irreligion it will cease to be free for religion -- except for the sect that can win political power.

-- Justice Robert H. Jackson (1892-1954) US Supreme Court Justice • Dissent, Zorach v. Clauson, 343 U.S. 306 (1952)

Camus, Albert

2008-07-22T14:19:15Z

Alas, after a certain age, every man is responsible for his face.

-- Albert Camus (1913-1960) Algerian-French novelist, essayist, playwright • The Fall (1956)

Adams, John Quincy

2008-07-22T14:18:20Z

Whoever increases his knowledge, multiplies the uses to which he is enabled to turn the gift of his Creator.

-- John Quincy Adams (1767-1848) US President (1825-29) • House Report 181 (19 Jan 1836) •

Recommending the approval of the Smithsonian Institution by Congress.

Frost, Robert

2008-07-22T14:13:07Z

The sun was warm but the wind was chill.
You know how it is with an April day
When the sun is out and the wind is still,
You´re one month on in the middle of May.
But if you so much as dare to speak,
A cloud comes over the sunlit arch,
A wind comes off a frozen peak,
And you´re two months back in the middle of March.

-- Robert Frost (1874-1963) American poet • "Two Tramps in Mud Time," st. 3 (1936) •

Full text.

Russell, Bertrand

2008-07-22T14:12:26Z

One should respect public opinion in so far as is necessary to avoid starvation and to keep out of prison, but anything that goes beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny.

-- Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher • Conquest of Happiness, ch. 9 "Fear of Public Opinion" (1930)

Robbins, Tom

2008-07-21T11:32:06Z

Humanity has advanced, when it has advanced, not because it has been sober, responsible and cautious, but because it has been playful, rebellious, and immature.

-- Tom Robbins (b. 1936) American novelist • Still Life with Woodpecker (1980)

Lincoln, Abraham

2008-07-21T11:29:52Z

The Lord prefers common-looking people. That's why he makes so many of them.

-- President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) US President (1861-65) • (Attributed) •

Quoted in J. Morgan, <i>Our President</i>, ch. 6.

Lowell, James Russell

2008-07-21T11:18:11Z

All the beautiful sentiments in the world weigh less than a single thought.

-- James Russell Lowell (1819-1891) American diplomat, essayist, poet • "Rousseau and the Sentimentalists" (1867)

Sophocles

2008-07-21T11:15:17Z

I well believe it, to unwilling ears;
None love the messenger who brings bad news.

-- Sophocles (496-406 BC) Greek tragic playwright • Antigone, l. 276-277 [Sentry to Creon] •

alt. trans:
- "No man loves the bearer of bad tidings."
- "Nobody likes the man who brings bad news."

Sagan, Carl

2008-07-21T11:14:25Z

Widespread intellectual and moral docility may be convenient for leaders in the short term, but it is suicidal for nations in the long term. One of the criteria for national leadership should therefore be a talent for understanding, encouraging, and making constructive use of vigorous criticism.

-- Carl Sagan (1934-1996) American scientist and writer • Billions and Billions ch. 14 "The Common Enemy" (1997)

Jackson, Robert H.

2008-07-18T12:28:17Z

The wrongs which we seek to condemn and punish have been so calculated, so malignant, and so devastating, that civilization cannot tolerate their being ignored, because it cannot survive their being repeated.

-- Justice Robert H. Jackson (1892-1954) US Supreme Court Justice • Opening Statement at the Nuremberg Trials (1945)

Adams, John

2008-07-18T12:22:12Z

The priesthood have, in all ancient nations, nearly monopolized learning. Read over again all the accounts we have of Hindoos, Chaldeans, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Celts, Teutons, we shall find that priests had all the knowledge, and really governed mankind. Examine Mahometanism, trace Christianity from its first promulgation; knowledge has been almost exclusively confined to the clergy. And, even since the Reformation, when or where has existed a Protestant or dissenting sect who would tolerate A FREE INQUIRY? The blackest billingsgate, most ungentlemanly insolence, the most yahooish brutality is patiently endured, countenanced, propagated and applauded, but touch a solemn truth in collision with a dogma of a sect, though capable of the clearest proof, and you will soon find you have disturbed a nest, and the hornets will swarm about your legs and hands, and fly into your face and eyes.

