The day advanced as if to light some work of mine; it was morning, and lo! now it is evening, and nothing memorable is accomplished.

—H.D. Thoreau



Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes. Always.

—Mahatma Gandhi



There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can’t take part. You can’t even passively take part. And you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you’ve got to make it stop. And you’ve got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you’re free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!

—Mario Savio, to Free Speech Movement demonstrators on the steps of the administration building overlooking Sproul Plaza on UC Berkeley campus, December 2, 1964



I don’t want my children fed or clothed by the state. But I would prefer that to their being educated by the state.

—Max Victor Belz, grain dealer, Grundy County, Iowa



“There’s a _hardness_ I’m seeing in modern people. Those little moments of goofiness that used to make the day pass seem to have gone. Life’s so serious now. Maybe it’s just because I’m with an older gang now. … I mean, nobody even has _hobbies_ these days. Not that I can see. Husbands and wives both work. Kids are farmed out to schools and video games. Nobody seems to be able to endure simply being by them_selves_, either—but at the same time they’re isolated. People work much more, only to go home and surf the Internet and send e-mail rather than calling or writing a note or visiting each other. They work, watch TV, and sleep. I see these things. The whole world is only about work: _work work work get get get_ … racing ahead … getting sacked from work … going online … knowing computer languages … winning contracts. I mean, it’s just _not_ what I would have imagined the world might be if you’d asked me seventeen years ago. People are frazzled and angry, desperate about money, and at best, indifferent to the future.”
    She grabs her breath. “So you ask me how do _I_ feel? I feel lazy. And slow. And antique. And I’m scared of all these machines. I shouldn’t be, but I am. I’m not sure I _completely_ like the new world.”
    Hamilton’s jaws clench and Karen sees this. “I know—you want me to say how great everything is now, but I can’t. It’s pretty clear to me that life now isn’t what it ought to have become.”
    * * *
    “I think I know what you mean,” Hamilton says. “If you look at the world as a whole, we have to admit life’s good here where we live. But in an evil _Twilight Zone_ kind of way there’s nothing _else_ to choose. In the old days there was always a bohemia or a creative underworld to join if the mainstream life wasn’t your bag—or a life of crime, or even religion. And now there’s only the _system_. All other options have evaporated. For most people it’s the System or what … _death_? There’s nothing. There’s no way out now.”

—Douglas Coupland, _Girlfriend in a Coma_ (1998), pp. 154–155



Men do not fight against senselessness by demanding more of it, or against horror by wallowing in it, or against rot by glorifying disease, or against insanity by enshrining lunatics.

—Leonard Peikoff, _The Ominous Parallels_ (1982, 1993), p. 207



The belief that government schools are neutral on morality and religion is extraordinarily naive. Once it becomes clear that government schools indoctrinate captive students in the tenets and dogma of humanism to the exclusion of all other religions, it also becomes clear that the government itself is in the business of establishing a state-run, religious monopoly. It is time for the total privatization of schools and the building of a wall of separation between state and education.

—Linda Bowles, _The Federalist Brief_, August 29, 2000, No. 00-35



As far as the Bible is concerned, the function of transmitting truth and educating the young belongs to the home and church… As with so many other divine ordinances, however, man has sadly corrupted God’s plan, especially in these latter days, until finally the educational activities of mankind—as formalized in vast systems of public education—have become a chief instrument for turning man away from the truth…

—Morris, Henry M., _Christian Education for the Real World,_ (1991, 3rd Ed.) El Cajon, California: Master Books, p. 23



… if we can but prevent the government from wasting the labours of the people, under the pretence of taking care of them, they must become happy.

—Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Cooper, November 29, 1802



It is difficult for a man to understand something when his income depends upon him not understanding it.

—Upton Sinclair



Whenever is found what is called a paternal government, there is found state education. It has been discovered that the best way to insure implicit obedience is to commence tyranny in the nursery.

—Benjamin Disraeli, 1874



Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err. It passes my comprehension how human beings, be they ever so experienced and able, can delight in depriving other human beings of that precious right.

—Mohandas Gandhi



The road to wisdom? — Well, it’s plain and simple to express:

Err
and err
and err again
but less
and less
and less.

—Piet Hein, _Grooks_, 1966



The skill of writing is to create a context in which other people can think.

—Edwin Schlossberg



The average person today is about as naive as was the average person in the Middle Ages. In the Middle Ages people believed in the authority of their religion, no matter what. Today, we believe in the authority of our science, no matter what.

—George Orwell



Nothing in the world can replace persistence. Talent will not; nothing more common than the unsuccessful man with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and Determination are omnipotent.

—Calvin Coolidge



Just as people used to ask me how much my Great Dane weighed and how much he ate, people invariably ask about home schooling — “How will the kids be socialized?” When in turn I ask what it means to be socialized the answers vary wildly, but everybody seems to agree that there’s no better way to get it done to you than to be tossed into a kind of semi-prison environment with a whole lot of other persons born the same year you were.

—Denis Johnson, “School Is Out”, Oct. 1, 1997, http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/1997/10/01school2.html



A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

—Robert Heinlein



No one is bound to obey an unconstitutional law, and no courts are bound to enforce it.

—16 Am Jur 2d, Sec 177 late 2d, Sec 256



Once at a social gathering, Gladstone said to Disraeli, “I predict, Sir, that you will die either by hanging or of some vile disease.” Disraeli replied, “That all depends upon whether I embrace your principles or your mistress.”



Everything we do has moral significance, especially where we have the power to affect the lives of others. What could be more categorically moral or ethical, more fundamentally serious, than determining the nature of how we live and how others live? Our power to both impact others and to influence their own behavior and decisionmaking processes is what obliges us to find a ground for our own inner and most intimately personal life, that obliges us to explore the questions the spiritual paths explore — ultimate, penultimate, short-term, long-term, mundane, and immediate.

—Maynard S. Clark



As an adolescent I aspired to lasting fame, I craved factual certainty, and I thirsted for a meaningful vision of human life — so I became a scientist. This is like becoming an archbishop so you can meet girls.

—Matt Cartmill



People who relieve others of their money with guns are called robbers. It does not alter the immorality of the act when the income transfer is carried out by government.

—Cal Thomas



Liberals love to say things like, “We’re just asking everyone to pay their fair share.” But government is not about asking. It is about telling. The difference is fundamental. It is the difference between making love and being raped, between working for a living and being a slave.

The Internal Revenue service is not asking anybody to do anything. It confiscates your assets and puts you behind bars if you don’t pay.

—Thomas Sowell, Forbes, July 1994



One can remain alive long past the usual date of disintegration if one is unafraid of change, insatiable in intellectual curiosity, interested in big things, and happy in small ways.

—Edith Wharton



The evils of tyranny are rarely seen but by him who resists it.

—John Hay, 1872



Cowardice asks the question, “Is it safe?” Expediency asks the question, “Is it politic?” Vanity asks the question, “Is it popular?” But conscience asks the question, “Is it right?” And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular — but one must take it because it’s right.

—Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.



Tolerably early in life I discovered that one of the unpardonable sins, in the eyes of most people, is for a man to go about unlabeled. The world regards such a person as the police do an unmuzzled dog.

—Thomas Henry Huxley



The best qualification of a prophet is to have a good memory.

—Lord Halifax



We need a fellow at the head who can stand the sound of a machine gun. The rabble need to get fear into their pants. We can’t use an officer, because the people don’t respect them any more. The best would be a worker who knows how to talk. … He doesn’t need much brains, because politics is the stupidest business in the world, and every marketwoman in Munich knows more than the people in Weimar. I’d rather have a vain monkey who can give the Reds a juicy answer, and doesn’t run away when people begin swinging table legs, than a dozen learned professors. He must be a bachelor, then we’ll get the women.

—Dietrich Eckart, Nazi prophet, Brennessel Cabaret, Schwabing, Munich, 1919



I still think that a writer will find himself at a crossroads, probably around the age of thirty-five. At least that’s how I felt it. Your first burst of writing necessarily draws on the things you’ve observed and felt and understood in your youth. One day, however, this initial burst drops off, runs out of steam, and you’re faced with the question: What now? How should I go on? And if you don’t want simply to reproduce mechanically the things you’ve already accomplished, you have to take a basic step. But this is very hard to do, because you feel bound by what you’ve already managed to understand so far, and what you’ve done. You are bound, in a sense, by your own literary history, and you can’t simply slip out of that history and start again from the ground up. Moreover, you’ve become a little more modest, you’ve learned a few things, you’ve lost your literary virginity, as it were, with the wonderful arrogance, self-confidence, the still-sharp ability to see that goes with it.

… But I’m still not entirely certain that I’ve really rediscovered myself. I can’t write the way I used to write when I was young: I’m different, the times are different, and I’m interested in different things. But I don’t think I would go so far as to say that aesthetically, for instance, I’m now walking on a new path. I’m still searching, in fact—searching for that second wind. Who knows whether I’ll ever find it, or whether it can even be found. I mean, I don’t know whether all the other things I will eventually write will not remain anchored forever in a feeling of merely searching for the lost certainty of youth—

—Václav Havel, _Disturbing the Peace_ (1990), pp. 61–62



In this miserable state of mind, I began to understand, toward the end of my stay in prison, that a trap was being laid for me: a relatively innocent turn of phrase—or so I thought at the time—in one of my requests for release was to be published in a falsified version in order to discredit me. I had no idea how to stop this from happening, or how to defend myself against it. It was a very dark time for me, but then odd things began to happen. If I remember correctly, instead of the usual books, like _Far from Moscow_, I suddenly had delivered to my cell Goethe’s _Faust_, and then, right after that, _Doctor Faustus_ by Thomas Mann. I had strange dreams and was haunted by strange ideas. I felt as though I were being, in a very physical way, tempted by the devil. I felt that I was in his clutches. I understood that I had somehow become involved with him. The experience of having something misappropriated in this way—something I had actually thought and written, something that was true—clarified for me with fresh urgency that the truth is not simply what you think it is; it is also the circumstances in which it is said, and to whom, why, and how it is said.

—Václav Havel, _Disturbing the Peace_ (1990), p. 67



Men are born ignorant, not stupid; they are made stupid by education.

—Bertrand Russell



The notion that the church, the press, and the universities should serve the state is essentially a Communist notion … In a free society these institutions must be wholly free — which is to say that their function is to serve as checks upon the state.

—Alan Barth



God in His infinite mercy has revealed to us a great truth. It is a truth that, when understood by us, gives a new light to our existence and inspires us with the most exalted hopes. That truth is that God is our Father, and we are His children. What a tender relationship! What a feeling of nearness it creates within us! What? God my Father? Am I indeed His son? Am I indeed His daughter? Do I belong to the family of God? Is this literally true? The answer is, ‘Yes.’ God has revealed it, that we are literally His children, His offspring, that we are just as much His children as our offspring are our children, that He begot us, and that we existed with Him in the family relationship as His children.

What an immensity of vision is given to us in this truth! What a field for reflection! And how our hearts should be inspired with great hopes and anticipations to think that the Being under whose direction this earth was organized, who governs the planets and controls the universe, who causes the rotation of the seasons and makes this earth so beautiful and such a delightful place of habitation, is our Father and that we are His children, descended from Him! What illimitable hopes the knowledge of this inspires us with!

Now, this is the truth. We humble people, we who feel ourselves sometimes so worthless, so good-for-nothing, we are not so worthless as we think. There is not one of us but what God’s love has been expended upon.  There is not one of us that He has not cared for and caressed. There is not one of us that He has not desired to save and that He has not devised means to save. There is not one of us that He has not given His angels charge concerning. We may be insignificant and contemptible in our own eyes and in the eyes of others, but the truth remains that we are the children of God and that He has actually given His angels — invisible beings of power and might — charge concerning us, and they watch over us and have us in their keeping.

—George Q. Cannon, _Gospel Truth_, 1:1–2



Suddenly I realized that, regardless of how many vulgar words these people used or how long their hair was, truth was on their side. Somewhere in the midst of this group, their attitudes, and their creations, I sensed a special purity, a shame, and a vulnerability; in their music was an experience of metaphysical sorrow and a longing for salvation. It seemed to me that this underground of Jirous’ was an attempt to give hope to those who had been most excluded.

—Václav Havel, _Disturbing the Peace_ (1990), p. 127, about the rock band “The Plastic People of the Universe”



I don’t think it hurts occasionally to remind people who live in totalitarian states, subtly perhaps, that they might also do something about their own domestic totalitarianism, instead of just running away from it. If I demand that Westerners not think merely of their own particular interests and that they behave as all of us should behave—that is, as though we were immediately responsible for the fate of the whole of society—then I see no reason why I shouldn’t demand the same of people living in totalitarian countries. This may sound harsh, and in fact I don’t think in such harsh terms myself, but unfortunately, when I heard your question, I began to see in my mind’s eye all those familiar people whose spines are bent, who are cautious, who inconspicuously support and create totalitarianism and then, on their very first trip abroad, suddenly decide that they’d rather live in a country where the living is easier, and they immediately demand the rights and glory due to political refugees. Why is it that over there in the West they see all these rights as a natural responsibility of government, whereas when they were here they contributed in all sorts of ways to a state in which individuals have no rights at all?

—Václav Havel, _Disturbing the Peace_ (1990), p. 169–170



A general State education is a mere contrivance for molding people to be exactly like one another; and as the mold in which it casts them is that which pleases the dominant power in the government, whether this be a monarch, an aristocracy, or a majority of the existing generation; in proportion as it is efficient and successful, it establishes a despotism over the mind, leading by a natural tendency to one over the body. … An education established and controlled by the state should only exist, if it exists at all, as one among many competing experiments.

—John Stuart Mill



[E]ven a purely moral act that has no hope of any immediate and visible political effect can gradually and indirectly, over time, gain in political significance.

—Václav Havel, _Disturbing the Peace_, p. 115



For isn’t it characteristic that the miserable historical events we are condemned to live through, in which we try to do our best at a cost that is all but incomprehensible elsewhere, are organically wedded here to our traditional sense of irony and self-deprecation, to our sense of the absurd, to our own free or black sense of humor? Don’t these two things somehow belong essentially together? Don’t they condition each other? Isn’t it entirely possible that we would not be able to carry out our historic role and make the sacrifices that are required of us if we could not maintain this constant distance from them and from ourselves? So not only does the one not exclude the other, it’s as if each pole made the other one possible!
    Foreigners are sometimes amazed at the suffering that we are willing to undergo here, and at the same time they are amazed at the things we are still able to laugh at. It’s difficult to explain, but without the laughter we would simply be unable to do the serious things. If one were required to increase the dramatic seriousness of his face in relation to the seriousness of the problems he had to confront, he would quickly petrify and become his own statue. And such a statue could scarcely write another historical manifesto or be equal to any human task! If you don’t want to dissolve in your own seriousness to the point where you become ridiculous to everyone, you must have a healthy awareness of your own human ridiculousness and nothingness. As a matter of fact, the more serious what you are doing is, the more important it becomes not to lose this awareness. If you lose this, your own actions—paradoxically—lose their own seriousness. A human action becomes genuinely important when it springs from the soil of a clearsighted awareness of the temporality and the ephemerality of everything human. It is only this awareness that can breathe any greatness into an action. The outlines of genuine meaning can only be perceived from the bottom of absurdity. Everything else is superficial …

—Václav Havel, _Disturbing the Peace_, p. 112–113



The right of citizens to bear arms is just one more guarantee against arbitrary government, one more safeguard against the tyranny which now appears remote in America, but which historically has proved to be always possible.

—Hubert Humphrey, U.S. Vice President (1964–1968)



[S]ociety is a very mysterious animal with many faces and hidden potentialities, and … it’s extremely shortsighted to believe that the face society happens to be presenting to you at a given moment is its only true face. None of us know all the potentialities that slumber in the spirit of the population, or all the ways in which that population can surprise us when there is the right interplay of events, both visible and invisible. Who would have believed … that half a year later [this] same society would display a genuine civic-mindedness, and that a year later this recently apathetic, skeptical, and demoralized society would stand up with such courage and intelligence to a foreign power! And who would have suspected that, after scarcely a year had gone by, this same society would, as swiftly as the wind blows, lapse back into a state of demoralization far deeper than its original one! After all these experiences, one must be very careful about coming to any conclusions about the way we are, or what can be expected of us.
    Something else: that week showed how helpless military power is when confronted by an opponent unlike any that power has been trained to confront; it showed how hard it is to govern a country in which, though it may not defend itself militarily, all the civil structures simply turn their backs on the aggressors.

—Václav Havel, _Disturbing the Peace_ (1990), p. 109



[I]nstead of suggesting something that no one could ever hope to carry off, it would be better to attempt something possible, something within our power … [I]t was a thousand times more valuable to insist, regardless of the consequences, on something more modest but realistic, than to pacify one’s conscience by firing off loudmouthed proposals that evaporate forever the moment they’re made and therefore commit no one to do anything about them.  Histrionic emotions expressed through proposals like that are extremely unreliable: they may be grand today, but the resignation felt tomorrow can be equally as great … Sober perseverance is more effective than enthusiastic emotions, which are all too capable of being transferred, with little difficulty, to something different each day.

—Václav Havel, _Disturbing the Peace_ (1990), p. 111



The letter [an open letter to President Husák], on the primary level, was a kind of autotherapy: I had no idea what would happen next, but it was worth the risk. I regained my balance and my self-confidence. I felt I could stand up straight again, and that no one could accuse me any longer of not doing anything, of just looking on in silence at the miserable state of affairs. I could breathe more easily because I had not tried to stifle the truth inside me. I had stopped waiting for the world to improve and exercised my right to intervene in that world, or at least to express my opinion about it.

—Václav Havel, _Disturbing the Peace_ (1990), p. 123



Or take the rapid awakening and spread of religious feeling among young people, illustrated, for example, by the pilgrimmage in Velehrad. This is not an accidental phenomenon; it is an inevitable one: the endless, unchanging wasteland of the herd life in a socialist consumer society, its intellectual and spiritual vacuity, its moral sterility, necessarily causes young people to turn their attentions somewhere further and higher; it compels them to ask questions about the meaning of life, to look for a more meaningful system of values and standards, to seek, among the diffuse and fragmented world of frenzied consumerism (where goods are hard to come by) for a point that will hold firm—all this awakens in them a longing for a genuine moral “vanishing point,” for something purer and more authentic. These people simply long to step outside the general automatic operations of society and rediscover their natural world and discover hope for this world. Against the “eschatology of the impersonal” they simply place another eschatology.

—Václav Havel, _Disturbing the Peace_ (1990), pp. 184–185



In the beginning are precise rules or conventions. It is only after these are established that the process of gradually overturning and undermining them can begin, of travestying and disrupting them, and disrupting their disruption, their abuse. I have always claimed that, where everything is permitted, nothing can surprise. Drama assumes an order. If only so that it might have—by disrupting that order—a way of surprising.

—Václav Havel, _Disturbing the Peace_ (1990), pp. 196–197



The role of theatre, as I understand it and as I have tried to practice it, is not to make people’s lives easier by presenting positive heroes into which they can project all their hopes, and then sending them home with the feeling that these heroes will take care of things for them. To my mind, that would be doing the lion’s share of the work. I’ve already talked about how each of us must find real, fundamental hope within himself. You can’t delegate that to anyone else.
    My ambition is not to soothe the viewer with a merciful lie or cheer him up with a false offer to sort things out for him. I wouldn’t be helping him very much if I did. I’m trying to do something else: to propel him, in the most drastic possible way, into the depths of a question he should not, and cannot, avoid asking; to stick his nose into his own misery, into my misery, into our common misery, by way of reminding him that the time has come to do something about it. The only ways out, the only solutions, the only hopes that are worth anything are the ones we discover ourselves, within ourselves, and for ourselves. Perhaps with God’s help. But theatre does not mediate that kind of help; it is not a church. Theatre ought to be—with God’s help—theatre. And one way of helping people is by reminding them that the time is getting late, that the situation is grave, that it can’t be ignored. Seeing the outlines of horror induces the will to face up to it. … Face to face with a distillation of evil, man might well recognize what is good. By showing good on the stage, we ultimately rob him of the possibility of making such a recognition himself—as his own existential act.

—Václav Havel, _Disturbing the Peace_ (1990), p. 199



I should probably say first that the kind of hope I often think about (especially in situations that are particularly hopeless, such as prison) I understand above all as a state of mind, not a state of the world. Either we have hope within us or we don’t; it is a dimension of the soul, and it’s not essentially dependent on some particular observation of the world or estimate of the situation. Hope is not prognostication. It is an orientation of the spirit, an orientation of the heart; it transcends the world that is immediately experienced, and is anchored somewhere beyond its horizons. I don’t think you can explain it as a mere derivative of something here, of some movement, or of some favorable signs in the world. I feel that its deepest roots are in the transcendental, just as the roots of human responsibility are, though of course I can’t—unlike Christians, for instance—say anything concrete about the transcendental. An individual may affirm or deny that his hope is so rooted, but this does nothing to change my conviction (which is more than just a conviction; it’s an inner experience). The most convinced materialist and atheist may have more of this genuine, transcendentally rooted inner hope (this is my view, not his) than ten metaphysicians together.
    Hope, in this deep and powerful sense, is not the same as joy that things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously headed for early success, but, rather, an ability to work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed. The more unpropitious the situation in which we demonstrate hope, the deeper that hope is. Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out. In short, I think that the deepest and most important form of hope, the only one that can keep us above water and urge us to good works, and the only true source of the breathtaking dimension of the human spirit and its efforts, is something we get, as it were, from “elsewhere.” It is also this hope, above all, which gives us the strength to live and continually to try new things, even in conditions that seem as hopeless as ours do, here and now.