-- John Adams (1735-1826) US President (1797-1801) • Letter to John Taylor (1814)

Chesterton, Gilbert Keith

2008-07-18T12:06:53Z

Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions.

-- Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936) English journalist and writer • Illustrated London News (19 Apr 1930)

Schopenhauer, Arthur

2008-07-18T12:03:51Z

Life is a business that does not cover the costs.

-- Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) German philosopher • Welt als Wille und Vorstellung [The World as Will and Idea], vol. II "On the Vanity and Suffering of Life" (1819) •

Full http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_World_as_Will_and_Representation.

Seneca the Younger

2008-07-18T12:02:02Z

We often want one thing and pray for another, not telling the truth even to the gods.

-- Seneca the Younger (c. 4 BC-AD 65) Roman statesman, philosopher, playwright [Lucius Annaeus Seneca] • Epistulae morales ad Lucilium, ep. 95, sec. 2.

Rockefeller, Nelson

2008-07-17T12:32:00Z

There are three periods in life: youth, middle age and "how well you look."

-- Nelson Rockefeller (1908–1979) American politician • Quoted in New York Times (16 Dec 1976)

Jung, Carl Gustav

2008-07-17T12:18:54Z

My interests drew me in different directions. On the one hand I was powerfully attracted by science, with its truths based on facts; on the other hand I was fascinated by everything to do with comparative religion. [...] In science I missed the factor of meaning; and in religion, that of empiricism.

-- Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961) Swiss psychologist • Memories, Dreams, Reflections (1963)

Addison, Joseph

2008-07-17T12:13:24Z

Reading is to the mind, what exercise is to the body. As by the one, health is preserved, strengthened, and invigorated: by the other, virtue (which is the health of the mind) is kept alive, cherished, and confirmed.

-- Joseph Addison (1672-1719) English essayist, poet, statesman • The Tatler, #147

Ingersoll, Robert Green

2008-07-17T12:10:58Z

Love is the magician, the enchanter, that changes worthless things to Joy, and makes royal kings and queens of common clay. It is the perfume of that wondrous flower, the heart, and without that sacred passion, that divine swoon, we are less than beasts; but with it, earth is heaven, and we are gods.

-- Robert Green Ingersoll (1833-1899) American lawyer and orator • Orthodoxy (1884)

Sayers, Dorothy

2008-07-17T12:08:03Z

The Church's approach to an intelligent carpenter is usually confined to exhorting him not to be drunk and disorderly in his leisure hours, and to come to church on Sundays. What the Church should be telling him is this: that the very first demand that his religion makes upon him is that he should make good tables. Church by all means, and decent forms of amusement, certainly—but what use is all that if in the very center of his life and occupation he is insulting God with bad carpentry? No crooked table legs or ill-fitting drawers ever came out of the carpenter's shop at Nazareth. Nor, if they did, could anyone believe that they were made by the same hand that made Heaven and earth.

-- Dorothy Sayers (1893-1957) English author, translator, apologist • Creed or Chaos? (1940)

Voltaire

2008-07-16T11:31:22Z

The Eternal has his designs from all eternity. If prayer is in accord with his immutable wishes, it is quite useless to ask of him what he has resolved to do. If one prays to him to do the contrary of what he has resolved, it is praying that he be weak, frivolous, inconstant; it is believing that he is thus, it is to mock him. Either you ask him a just thing, in which case he must do it, the thing being done without your praying to him for it, and so to entreat him is then to distrust him; or the thing is unjust, and then you insult him. You are worthy or unworthy of the grace you implore: if worthy, he knows it better than you; if unworthy, you commit another crime by requesting what is undeserved.

In a word, we only pray to God because we have made him in our image. We treat him like a pasha, like a sultan whom one may provoke or appease.