—Václav Havel, _Disturbing the Peace_ (1990), pp. 181–182



Isn’t the reward of all those small but hopeful signs of movement this deep, inner hope that is not dependent on prognoses, and which was the primordial point of departure in this unequal struggle? Would so many of those small hopes have “come out” if there had not been this great hope “within,” this hope without which it is impossible to live in dignity and meaning, much less find the will for the “hopeless enterprise” which stands at the beginning of most good things?

—Václav Havel, _Disturbing the Peace_ (1990), p. 186



I would rather have my child exposed to smallpox, typhus fever, cholera, or other malignant and deadly diseases than to the degrading influence of a corrupt teacher. It is infinitely better to take chances with an ignorant, but pure-minded teacher than with the greatest philosopher who is impure.

—Karl G. Maeser



We are rapidly entering the age of no privacy, where everyone is open to surveillance at all times; where there are no secrets from government.

—William O. Douglas, U.S. Supreme Court Justice, 1966



There are two kinds of people in this world: Those that enter a room and turn the television set on, and those that enter a room and turn the television set off.

—Raymond Shaw (Laurence Harvey), film “The Manchurian Candidate”, 1962



Practitioners of the disciplines we study object to our work on the grounds that we don’t have enough training in their disciplines to criticize their knowledge claims. But can vigorous skepticism, which courts and philosophers agree should characterize a science, be achieved by a discipline’s practitioners alone?

—Simon Cole, “The Myth of Fingerprints: A forensic science stands trial,” Lingua Franca vol. 10 no. 8 (Nov. 2000), http://www.linguafranca.com/print/0011/feature_fingerprints.html



Would you want doctors? Yes, to set bones. We should want a good surgeon
for that, or to cut off a limb. But do you want doctors? For not much
of anything else, let me tell you, only the traditions of the people
lead them to think so; and here is a growing evil in our midst. It will
be so in a little time that not a woman in all Israel will dare to have
a baby unless she can have a doctor by her. I will tell you what to do,
you ladies, when you find you are going to have an increase, go off into
some country where you cannot call for a doctor, and see if you can keep
it. I guess you will have it, and I guess it will be all right, too. Now
the cry is, “Send for a doctor.” If you have a pain in the head, “Send
for a doctor;” if your heel aches, “I want a doctor;” “my back aches,
and I want a doctor.” The study and practice of anatomy and surgery
are very good; they are mechanical, and are frequently needed. Do you
not think it is necessary to give medicine sometimes? Yes, but I would
rather have a wife of mine that knows what medicine to give me when I am
sick, than all the professional doctors in the world. Now let me tell you
about doctoring, because I am acquainted with it, and know just exactly
what constitutes a good doctor in physic. It is that man or woman who,
by revelation, or we may call it intuitive inspiration, is capable of
administering medicine to assist the human system when it is besieged
by the enemy called Disease; but if they have not that manifestation,
they had better let the sick person alone. I will tell you why: I can
see the faces of this congregation, but I do not see two alike; and if I
could look into your nervous systems and behold the operations of disease,
from the crowns of your heads to the soles of your feet, I should behold
the same difference that I see in your physiognomy-there would be no two
precisely alike. Doctors make experiments, and if they find a medicine
that will have the desired effect on one person, they set it down that
it is good for everybody, but it is not so, for upon the second person
that medicine is administered to, seemingly with the same disease,
it might produce death. If you do not know this, you have not had the
experience that I have. I say that unless a man or woman who administers
medicine to assist the human system to overcome disease, understands,
and has that intuitive knowledge, by the Spirit, that such an article
is good for that individual at that very time, they had better let
him alone. Let the sick do without eating, take a little of something
to cleanse the stomach, bowels and blood, and wait patiently, and let
Nature have time to gain the advantage over the disease. Suppose, for
illustration, we draw a line through this congregation, and place those
on this side where they cannot get a doctor, without it is a surgeon,
for thirty or fifty years to come; and put the other side in a country
full of doctors, and they think they ought to have them, and this side
of the house that has no doctor will be able to buy the inheritance of
those who have doctors, and overrun them, outreach them, and buy them up,
and finally obliterate them, and they will be lost in the masses of those
who have no doctors. I know what some say when they look at such things,
but that is the fact. Ladies and gentlemen, you may take any country
in the world, I do not care where you go, and if they do not employ
doctors, you will find they will beat communities that employ them,
all the time. Who is the real doctor? That man who knows by the Spirit
of revelation what ails an individual, and by the same Spirit knows what
medicine to administer. That is the real doctor, the others are quacks.

—Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, Volume 15, pp. 225–226



In art and dream, may you proceed with abandon.
In life, may you proceed with balance and stealth.

—Patti Smith



Lord, behold our family here assembled. We thank Thee for this place in
which we dwell; for the love that unites us; for the peace accorded us
this day; for the hope with which we expect the morrow; for the health,
the work, the food, and the bright skies that make our lives delightful;
for our friends in all parts of the earth…. Give us courage, gaiety, and
the quiet mind. Spare to us our friends, soften to us our enemies. Bless
us, if it may be, in all our innocent endeavors. If it may not be, give
us the strength to encounter that which is to come, that we be brave in
peril, constant in tribulation, temperate in wrath, and in all changes of
fortune and down to the gates of death, loyal and loving to one another.

—Robert Louis Stevenson



Those who do not understand Unix are condemned to reinvent it, poorly.

—Henry Spencer, as altered at University of Toronto



The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil constitution,
are worth defending at all hazards; and it is our duty to defend them
against all attacks. We have received them as a fair inheritance from
our worthy ancestors; they purchased them for us with toil and danger
and expense of treasure and blood, and transmitted them to us with
care and diligence. It will bring an everlasting mark of infamy on the
present generation, enlightened as it is, if we should suffer them to
be wrested from us by violence without a struggle, or be cheated out of
them by the artifices of false and designing men.

—Samuel Adams (1722–1803), American Revolutionary Leader



There is this special biologist word we use for ‘stable’.
It is ‘dead’.

—Jack Cohen



If you would be a real seeker after truth, you must at least once in your
life doubt, as far as possible, all things.

—Rene Descartes (1596–1650)



When the resolution of enslaving America was formed in Great Britain,
the British parliament was advised by an artful man, who was governor
of Pennsylvania, to disarm the people, that it was the best and most
effectual way to enslave them, but that they should not do it openly
but just weaken them and let them sink gradually.

—George Mason, 1788, in an address to Congress



He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from
oppression.

—Thomas Paine, 1795



First and foremost, you can never afford to forget for one moment what
is the object of our forest policy. That object is not to preserve the
forests because they are beautiful, though that is good in and of itself,
nor because they are refuges for the wild creatures of the wilderness,
though that, too, is good in itself; but the primary object of our
forest policy, as of the land policy of the United States of America,
is the making of prosperous homes. It is part of the traditional
policy of home-making of our country. Every other consideration comes as
secondary. The whole effort of the government in dealing with the forests
must be directed to this end, keeping in view the fact that it is not
only necessary to start the homes as prosperous but to keep them so.

* * *

Your attention must be directed to the preservation of the forests not,
as an end in and of itself, but as a means of preserving and increasing
the prosperity of this Nation. Forestry is the preservation of forests
by wise use of the forests.

—Theodore Roosevelt, 1903, in a speech to the American Society of Foresters



To be prepared for war is one of the most effectual means of preserving the
peace.

—George Washington



I am only one man, but I AM one man. I can’t do everything, but I can
do SOMETHING. And what I can do, I ought to do. And what I ought to do,
by the Grace of God, I WILL DO!

—Edward Everett Hale



On the whole, the longing for solitude is a sign that there is spirit in a
person and is the measure of what spirit there is.

—Søren Kierkegaard



… everything exposed by the light becomes visible, for everything that becomes visible is light.

—Ephesians 5:13 (NRSV)



… I have learned to be content with whatever I have. I know what it is to have little, and I know what it is to have plenty. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being well-fed and of going hungry, of having plenty and of being in need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

—Philippians 4:11–13 (NRSV)



During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a
revolutionary act.

—George Orwell



Stable ownership is the gift of social law, and is given late in
the progress of society. It would be curious then, if an idea, the
fugitive fermentation of an individual brain, could of natural right,
be claimed in exclusive and stable property. If nature has made any one
thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the
action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may
exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment
it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and
the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character,
too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses
the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction
himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine,
receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from
one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of
man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly
and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire,
expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point,
and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being,
incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation.

—Thomas Jefferson, in an 1813 letter to Isaac MacPherson



Hackers do not feel that leisure time is automatically any more
meaningful than work time. The desirability of both depends on how they
are realized. From the point of a view of a meaningful life, the entire
work/leisure duality must be abandoned. As long as we are living our work
or our leisure, we are not even truly living. Meaning cannot be found
in work or leisure but has to arise out of the nature of the activity
itself. Out of passion. Social value. Creativity.

—Pekka Himanen, in _The Hacker Ethic_



We’ve arranged a civilization in which most crucial elements profoundly
depend on science and technology. We have also arranged things so that
almost no one understands science and technology. This is a prescription
for disaster. We might get away with it for a while, but sooner or later
this combustible mixture of ignorance and power is going to blow up in
our faces.

—Carl Sagan



It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey
to the active. The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man
is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once
the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt.

—John Philpot Curran: Speech upon the Right of Election (1790)



A man of words and not of deeds,
Is like a garden full of weeds.

—old poem quoted by Benjamin Franklin, letter to Jane Mecom, Sept. 16,
1758



It seems, then, that happiness in this life rather depends on internals
than externals; and that, besides the natural effects of wisdom and
virtue, vice and folly, there is such a thing as being of a happy or an
unhappy constitution.

—Benjamin Franklin, letter to Hugh Roberts, Sept. 16, 1758



Conversation warms the mind, enlivens the imagination, and is continually
starting fresh game that is immediately pursu’d and taken and which would
never have occur’d in the duller intercourse of epistolary correspondence.

—Benjamin Franklin, letter to Lord Kames, Jan. 3, 1760



There is, however, a prudent moderation to be used in studies of this
kind. The knowledge of nature may be ornamental, and it may be useful, but
if to attain an eminence in that, we neglect the knowledge and practice
of essential duties, we deserve reprehension. For there is no rank in
natural knowledge of equal dignity and importance with that of being a
good parent, a good child, a good husband, or wife, a good neighbour or
friend, a good subject or citizen, that is, in short, a good Christian.

—Benjamin Franklin, letter to Mary Stevenson, June 11, 1760



Idleness and pride tax with a heavier hand than kings and parliaments;
if we can get rid of the former we may easily bear the latter.

—Benjamin Franklin, letter to Charles Thomson, July 11, 1765



As to the reports you mention that are spread to my disadvantage, I
give myself as little concern about them as possible. I have often met
with such treatment from people that I was all the while endeavouring to
serve. At other times I have been extoll’d extravagantly when I have had
little or no merit. These are the operations of nature. It sometimes is
cloudy, it rains, it hails; again ’tis clear and pleasant, and the sun
shines on us. Take one thing with another, and the world is a pretty
good sort of a world; and ’tis our duty to make the best of it and be
thankful. One’s true happiness depends more upon one’s own judgement of
one’s self, on a consciousness of rectitude in action and intention,
and in the approbation of those few who judge impartially, than upon
the applause of the unthinking undiscerning multitude, who are apt to
cry hosanna today, and tomorrow, crucify him.

—Benjamin Franklin, letter to Jane Mecom, March 1, 1766



Dunces often write satires on themselves, when they think all the while
that they are mocking their neighbours. Let us, as we ever have done,
uniformly endeavour the service of our country, according to the best
of our judgment and abilities, and time will do us justice. Dirt thrown
on a mud-wall may stick and incorporate; but it will not long adhere to
polish’d marble.

—Benjamin Franklin, letter to Joseph Galloway, November 8, 1766



[Referring to a person who never marries:] An odd volume of a set of
books, you know, is not worth its proportion of the set; and what think
you of the usefulness of an odd half of a pair of scissors? It cannot
well cut any thing.

—Benjamin Franklin, letter to John Alleyne, August 9, 1768



God governs; and he is _good_. I pray him to direct you: And indeed
you will never be without his direction, if you humbly ask it, and show
yourself always ready to obey it.

—Benjamin Franklin, letter to Mary Stevenson, October 28, 1768



It is the persisting in an error, not the correcting it that lessens
the honour of any man or body of men.

—Benjamin Franklin, letter to William Strahan, November 29, 1769



I thought it should not be expected of me, to change my political opinions
every time his Majesty thought fit to change his ministers. … My rule
in which I have always found satisfaction, is, never to turn aside in
public affairs through views of private interest; but to go straight
forward in doing what appears to me right at the time, leaving the
consequences with Providence.

—Benjamin Franklin, letter to Jane Mecom, December 30, 1770 (spelling
modernized)



Upon he whole I am much disposed to like the world as I find it, and to
doubt my own judgment as to what would mend it. I see so much wisdom in
what I understand of its creation and government, that I suspect equal
wisdom may be in what I do not understand. And thence have perhaps as
much trust in God as the most pious Christian.

—Benjamin Franklin, letter to Jane Mecom, July 17, 1771



We get away with nothing. We cannot escape the repercussions of our
actions, however subtle they may be. We cannot get away from ourselves. We
cannot get away from the world we live in. Our decisions, our choices
which underlie our actions & give rise to them, create the world we
inhabit.

—Robert Fripp



All bad precedents began as justifiable measures.

—Gaius Julius Caesar, quoted in _The Conspiracy of Catiline_, by Sallust



One can search the brain with a microscope and not find the mind,
and can search the stars with a telescope and not find God.

—J. Gustav White



It is a serious thing, to live in a society of possible gods and
goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person
you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you
would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption
such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long
we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these
destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities,
it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should
conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves,
all play, all politics. There are no ‘ordinary’ people. You have never
talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilisations —
these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But
it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit
— immortal horrors or everlasting splendours. This does not mean that
we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must
be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists
between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously —
no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption. And our charity must be a
real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which
we love the sinner — no mere tolerance or indulgence which parodies
love as flippancy parodies merriment.

—C.S. Lewis, from _The Weight of Glory_



There is nothing so easy but that it becomes difficult when you do it
reluctantly.

—Publius Terentius Afer (Terence)



Those who believe that they believe in God, but without passion in their
hearts, without anguish in mind, without uncertainty, without doubt,
without an element of despair even in their consolation, believe only
in the God idea, not God Himself.

—Miguel de Unamuno, Spanish philosopher and writer



I made it a rule to forbear all direct contradictions to the sentiments
of others, and all positive assertion of my own. I even forbade myself
the use of every word or expression in the language that imported a fixed
opinion, such as “certainly”, “undoubtedly”, etc. I adopted instead of
them “I conceive”, “I apprehend”, or “I imagine” a thing to be so or so;
or “so it appears to me at present”.

When another asserted something that I thought an error, I denied myself
the pleasure of contradicting him abruptly, and of showing him immediately
some absurdity in his proposition. In answering I began by observing
that in certain cases or circumstances his opinion would be right, but
in the present case there appeared or seemed to me some difference, etc.

I soon found the advantage of this change in my manner; the conversations
I engaged in went on more pleasantly. The modest way in which I proposed
my opinions procured them a readier reception and less contradiction.
I had less mortification when I was found to be in the wrong, and I more
easily prevailed with others to give up their mistakes and join with me
when I happened to be in the right.

—Benjamin Franklin, autobiography



And do not say, I will study when I have leisure; for perhaps you will
not have leisure.

—Pirke Avot 2:5



Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today. There might be a
law against it by that time.

—unknown



[In describing his invention, the “Franklin” stove:]

Gov’r. Thomas was so pleas’d with the construction of this stove,
as described in it, that he offered to give me a patent for the sole
vending of them for a term of years; but I declin’d it from a principle
which has ever weighed with me on such occasions, viz., That, as we enjoy
great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad of an
opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours; and this we should
do freely and generously.

—Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, Part VI



Anyone can do any amount of work provided it isn’t the work he is supposed
to be doing at the moment.

—Robert Benchley



A novice asked the master: “In the east there is a great tree-structure
that men call ’Corporate Headquarters’. It is bloated out of shape with
vice-presidents and accountants. It issues a multitude of memos, each saying
’Go, Hence!’ or ’Go, Hither!’ and nobody knows what is meant. Every year new
names are put onto the branches, but all to no avail. How can such an
unnatural entity exist?”

The master replies: “You perceive this immense structure and are
disturbed that it has no rational purpose. Can you not take amusement from
its endless gyrations? Do you not enjoy the untroubled ease of programming
beneath its sheltering branches? Why are you bothered by its uselessness?”

—Geoffrey James, “The Tao of Programming”



There is a life of tradition that does not merely consist of conservative
preservation, the constant continuation of the spiritual and cultural
possessions of a community. There is such a thing as a treasure hunt
within tradition, which creates a living relationship to tradition and
to which much of what is best in current Jewish consciousness is indebted
even where it was-and is-expressed outside the framework of orthodoxy.

—Gershom Scholem



The perfect mystic is not an ecstatic devotee lost in contemplation of
Oneness, nor a saintly recluse shunning all commerce with mankind, but
“the true saint” goes in and out amongst the people and eats and sleeps
with them and buys and sells in the market and marries and takes part
in social intercourse, and never forgets God for a single moment.

—Abu Sa`id Ibn Abi-L-Khayr



The time was the 19th of May, 1780. The place was Hartford,
Connecticut. The day has gone down in New England history as a terrible
foretaste of Judgement Day. For at noon the skies turned from blue to
grey and by mid-afternoon had blackened over so densely that, in that
religious age, men fell on their knees and begged a final blessing
before the end came. The Connecticut House of Representatives was in
session. And, as some of the men fell down and others clamored for an
immediate adjournment, the Speaker of the House, one Col. Davenport,
came to his feet. He silenced them and said these words: “The day of
judgment is either approaching or it is not. If it is not, there is no
cause for adjournment. If it is, I choose to be found doing my duty. I
wish therefore that candles may be brought.”

—Alistair Cooke



The big thieves hang the little ones.

—Czech proverb



Furthermore, in spite of modern efficiency and resource substitution, the
per capita use of resources is extravagant and still growing to the point
where it is more accurate to say that we are living in a hyperindustrial
rather than a postindustrial age. Though they may use very little energy
while on the job [certainly not the case —JCJ], white-collar workers
who drive automobiles in long commutes use more energy getting to and
from work than their nineteenth-century counterparts used in order
to get the job done. One need only add to this the enormous resources
that are used for endless conferences and conventions attended by great
numbers of privileged bureaucrats, consultants and academics, so many of
which serve only as paid mini-vacations for those attending and produce,
for all the energy entailed, far less intellectual payoff than a good
correspondence or reading a good book, and the picture of the resource
profligacy of the so-called post-industrial world is complete.

—Max Dublin, _Futurehype_ (1992)



[Tolstoy] asked not, What does the future hold in store for us? but,
What shall we do and how shall we live?

—Max Dublin, _Futurehype_ (1992)



… all the good computer designs are bootlegged; the formally planned
products, if they are built at all, are dogs!

—David E. Lundstrom, _A Few Good Men From Univac_, MIT Press, 1987



The better the state is established, the fainter is humanity.

—Friedrich Nietzsche



One of the main reasons wealth makes people unhappy is that it gives them
too much control over what they experience.

—Philip Slater



An age is called Dark not because the light fails to shine, but because
people refuse to see it.

—James Michener, _Space_



A principal source of errors and injustice are false ideas of utility. For example: that legislator has false ideas of utility who considers particular more than general conveniencies, who had rather command the sentiments of mankind than excite them, who dares say to reason, ‘Be thou a slave;’ who would sacrifice a thousand real advantages to the fear of an imaginary or trifling inconvenience; who would deprive men of the use of fire for fear of their being burnt, and of water for fear of their being drowned; and who knows of no means of preventing evil but by destroying it.

The laws of this nature are those which forbid to wear arms, disarming those only who are not disposed to commit the crime which the laws mean to prevent. Can it be supposed, that those who have the courage to violate the most sacred laws of humanity, and the most important of the code, will respect the less considerable and arbitrary injunctions, the violation of which is so easy, and of so little comparative importance? Does not the execution of this law deprive the subject of that personal liberty, so dear to mankind and to the wise legislator? and does it not subject the innocent to all the disagreeable circumstances that should only fall on the guilty? It certainly makes the situation of the assaulted worse, and of the assailants better, and rather encourages than prevents murder, as it requires less courage to attack unarmed than armed persons.

—Cesare Beccaria, Essay on Crimes and Punishments, cited in Thomas Jefferson’s “Legal Commonplace Book”



DISCLAIMER:
Use of this advanced computing technology does not imply an endorsement
of Western industrial civilization.

—author unknown; from /usr/games/fortune on Unix



I hope that every married man has said to himself, “I will be more kind
and generous toward my companion and children. I will control my temper.”
I hope that kindness will replace harshness in our conversations one with
another.

I hope that every wife will look to her husband as her dear companion,
the star of her life, her supporter, her protector, her companion with
whom she walks hand in hand “equally yoked.” I hope that she will look
to her children as sons and daughters of God, the most significant
contribution she has made to the world, her greatest concern with regard
to their achievements, and more precious than any other thing she has or
could hope for.

I hope that boys and girls will leave this conference with a greater
appreciation for their parents, with more fervent love in their hearts for
those who have brought them into the world, for those who love them most
and are most anxious concerning them.

I hope that the noise of our homes will drop a few decibels, that we will
subdue our voices and speak to one another with greater appreciation and
respect.