[L’Éternel a ses desseins de toute éternité. Si la prière est d’accord avec ses volontés immuables, il est très inutile de lui demander ce qu’il a résolu de faire. Si on le prie de faire le contraire de ce qu’il a résolu, c’est le prier d’être faible, léger, inconstant; c’est croire qu’il soit tel, c’est se moquer de lui. Ou vous lui demandez une chose juste; en ce cas il la doit, et elle se fera sans qu’on l’en prie; c’est même se défier de lui que lui faire instance ou la chose est injuste, et alors on l’outrage. Vous êtes digne ou indigne de la grâce que vous implorez: si digne, il le sait mieux que vous; si indigne, on commet un crime de plus en demandant ce qu’on ne mérite pas.

En un mot, nous ne faisons des prières à Dieu que parce que nous l’avons fait à notre image. Nous le traitons comme un bacha, comme un sultan qu’on peut irriter ou apaiser.]

-- Voltaire (1694-1778) French writer [pseud. of Francois-Marie Arouet] • Questions sur l'Encyclopédie, "Prayers," (1770-1774)

Sandburg, Carl

2008-07-16T11:29:35Z

Look out how you use proud words.
When you let proud words go, it is not easy to call them back.
They wear long boots, hard boots.

-- Carl Sandburg (1878-1967) American poet, biographer • "Primer Lessons" (1922)

Roosevelt, Eleanor

2008-07-16T11:28:26Z

To me who dreamed so much as a child, who made a dreamworld in which I was the heroine of an unending story, the lives of people around me continued to have a certain storybook quality. I learned something which has stood me in good stead many times — The most important thing in any relationship is not what you get but what you give.

-- Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962) First Lady of the US (1933-45) [Anna Eleanor Roosevelt] • The Autobiography of Eleanor Roosevelt, Preface (1961) •

The last line was originally in her autobiography This Is My Story (1937).

Ruskin, John

2008-07-16T11:27:13Z

In general, pride is at the bottom of all great mistakes.

-- John Ruskin (1819-1900) English art critic and writer • Modern Painters, vol. IV, pt. V, ch. III, sec. 22 (1856)

Adams, Samuel

2008-07-16T11:25:40Z

He therefore is the truest friend to the liberty of his country who tries most to promote its virtue, and who, so far as his power and influence extend, will not suffer a man to be chosen into any office of power and trust who is not a wise and virtuous man. We must not conclude merely upon a man's haranguing upon liberty, and using the charming sound, that he is fit to be trusted with the liberties of his country. It is not unfrequent to hear men declaim loudly upon liberty, who, if we may judge by the whole tenor of their actions, mean nothing else by it but their own liberty, — to oppress without control or the restraint of laws all who are poorer or weaker than themselves.

-- Samuel Adams (1722-1803) American revolutionary, statesman • Essay, The Advertiser (1748)

Mencken, H.L.

2008-07-15T12:18:36Z

I've made it a rule never to drink by daylight and never to refuse a drink after dark.

-- H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) American writer and journalist [Henry Lewis Mencken] • New York Post (18 Sep 1945)

Eisenhower, Dwight David

2008-07-15T12:10:47Z

The clearest way to show what the rule of law means to us in everyday life is to recall what has happened when there is no rule of law.

-- President Dwight David Eisenhower (1890-1969) US President (1954-60) • Address on the first observance of "Law Day" (5 May 1958)

Diderot, Denis

2008-07-15T12:09:14Z

One may demand of me that I should seek truth, but not that I should find it.

[On doit exiger de moi que je cherche la vérité, mais non que je la trouve.]

-- Denis Diderot (1713-1784) French editor, philosopher • Pensées Philosophiques [Philosophical Thoughts], #29 (1746) •

Alt. trans.: "I can be expected to look for truth but not to find it."

Frost, Robert

2008-07-15T12:03:41Z

The old dog barks backward without getting up;
I can remember when he was a pup.

-- Robert Frost (1874-1963) American poet • "The Span of Life" (1936) •

Full text.