—Gordon B. Hinckley, “Till We Meet Again,” Ensign, Nov. 2001, 89–90



There are two ways to slice through life; to believe everything or to doubt
everything. Both ways save us from thinking.

—Alfred Korzybski, Polish-American linguist (1879–1950)



If you do not wish a man to do a thing, you had better get him to talk about
it; for the more men talk, the more likely they are to do nothing else.

—Carlyle



If any of us are imperfect, it is our duty to pray for the gift that will
make us perfect. … No man ought to say, “Oh, I cannot help this;
it is my nature.” He is not justified in it, for the reason that God
has promised to give strength to correct these things, and to give gifts
that will eradicate them. If a man lacks wisdom, it is his duty to ask
God for wisdom. The same with everything else. That is the design of God
concerning His Church. He wants His Saints to be perfected in the truth.
For this purpose He gives these gifts, and bestows them upon those who
seek after them, in order that they may be a perfect people upon the
face of the earth.

—George Q. Cannon, Millennial Star, Apr. 1894, p. 260



XXX



The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral,
begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing
evil, it multiplies it … Through violence you may murder the hater,
but you do not murder the hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate
… returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper
darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out
hate; only love can do that.

—Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.



We must believe that it is the darkest before the dawn of a beautiful
new world. We will see it when we believe it.

—Saul Alinsky



Artificial intelligence has the same relation to intelligence as
artificial flowers have to flowers.

—David Parnas



Absence diminishes mediocre passions and increases great ones,
as the wind blows out candles and fans fires.

—La Rochefoucauld



The saddest epitaph which can be carved in memory of a vanished liberty
is that it was lost because its possessors failed to stretch forth a
saving hand while yet there was time.

—George Sutherland, 1862–1942 US Supreme Court Justice



The vigor of civilized societies is preserved by the widespread sense
that high aims are worth-while. Vigorous societies harbor a certain
extravagance of objectives, so that men wander beyond the safe provision
of personal gratifications. All strong interests easily become impersonal,
the love of a good job well done. There is a sense of harmony about such
an accomplishment, the Peace brought by something worth-while.

—Alfred North Whitehead, 1963, in _The History of Manned Space Flight_



We know next to nothing about virtually everything. It is not
necessary to know the origin of the universe; it is necessary to want
to know. Civilization depends not on any particular knowledge, but on
the disposition to crave knowledge.

—George Will



Blessed is he who has learned to admire but not envy, to follow but not
imitate, to praise but not flatter, and to lead but not manipulate.

—William Arthur Ward



Don’t spend your precious time asking, “Why isn’t the world a better
place?” It will only be time wasted. The question to ask is, “How can
I make it better?” To that there is an answer.

—Leo Buscaglia



Sometimes we feel that the busier we are, the more important we are—as
though our busyness defines our worth. Brothers and sisters, we can spend a
lifetime whirling about at a feverish pace, checking off list after list of
things that in the end really don’t matter.

That we do a lot may not be so important. That we focus the energy of our
minds, our hearts, and our souls on those things of eternal significance—
that is essential.

As the clatter and clamor of life bustle about us, we hear shouting to
‘come here’ and to ‘go there.’ In the midst of the noise and seductive
voices that compete for our time and interest, a solitary figure stands on
the shores of the Sea of Galilee, calling quietly to us, ‘Follow me.’

—Joseph B. Wirthlin, “‘Follow Me,’” Ensign, May 2002, 16



XXX



XXX



From a certain point onward there is no longer any turning back.
That is the point that must be reached.

—Franz Kafka



There is no security on this earth. There is only opportunity.

—Douglas MacArthur



Explaining why an accusation is wrong is always harder than generating one.

—Michael G. Haire, Jr.



It is not man who pursues truth, but truth man.

—Shestov



It has long been noticed that juries are pitiless for robbery and full
of indulgence for infanticide. A question of interest, my dear Sir! The
jury is afraid of being robbed and has passed the age when it could be
a victim of infanticide.

—Edmond About



Sensible people agree: A day spent without the thought of death is a
wasted day. The sight of a gravestone, weighty not only in its granite,
allows us perspective on problems as pressing as burnt toast, taxes,
and headcolds.

—Donald Hall



111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321



Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is
the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.

—William Pitt, 1783



[A]s a matter of history [philosophy] fails to prove its pretension
to be “objectively” convincing. … It does not banish differences; it
founds schools and sects just as feeling does. The logical reason of man
operates, in short, in this field of divinity exactly as it has always
operated in love, or in patriotism, or in politics, or in any other of the
wider affairs of life, in which our passions or our mystical intuitions
fix our beliefs beforehand. It finds arguments for our conviction,
for indeed it has to find them. It amplifies and defines our faith,
and dignifies it and lends it words and plausibility. It hardly ever
engenders it; it cannot now secure it.

—William James, _The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human
Nature_ (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1985), 344–45.



[O]ne of the lessons of maturity: that sometimes, like Shakespeare’s
sonnets, rigid forms produce unexpected creativity.

—Peggy Fletcher Stack, “Mission Accomplished”, The Salt Lake Tribune,
Saturday, December 14, 2002.



Once a word has been allowed to escape, it cannot be recalled.

—Quintus Horatius Flaccus (Horace)



The price one pays for pursuing any profession, or calling, is an intimate
knowledge of its ugly side.

—James Baldwin



If a thing is not diminished by being shared, it is not rightly owned if it is
only owned & not shared.

—St. Augustine



It is moral weakness, rather than villainy, that accounts for most of
the evil in the universe — and feeble-hearted allies, far rather than
your most powerful enemies, who are likeliest to do you an injury you
cannot recover from.

—Bretta Martyn



UNIX was not designed to stop you from doing stupid things, because that
would also stop you from doing clever things.

—Doug Gwyn



Freedom of the press is limited to those who own one.

—A.J. Liebling



There seems no plan because it is all plan.

—C.S. Lewis



Emigrants arriving pay no Fine or Premium for being admitted to all the
Privileges of Citizens. Those are acquired by two Years Residence.
    No Rewards are given to encourage new Settlers to come among us,
whatever degree of Property they may bring with them, nor any Exemptions
from common Duties. Our Country offers to Strangers nothing but a good
Climate, fertile Soil, wholesome Air, Free Governments, wise Laws, Liberty,
a good People to live among, and a hearty Welcome. Those Europeans who have
these or greater Advantages at home, would do well to stay where they are.

—Benjamin Franklin, letter, January 1784?



But after all, my dear Friend, do not imagine that I am vain enough to
ascribe our Success to any superiority in any of those Points. I am too
well acquainted with all the Springs and Levers of our Machine, not to
see, that our human means were unequal to our undertaking, and that,
if it had not been for the Justice of our Cause, and the consequent
Interposition of Providence, in which we had Faith, we must have been
ruined. If I had ever before been an Atheist, I should now have been
convinced of the Being and Government of a Deity! It is he who abases
the Proud and favours the Humble. May we never forget his Goodness to us,
and may our future Conduct manifest our Gratitude.

—Benjamin Franklin, letter to William Strahan, Aug. 19, 1784



The shifts of Fortune test the reliability of friends.

—Marcus Tullius Cicero



[K.] hatte neuerdings unter anderem Unerfreulichem eine gewisse
Wehleidigkeit an sich festgestellt, ein fast haltloses Bestreben allen
seinen Wünschen nachzugeben — nun, in diesem Fall diente diese Untugend
wenigstens einem guten Zweck.

—Franz Kafka, _Der Proceß_



The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by mean of zeal,
well-meaning but without understanding.

—Justice Louis O. Brandeis (Olmstead vs. United States)



Law stands mute in the midst of arms.

—Marcus Tullius Cicero



Local prohibitions cannot block advances in military and commercial
technology … Democratic movements for local restraint can only restrain
the world’s democracies, not the world as a whole.

—K. Eric Drexler



Writing, in my experience, consists of long periods of hanging out,
punctuated by the fugue of remorse at the loss of one’s powers and wonder
at occasional output in spite of that loss.

—David Mamet, “The Diner”, in _Make-Believe Town_ (1996), p. 80



Just as the history of religion is the fight against the people’s wish to
reinstitute idolatry, and as our republic’s history is the fight against
the masses’ wish to lay down the burden of representative democracy
and cough up a king, so, finally, in entertainment we see ourselves,
the audience, clamoring for a repeal of the laws of dramaturgy and a
reversion to entertainment as pure titillation.

—David Mamet, “The Screenplay”, in _Make-Believe Town_ (1996), p. 125



We see the prejudices only of times gone by, and even then, only of
others, revealed to us, perhaps, to make us thankful we have none of
our own.

—David Mamet, “It’s Necessary for the Scene”, in _Make-Believe Town_
(1996), p. 133



We have confounded the right of Universal Expression with the notion
that everyone, therefore, must have something to say.
    That a play is on an Important Topic does not mean that it is a good
play. …
    That the artist need not have skill, and the performance need not have
meaning, that the audience need not have pleasure, these freedoms produce
and will produce interesting aberrations as Society gropes its way back
to the men and beasts in the Arena.

—David Mamet, “Art as a Helping Profession”, in _Make-Believe Town_
(1996), p. 153



“Gutmenschen” versus “Kriegstreiber”: dieser reflexhafte Streit
verabschiedet jede ernsthafte Diskussion, bevor sie überhaupt begonnen
hat.
    * * *
    Eine Frage allerdings stellen sich deutsche Intellektuelle
praktisch nie: Ob die Ereignisse am Ende womöglich doch anders verlaufen
könnten als sie prophezeit haben, ob aus dem gegenwärtigen Unheil
vielleicht doch noch etwas Gutes und Zukunftsträchtiges erwachsen könnte,
ob es also, wie die Zürcher “Weltwoche” formulierte, etwas Drittes gäbe
zwischen “realitätsblinder Moral und moralvergessener Realpolitik”.

—Reinhard Mohr, “Die Alten sagen ‘Dresden’, die Jungen sagen ‘Öl’”,
Spiegel Online, 29. März 2003



The land of Egypt was the center of ancient culture, famed for its
pyramids, art, and wise men. But for the Israelites it was nothing more
than “the house of bondage.” According to [Benno] Jacob’s interpretation,
those words are intended to convey that “if a land of culture has no
room for freedom, then the servant of God renounces [such] culture.”
    Thus, the reason the Torah places such emphasis on Egypt being a
“house of bondage” is because later generations are apt to look
back on such ancient Egyptian accomplishments as the building of the
pyramids without taking into account the moral price paid for those
accomplishments: the thousands of slaves who were worked to death in
erecting those architectural marvels. This verse reminds us that Egypt’s
massive artistic achievements were built on human slavery and misery.

—Rabbi Joseph Telushkin, in _Biblical Literacy_ (1997), summarizing
Nehama Leibowitz summarizing Benno Jacob



Violence stinks, no matter which end of it you’re on. But now and then
there’s nothing left to do but hit the other person over the head with
a frying pan. Sometimes people are just begging for that frypan, and
if we weaken for a moment and honor their request, we should regard it
as impulsive philanthropy, which we aren’t in any position to afford,
but shouldn’t regret it too loudly lest we spoil the purity of the deed.

—Tom Robbins



No pure mystic ever loved mere mystery. The mystic does not bring doubts
or riddles: the doubts and riddles exist already. We all feel the riddle
of the earth without anyone to point it out. The mystery of life is the
plainest part of it. The clouds and curtains of darkness, the confounding
vapours, these are the daily weather of this world. Whatever else we have
grown accustomed to, we have grown accustomed to the unaccountable. Every
stone or flower is a hieroglyphic of which we have lost the key; with
every step of our lives we enter into the middle of some story which
we are certain to misunderstand. The mystic is not the man who makes
mysteries but the man who destroys them. The mystic is one who offers an
explanation which may be true or false, but which is always comprehensible
— by which I mean, not that it is always comprehended, but that it always
can be comprehended, because there is always something to comprehend. The
man whose meaning remains mysterious fails, I think, as a mystic.

—G. K. Chesterton, _William Blake_. London: Duckworth and Co. 131



It is not the function of our Government to keep the citizen from
falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the
Government from falling into error.

—U.S. Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954)



We have to be careful what we desire, for the Lord grants us the desires
of our heart.

—Gerald N. Lund, “The Opportunity to Serve,” Ensign, May 2002, p. 85



He who bestows knowledge on the ignorant wastes it,
And he who withholds it from the worthy has done them wrong.

—attributed to Jesus Christ, by Al-Ghazali (1058–1111); _The Niche
of Lights_, Author’s Introduction p. 3, tr. David Buchman, 1998



One who considers the realities of these words may become bewildered by
the multiplicity of the words and imagine many meanings. But one to whom
the realities are unveiled will make the meaning a root and the words
a follower. This situation is reversed in the weak, since they search
for the realities from the words.

—Al-Ghazali (1058–1111), _The Niche of Lights_, 2:5, tr. David Buchman,
1998



If some of those who learn from the prophets do so through sheer imitation
of what they hear, while others have a share of insight, the similitude
of the portion of those who imitate is “a report”, while the similitude
of the portion of the insightful is “a live coal”, “a burning brand”,
and “a flame”, since the possessor of tasting shares with the prophets
in some states. The similitude of this sharing is “warming oneself”,
since only the person who has a fire can warm himself, not the person
who hears a report about fire.

—Al-Ghazali (1058–1111), _The Niche of Lights_, 2:24, tr. David Buchman,
1998



Do not despise one who possesses knowledge which God has bestowed upon
him, because God did not despise him when He bestowed it.

—hadith found in al-Ghazali, _Ihya_, 1:33, 147



Frantic orthodoxy is never rooted in faith but in doubt.

—Reinhold Niebuhr



Without love intelligence is dangerous;
without intelligence love is not enough.

—Ashley Montagu



Parents cannot give to their children that which they do not possess.

—Delbert L. Stapley, LDS General Conference, April 6, 1971



If there is any one thing that will bring peace and contentment into
the human heart, and into the family, it is to live within our means.

—Heber J. Grant, Relief Society Magazine, May 1932, 302



When we face seemingly insurmountable obstacles in the fulfillment of
righteous responsibilities, we should remember that when we are involved
in the work of the Lord, the obstacles before us are never as great as
the power behind us. We should reach out and climb. Handholds will only
be found by hands that are outstretched. Footholds are only for feet
that are on the move.

—Dallin H. Oaks, “Reach Out and Climb!” New Era, Aug. 1985, p. 4



The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one
persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress
depends on the unreasonable man.

—George Bernard Shaw



Love is one of the chief characteristics of Deity, and ought to be
manifested by those who aspire to be the sons of God. A man filled
with the love of God is not content with blessing his family alone,
but ranges through the whole world, anxious to bless the whole human race.

—Joseph Smith, _History of the Church_, 4:227



No one should deny the importance of circumstances, yet in the final
analysis the most important thing is how we react to the circumstances. It
is a tenet of my faith that every normal person has the capacity, with
God’s help, to meet the challenge of whatever circumstances may confront
him. One of the most comforting scriptures carries the message that God
will not leave us helpless—ever. (1 Cor. 10:13.)

—Spencer W. Kimball, “Decisions: Why It’s Important to Make Some Now,”
New Era, Apr. 1971, p. 2



The Lord can do remarkable miracles with a person of ordinary ability who
is humble, faithful, and diligent in serving the Lord and who seeks to
improve himself.

—James E. Faust, “On the Edge,” New Era, Feb. 1997, p. 8



When confronted with a decision ask yourself, “How many choices do I have?”
If your choices are numerous, you can be fairly certain your personal
freedom is still intact in that area of your life. However, when you realize
you have only one or two choices, you will know that your freedom has been
greatly reduced. And, when you come to the point where you realize you have
no choice at all you can be sure that your freedom has been totally removed
from you.

—R. Lee Wrights, “Choices: The metric of freedom”,
http://www.libertyforall.net/2003/archive/june15/choices.html



Leadership can no more be taught than creativity or how to be a
genius. The Generalstab tried desperately for 100 years to train up
a generation of leaders for the German army, but it never worked,
because the men who delighted their superiors, i.e., the managers, got
the high commands, while the men who delighted the lower ranks, i.e.,
the leaders, got reprimands. Leaders are movers and shakers, original,
inventive, unpredictable, imaginative, full of surprises that discomfit
the enemy in war and the main office in peace. For managers are safe,
conservative, predictable, conforming organization men and team players,
dedicated to the establishment.

—Hugh Nibley, BYU Commencement Address, Aug. 19, 1983



All men profess honesty as long as they can. To believe all men honest
would be folly. To believe none so is something worse.

—John Quincy Adams



We cannot command nature except by obeying her.

—Francis Bacon



Raffiniert ist der Herrgott aber boshaft ist er nicht.

—Albert Einstein



What we see depends on mainly what we look for.

—John Lubbock



The control of the production of wealth is the control of human life itself.

—Hilaire Belloc



Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must be first overcome.

—Dr. Johnson



When children become people, they stop seeing what they were able to see
when they were children, they even begin to doubt it, but that doesn’t
mean that what they were once able to see no longer exists.

—David Albahari, _Bait_ (2001)



[Four guideposts to live by:] First, glance backward. Second, look
heavenward. Third, reach outward. And fourth, press onward.

—Thomas S. Monson, 22 August 2003, Brigham Young University—Idaho



The first condition of happiness is a clear conscience.

—David O. McKay, “Gospel Ideals”, 1954, p. 498



Those who profess to favor freedom, yet depreciate agitation, are men who
want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder
and lightening. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many
waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one;
or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power
concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.

—Frederick Douglas, Letter to an associate, 1849



The most prominent place in Hell is reserved for those who are neutral
on the great issues of life.

—Billy Graham



Christians are fond of asking: “What would Jesus do in this
situation?” Unfortunately, they very rarely come up with the correct
answer, which is: “Something unexpected!”

—Larry Wall, Slashdot interview, 2002-09-06,
http://interviews.slashdot.org/interviews/02/09/06/1343222.shtml?tid=145



A lot of people who claim to be agnostics don’t take the position so
much because they don’t know, but because they don’t want to know,
sometimes desperately so.

—Larry Wall, Slashdot interview, 2002-09-06,
http://interviews.slashdot.org/interviews/02/09/06/1343222.shtml?tid=145



Like billowing clouds
Like the incessant gurgle of the brook,
The longing of the spirit can never be stilled.

—Hildegard von Bingen



Once the technology is in place, there will always be the temptation to
use it. And it is poor civic hygiene to install technologies that could
someday facilitate a police state.

—Bruce Schneier, _Secrets & Lies: Digital Security in a Networked World_,
2000, p. 53



Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be
the most oppressive.

—C.S. Lewis



Don’t let go of what you’ve got hold of, until you have hold of something else.

—First rule of wing walking



All organized bodies have their peculiar evils, weaknesses and difficulties …

—Joseph Smith, May 26, 1842, _Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith_,
p. 238



All the religious world is boasting of righteousness: it is the doctrine
of the devil to retard the human mind, and hinder our progress, by filling
us with self-righteousness. The nearer we get to our heavenly Father,
the more we are disposed to look with compassion on perishing souls;
we feel that we want to take them upon our shoulders, and cast their
sins behind our backs.

—Joseph Smith, June 9, 1842, _Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith_,
p. 241



An aphorism is never exactly true; it is either a half-truth or
one-and-a-half truths.

—Karl Kraus



It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.

—Voltaire



Government is not reason. Government is not eloquence. It is force. And,
like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.

—George Washington



Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s
character, give him power.

—Abraham Lincoln



I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the rights of
the people by the gradual and silent encroachments of those in power
than by violent and sudden usurpations.

—James Madison



The fetters imposed on liberty at home have ever been forged out of
the weapons provided for defence against real, pretended, or imaginary
dangers from abroad.

—James Madison



Never, never, never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that
anyone who embarks on the strange voyage can measure the tides and
hurricanes he will encounter. The statesman who yields to war fever
must realize that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master
of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events.

—Winston Churchill



You can’t separate peace from freedom because no one can be at peace
unless he has his freedom.

—Malcolm X



When anger rises, think of the consequences.

—Confucius



They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

—Benjamin Franklin



The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure when the
transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them.

—Patrick Henry



The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedients, and
by parts. The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good
men to do nothing.

—Edmund Burke



Despotism sits nowhere so secure as under the effigy and ensigns of
Freedom.

—W. S. Landor



Experience teaches us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the
government’s purpose is beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally
alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The
greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal,
well-meaning but without understanding.

—Louis Dembitz Brandeis



It was our own moral failure and not any accident of chance, that while
preserving the appearance of the Republic we lost its reality.

—Cicero



No one can terrorize the whole nation, unless we all are his accomplices.

—Edward R. Murrow



Where the people fear the government you have tyranny. Where the government fears the people you have liberty.

—John Basil Barnhill, debates on socialism published in 1914



Washing one’s hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless
means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral.

—Paulo Freire



Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more
violent. It takes a touch of genius—and a lot of courage—to move in
the opposite direction.

—Ernst F. Schumacher



He who has once begun to live by rapine always finds reasons for taking
what is not his.

—Niccolò Machiavelli



And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep forever …

—Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, Query XVIII



In matters of principle, stand like a rock;
in matters of taste, swim with the current.

—old adage



I don’t know that I ever wanted greatness, on its own. It seems
rather like wanting to be an engineer, rather than wanting to design
something—or wanting to be a writer, rather than wanting to write. It
should be a by-product, not a thing in itself. Otherwise, it’s just an
ego trip.