Russell, Bertrand

2008-07-15T12:01:50Z

Conventional people are roused to fury by departures from convention, largely because they regard such departures as a criticism of themselves.

-- Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher • Conquest of Happiness, ch. 9 "Fear of Public Opinion" (1930)

Robbins, Tom

2008-07-14T12:41:55Z

In the end, we should simply imagine a joke; a long joke that's being continually retold in an accent too thick and too strange to ever be completely understood. Life is that joke. The soul is its punchline.

-- Tom Robbins (b. 1936) American novelist • Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates (2000)

Saroyan, William

2008-07-14T12:41:03Z

The people you hate, well, this is the question about such people: why do you hate them?

-- William Saroyan (1908-1981) American writer • Chance Meetings (1978)

Sheridan, Richard Brinsley

2008-07-14T12:40:16Z

The number of those who undergo the fatigue of judging for themselves is very small indeed.

-- Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816) Irish dramatist and politician • The Critic, Act I, sc. ii (1779)

Sophocles

2008-07-14T12:38:49Z

I would rather miss the mark acting well than win the day acting basely.

-- Sophocles (496-406 BC) Greek tragic playwright • Philoctetes, l. 94

Roosevelt, Theodore

2008-07-14T12:37:25Z

Peace is generally good in itself, but it is never the highest good unless it comes as the handmaid of righteousness; and it becomes a very evil thing if it serves merely as a mask for cowardice and sloth, or as an instrument to further the ends of despotism or anarchy. We despise and abhor the bully, the brawler, the oppressor, whether in private or public life, but we despise no less the coward and the voluptuary. No man is worth calling a man who will not fight rather than submit to infamy or see those that are dear to him suffer wrong. No nation deserves to exist if it permits itself to lose the stern and virile virtues; and this without regard to whether the loss is due to the growth of a heartless and all-absorbing commercialism, to prolonged indulgence in luxury and soft, effortless ease, or to the deification of a warped and twisted sentimentality.

-- President Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) US President (1901-1909) • Nobel Lecture, Oslo (5 May 1910)

Thoreau, Henry David

2008-07-11T18:23:45Z

I did not know that we had ever quarrelled.

-- Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) American philosopher and writer • (Attributed) •

On being urged to make his peace with God.

Seneca the Younger

2008-07-11T18:22:18Z

What difference does it make how much you have? What you do not have amounts to much more.

-- Seneca the Younger (c. 4 BC-AD 65) Roman statesman, philosopher, playwright [Lucius Annaeus Seneca] • (Attributed) •

attr. by Aulus Gellius in Noctes Atticae, bk. 12, ch. 2, sct. 13 (2nd cent. A.D.).

Rogers, Will

2008-07-11T18:20:33Z

Now everything is funny as long as it is happening to somebody Else, but when it happens to you, why it seems to lose some of its Humor, and if it keeps on happening, why the entire laughter kinder Fades out of it.

-- Will Rogers (1879-1935) American humorist • The Illiterate Digest, "Warning to Jokers: Lay off the Prince" (1924)

Serling, Rod

2008-07-11T18:07:59Z

I happen to think that the singular evil of our time is prejudice. It is from this evil that all other evils grow and multiply. In almost everything I've written there is a thread of this: a man's seemingly palpable need to dislike someone other than himself

-- Rod Serling (1924-1975) American writer • Interview, Los Angeles Times (1967)

Washington, George

2008-07-11T18:06:39Z

Should, hereafter, those incited by the lust of power and prompted by the Supineness or venality of their Constituents, overleap the known barriers of this Constitution and violate the unalienable rights of humanity: it will only serve to shew, that no compact among men (however provident in its construction and sacred in its ratification) can be pronounced everlasting and inviolable, and if I may so express myself, that no Wall of words, that no mound of parchm[en]t can be so formed as to stand against the sweeping torrent of boundless ambition on the side, aided by the sapping current of corrupted morals on the other.

-- President George Washington (1732-1799) US President, military leader • Draft, First Inaugural Address (Apr 1789)