—Roger Zelazny



[The King said to the Little Prince:] One must require from each one the
duty which each one can perform. … Accepted authority rests first of
all on reason. If you ordered your people to go and throw themselves
into the sea, they would rise up in revolution. I have the right to
require obedience because my orders are reasonable.

—Antoine de Saint Exupéry, “The Little Price” (1943), tr. Katherine Woods



The end is in the beginning and yet you go on. … It will be the end and
there I’ll be, wondering what can have brought it on and wondering what
can have … why it was so long coming.

—Samuel Beckett, “Endgame” (1958)



It is a profoundly erroneous truism, repeated by all copy-books and by
eminent people when they are making speeches, that we should cultivate
the habit of thinking about what we are doing. The precise opposite is
the case. Civilization advances by extending the numbers of important
operations which we can perform without thinking about them. Operations
of thought are like cavalry charges in battle — they are strictly
limited in number, they require fresh horses, and must only be made at
decisive moments.

—Alfred North Whitehead



No character, however upright, is a match for constantly reiterated
attacks, however false.

—Alexander Hamilton



[Satan’s] objective is the enslavement of God’s children. All of his
enticing, alluring temptations have as their root the destruction of the
individual. In fact, each of us needs consistently to repent and obey
so that the gift of the Savior will satisfy the demands of justice for
even our small errors of commission or omission.

—Richard G. Scott, “To Be Free of Heavy Burdens,” Ensign, Nov. 2002, p. 87



Faith exists when absolute confidence in that which we cannot see combines
with action that is in absolute conformity to the will of our Heavenly
Father. Without all three—first, absolute confidence; second, action;
and third, absolute conformity—without these three all we have is a
counterfeit, a weak and watered-down faith.

—Joseph B. Wirthlin, “Shall He Find Faith on the Earth?” Ensign, Nov. 2002, p. 83



I do not know myself and God forbid that I should.

—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe



Trying to define yourself is like trying to bite your own teeth.

—Alan Watts



[I]ncoherence is one of the luxuries of impotence. Those who cannot,
or will not, take responsibility themselves feel free to snipe at those
who do.

—The Economist, “Greatest danger, or greatest hope?”, Nov. 6, 2003



Be prepared, self-reliant, and independent. Times of plenty are times
to live providently and lay up in store. Times of scarcity are times to
live frugally and draw on those stores.

—Keith B. McMullin, “Come to Zion! Come to Zion!” Ensign, Nov. 2002, p. 96



These stirrings [of conscience] within us originate from a divine source
and, when followed, will help to keep us on course, thus protecting us
from harmful influences and dangerous detours.

—Kenneth Johnson, “Yielding to the Enticings of the Holy Spirit,” Ensign, Nov. 2002, p. 90



A commercial, and in some respects a social, doubt has been started within
the last year or two, whether or not it is right to discuss so openly the
security or insecurity of locks. Many well-meaning persons suppose that
the discussion respecting the means for baffling the supposed safety
of locks offers a premium for dishonesty, by showing others how to be
dishonest. This is a fallacy. Rogues are very keen in their profession,
and already know much more than we can teach them respecting their several
kinds of roguery. Rogues knew a good deal about lockpicking long before
locksmiths discussed it among themselves, as they have lately done. If
a lock — let it have been made in whatever country, or by whatever
maker — is not so inviolable as it has hitherto been deemed to be,
surely it is in the interest of _honest_ persons to know this fact,
because the _dishonest_ are tolerably certain to be the first to apply
the knowledge practically; and the spread of knowledge is necessary to
give fair play to those who might suffer by ignorance. It cannot be too
earnestly urged, that an acquaintance with real facts will, in the end,
be better for all parties.

—Charles Tomlinson’s _Rudimentary Treatise on the Construction of Locks_,
published around 1850



It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the
strongman stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The
credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred
by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes
up short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms; the great
devotions; and spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best, knows
in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who, at the worst, if he
fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never
be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.

—Theodore Roosevelt



Use what talent you possess: the woods would be very silent if no birds
sang except those that sang best.

—Henry Van Dyke (1852–1933)



The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on
life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important
than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than
failures, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It
is more important than appearance, giftedness, or skill. It will make
or break a company … a church … a home. The remarkable thing is we
have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that
day. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play
on the one string we have, and that is our attitude … I am convinced
that life is 10% what happens to me, and 90% how I react to it. And so
it is with you … we are in charge of our attitudes.

—Charles Swindoll



At first sight, the idea of any rules or principles being superimposed
on the creative mind seems more likely to hinder than to help, but this
is quite untrue in practice. Disciplined thinking focuses inspiration
rather than blinkers it.

—G.L. Glegg, “The Design of Design”



One is not superior merely because one sees the world as odious.

—Chateaubriand (1768–1848)



Gift welches nicht gleich wirkt, ist darum kein minder gefährliches
Gift—es wirkt oft noch nach Jahren.

—Gotthold Ephraim Lessing



Life laughs loudly.

—Fumbling Planets (Joseph Courtney Empey et al.)



Mehr licht!

—Goethes letzte Worte



Weder Panikmache noch Verharmlosung nützen den Verbrauchern.

—EG Informationen 7/1992



No matter what they say,
no matter what they do,
it’s all up to you.

—Black Flag, “It’s All up to You”, from “In My Head”, 1985



If you believe in nothing you’ll believe in anything.

—G.K. Chesterton



When such a critic says, for instance, that faith kept the world in
darkness until doubt led to enlightenment, he is himself taking things
on faith, things that he has never been sufficiently enlightened to
doubt. That exceedingly crude simplification of human history is what
he has been taught, and he believes it because he has been taught. I
do not blame him for that; I merely remark that he is an unconscious
example of everything that he reviles.

—G.K. Chesterton, Feb. 13, 1926



… we have a suffocating sense of luxury and no sense at all of
liberty. All the pleasure-hunters seem to be themselves hunted. All the
children of fortune seem to be chained to the wheel. There is very little
that really even pretends to be happiness in all this sort of harassed
hedonism.

—G.K. Chesterton, April 28, 1928



Believe me, it is not failing to speak out with promptitude and energy
that is the matter with you; it is having nothing consistent or valuable
to say.

—Matthew Arnold, quoted by G.K. Chesterton



It is the beginning of all true criticism of our time to realize that
it has really nothing to say, at the very moment when it has invented
so tremendous a trumpet for saying it.

—G.K. Chesterton



There is nothing with which every man is so afraid as getting to know
how enormously much he is capable of doing and becoming.

—Søren Kierkegaard



When we talk of civilization, we are too apt to limit the meaning of
the word to its mere embellishments, such as arts and sciences; but the
true distinction between it and barbarism is, that the one presents a
state of society under the protection of just and well-administered law,
and the other is left to the chance government of brute force.

—James White, _Eighteen Christian Centuries_, 1889



I believe that under the New Deal our government is swinging too far
to the left, and in doing this they are in reality changing our form
of government from a democracy and leading it toward a totalitarian
state. I believe that it is necessary for the country to continue to
take care of its dependents, particularly the aged, but that it should
use every possible means of making people self-sustaining, rather than
to be dependent wards of the government.

—Franklin S. Harris, Senate campaign



You see, I consider that a man’s brain originally is like a little
empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose.
A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort he comes across, so that
the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best
is jumbled up with a lot of other things, so that he has difficulty in
laying his hands upon it. Now the skilful workman is very careful indeed
as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the
tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large
assortment, and all in the most perfect order. It is a mistake to think
that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent.
Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you
forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance,
therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones.

—Arthur Conan Doyle, “A Study in Scarlet”



There are two kinds of people who never amount to much: those who cannot
do what they are told, and those who can do nothing else.

—Cyrus Curtis



We secure our friends not by accepting favors but by doing them.

—Thucydides



Like all those possessing a library, Aurelian was aware that he was
guilty of not knowing his in its entirety.

—Jorge Luis Borges, _The Theologians_



The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings;
the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of misery.

—Winston Churchill



Everyone’s got it in him, if he’ll only make up his mind and stick at
it. None of us is born with a stop-valve on his powers or with a set
limit to his capacities, There’s no limit possible to the expansion of
each one of us.

—Charles Schwab



I have yet to find the man, however exalted his station, who did not do
better work and put forth greater effort under a spirit of approval than
under a spirit of criticism.

—Charles Schwab



The man who does not work for the love of work but only for money is
not likely to make money nor find much fun in life.

—Charles Schwab



Nothing is so much calculated to lead people to forsake sin as to take
them by the hand, and watch over them with tenderness. When persons
manifest the least kindness and love to me, O what power it has over
my mind. While the opposite course has a tendency to harrow up all the
harsh feelings and depress the human mind.

—Joseph Smith, _Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith_, 240



The job is almost finished, the goal almost attained, everything
possible seems to have been achieved, every difficulty overcome — and
yet the quality is just not there. The work needs more finish, perhaps
further research. In that moment of weariness and self—satisfaction,
the temptation is greatest to give up, not to strive for the peak of
quality. That’s the realm of the last inch — here the work is very,
very complex but it’s also particularly valuable because it’s done
with the most perfect means. The rule of the last inch is simply this
— not to leave it undone. And not to put it off — because otherwise
your mind loses touch with that realm. And not to mind how much time
you spend on it, because the aim is not to finish the job quickly but
to reach perfection.

—Alexander Solzhenitsyn, _The First Circle_



An expert is a person who avoids the small errors while sweeping on to
the grand fallacy.

—Weinberg’s Principle



I bear personal witness this day of a personal, living God, who knows
our names, hears and answers our prayers, and cherishes us eternally as
children of His spirit. I testify that amidst the wondrously complex
tasks inherent in the universe, He seeks our individual happiness and
safety above all other godly concerns.

—Jeffrey R. Holland, November 2003



The eagle never lost so much time, as when he submitted to learn of
the crow.

—William Blake



Why don’t somebody print the truth about our present economic condition?
We spent years of wild buying on credit, everything under the sun, whether
we needed it or not, and now we are having to pay for it, howling like
a pet coon. This would be a great world to dance in if we didn’t have
to pay the fiddler.

—Will Rogers



The plural of anecdote is not data.

—Roger Brinner



When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one
by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.

—Edmund Burke



Nothing is so often irretrievably missed as a daily opportunity.

—Ebner-Eschenbach



Whether weary or unweary, O man, do not rest,
Do not cease your single-handed struggle.
Go on, do not rest.

—An old Gujarati hymn



All truly wise thoughts have been thought already thousands of times;
but to make them truly ours, we must think them over again honestly,
till they take root in our personal experience.

—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832)



The most important service rendered by the press and the magazines is
that of educating people to approach printed matter with distrust.

—Samuel Butler (1612–1680)



Have any of you fellows ever been to Lobos? Just as well; there’s not a
town in the provinces that’s not just like all the others—even to the
point of thinking it’s different.

—Jorge Luis Borges, “The Night of the Gifts”, from _Collected Fictions_,
tr. Andrew Hurley



The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every
class is unfit to govern.

—Lord Acton



If a nation expects to be ignorant & free, in a state of civilisation, it expects what never was & never will be.

—Thomas Jefferson, 6 January 1816 letter to Charles Yancey



We only acknowledge small faults in order to make it appear that we are
free from great ones.

—La Rouchefoucauld



As to my Domestic Circumstances, of which you kindly desire to hear
something, they are at present as happy as I could wish them. I am
surrounded by my Offspring, a Dutiful and Affectionate Daughter in
my House, with Six Grandchildren, the eldest of which you have seen,
who is now at a College in the next Street, finishing the learned
Part of his Education; the others promising, both for Parts and good
Dispositions. What their Conduct may be, when they grow up and enter
the important Scenes of Life, I shall not live to _see_, and I cannot
_foresee_. I therefore enjoy among them the present Hour, and leave the
future to Providence.
    He that raises a large Family does, indeed, while he lives to
observe them, _stand_, as Watts says, _a broader Mark for Sorrow_;
but then he stands a broader Mark for Pleasure too. When we launch our
little Fleet of Barques into the Ocean, bound to different Ports, we
hope for each a prosperous Voyage; but contrary Winds, hidden Shoals,
Storms, and Enemies come in for a Share in the Disposition of Events;
and though these occasion a Mixture of Disappointment, yet, considering
the Risque where we can make no Insurance, we should think ourselves
happy if some return with Success.

—Benjamin Franklin, letter to Jonathan Shipley, from Philadelphia,
24 February 1786



Wouldst thou enjoy a long Life, a healthy Body, and a vigorous Mind,
and be acquainted also with the wonderful Works of God? labour in the
first place to bring thy Appetite into Subjection to Reason.

—Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1742



Everything in the gospel teaches us that we can change if we need to,
that we can be helped if we truly want it, that we can be made whole,
whatever the problems of the past.

—Jeffrey R. Holland, _Ensign_, Nov. 1997, 66



Too many people are thinking of security instead of opportunity.
They seem more afraid of life than death.

—James F. Byrnes



Being on the tightrope is living; everything else is waiting.

—Karl Wallenda



Blessed is the man who having nothing to say abstains from giving wordy
evidence of the fact.

—George Eliot



A witty saying proves nothing.

—Voltaire



As soon as we started programming, we found to our surprise that it
wasn’t as easy to get programs right as we had thought. Debugging had
to be discovered. I can remember the exact instant when I realized that
a large part of my life from then on was going to be spent in finding
mistakes in my own programs.

—Maurice Wilkes, designer of EDSAC, on programming, 1949



We should realize that a city is better off with bad laws, so long as they
remain fixed, then with good laws that are constantly being altered, that
the lack of learning combined with sound common sense is more helpful than
the kind of cleverness that gets out of hand, and that as a general rule,
states are better governed by the man in the street than by intellectuals.
These are the sort of people who want to appear wiser than the laws,
who want to get their own way in every general discussion, because they
feel that they cannot show off their intelligence in matters of greater
importance, and who, as a result, very often bring ruin on their country.

—Cleon, Thucydides, III, 37; translation by Rex Warner



After the game the king and the pawn go in the same box.

—Italian proverb



Ideas rot if you don’t do something with them. I used to try to
hoard them, but they rotted. Now I just blog them or tell people about
them. Sometimes they still rot, but sometimes someone finds them useful
in one way or another.

—Edd Dumbill, quoted by Cory Doctorow from Danny O’Brien’s “NotCon Recap
of Life Hacks”, Imperial College, London, at http://craphound.com/lifehacks2.txt



The mark of an immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause,
while the mark of a mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one.

—William Stekel



There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct,
or more uncertain in its success than to take the lead in the introduction
of a new order of things, because the innovator has for enemies all those
who have done well under the old condition, and lukewarm defenders in
those who may do well under the new.

—Niccolò Machiavelli (1513)



Each problem that I solved became a rule which served afterwards to solve
other problems.

—Rene Descartes (1596–1650)



Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later.

—Fred Brooks, _The Mythical Man-Month_



My observation is that whenever one person is found adequate to the
discharge of a duty by close application thereto, it is worse executed
by two persons and scarcely done at all if three or more are employed
therein.

—George Washington



Not everything that can be counted counts; and not everything that counts
can be counted.

—Albert Einstein



“The best thing for being sad,” replied Merlin, beginning to puff and
blow, “is to learn something. That’s the only thing that never fails. You
may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night
listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love,
you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your
honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for
it then — to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is
the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never
be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting.
Learning is the only thing for you. Look what a lot of things there are
to learn.”

—T.H. White, _The Once and Future King_



The chief danger in life is that you may take too many precautions.

—Alfred Adler



To those accustomed to the precise, structured methods of conventional
system development, exploratory development techniques may seem messy,
inelegant, and unsatisfying. But it’s a question of congruence:
precision and flexibility may be just as dysfunctional in novel,
uncertain situations as sloppiness and vacillation are in familiar,
well-defined ones. Those who admire the massive, rigid bone structures
of dinosaurs should remember that jellyfish still enjoy their very secure
ecological niche.

—Beau Sheil, “Power Tools for Programmers”



You shall judge of a man by his foes as well as by his friends.

—Joseph Conrad



Virtue would go far if vanity did not keep it company.

—La Rochefoucauld



To preserve [the] independence [of the people,] we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude. If we run into such debts as that we must be taxed in our meat and in our drink, in our necessaries and our comforts, in our labors and our amusements, for our callings and our creeds, as the people of England are, our people, like them, must come to labor sixteen hours in the twenty-four, give the earnings of fifteen of these to the government for their debts and daily expenses, and the sixteenth being insufficient to afford us bread, we must live, as they now do, on oatmeal and potatoes, have no time to think, no means of calling the mismanagers to account, but be glad to obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves to rivet their chains on the necks of our fellow-sufferers.

—Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Kercheval, 1816. ME 15:39



The majority of pacifists either belong to obscure religious sects or are
simply humanitarians who object to taking life and prefer not to follow
their thoughts beyond that point. But there is a minority of intellectual
pacifists, whose real though unacknowledged motive appears to be hatred of
western democracy and admiration for totalitarianism. Pacifist propaganda
usually boils down to saying that one side is as bad as the other, but if
one looks closely at the writing of the younger intellectual pacifists,
one finds that they do not by any means express impartial disapproval
but are directed almost entirely against Britain and the United States …

—George Orwell, _Notes on Nationalism_, May 1945



Q: You’re clearly the leader of the Linux movement, but what does that
mean? How do you lead? Are you a benevolent dictator, as some have
called you?

A: To be honest, the fact that people trust you gives you a lot of power
over people. Having another person’s trust is more powerful than all other
management techniques put together. I have no legal or explicit power. I
only have the power of having people’s trust — but that’s a lot of power.

I am a dictator, but it’s the right kind of dictatorship. I can’t really
do anything that screws people over. The benevolence is built in. I can’t
be nasty. If my baser instincts took hold, they wouldn’t trust me, and
they wouldn’t work with me anymore. I’m not so much a leader, I’m more
of a shepherd. Now all the kernel developers will read that and say,
“He’s comparing us to sheep.” It’s more like herding cats.

—Linus Torvalds, in an interview with Steve Hamm, BusinessWeek online,
August 18, 2004



If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide
the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and
endless sea.

—Antoine-Marie-Roger de Saint-Exupery



Computer Science is the only discipline in which we view adding a new wing
to a building as being maintenance.

—Jim Horning



If a man has a strong faith he can indulge in the luxury of skepticism.

—Friedrich Nietzsche



Value your freedom, or you will lose it, teaches history. “Don’t bother us
with politics,” respond those who don’t want to learn.

—Richard M. Stallman



Everything is vague to a degree you do not realize till you have tried to
make it precise.

—Bertrand Russell



The sooner all the animals are extinct, the sooner we’ll find their money.

—Ed Bluestone



A “No” uttered from deepest conviction is better and greater than a
“Yes” merely uttered to please, or what is worse, to avoid trouble.

—Mahatma Ghandi



The marriage vow unites not just a woman and a man with each other; it
unites each of them with the community in a vow of sexual responsibility
toward all others. The whole community is married, realizes its essential
unity, in each of its marriages … What marriage offers — and what
fidelity is meant to protect — is the possibility of moments when
what we have chosen and what we desire are the same. Such a convergence
obviously cannot be continuous. No relationship can continue very long
at its highest emotional pitch. But fidelity prepares us for the return
of these moments, which gives us the highest joy we can know: that of
union, communion, atonement (in the root sense of at-one-ment).

—Wendell Berry, _The Unsettling of America_, 1977, p. 122



It is easier to fight for one’s principles than to live up to them.

—Alfred Adler



We all declare for liberty, but in using the same word we do not all mean
the same thing.

—Abraham Lincoln



Some never participate. Life happens to them. They get by on little more than
dumb persistence and resist with anger or violence all things that might lift
them out of resentment-filled illusions of security.

—Alma Mavis Taraza



I’ve spent almost all of my life with highly intelligent men. They’re not
like other men. Their spirit is great and stimulating. They hate strife;
indeed they reject it. Their inventive gifts are boundless. They demand
devotion and obedience. And a sense of humor. I happily gave all of this.
I was lucky to be chosen and clever enough to understand them.

—Marlene Dietrich, on her friendship with Ernest Hemingway



Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by
the President or any other public official.

—Theodore Roosevelt



It is easier to make a saint out of a libertine than out of a prig.

—George Santayana



It sometimes seems that we live as if we wondered when life was going
to begin. It isn’t always clear just what we are waiting for, but some
of us sometimes persist in waiting so long that life slips by—finding
us still waiting for something that has been going on all the time.

There are fathers waiting for a better time to become acquainted with
their sons—perhaps until other obligations are less demanding. But
one of these days these sons are going to be grown and gone, and the
best years for knowing them, for enjoying them, for teaching, and
for understanding them, may also be gone. There are mothers who at
their earliest convenience sincerely intend to become closer to their
daughters—who are going to be more companionable. But time passes,
distance widens, and children grow up and away. There are old friends
who are going to enjoy each other a little more—but the years move on.
There are husbands and wives who are going to be more understanding,
more considerate. But time alone does not draw people closer. There are
men who are going to give up bad habits; there are people who are going
to eat more wisely; there are those who are going to live within their
means—sometime soon. There are those who are going to take more interest
in their government, be more active in service and civic activities. But
when?

There is no reason to doubt all such good intentions—but when in the
world are we going to begin to live as if we understood that this is
life? This is our time, our day, our generation. Heaven and the hereafter
will have its own opportunities and obligations. This is the life in
which the work of this life is to be done. Today is as much a part of
eternity as was any day a thousand years ago or as will be any day a
thousand years hence. This is it—whether we are thrilled or disappointed,
busy or bored! This is life—and it is passing. What are we waiting for?

—Richard L. Evans, Oct. 12, 1947, in Lloyd D. Newell, comp.,
_Messages from Music and the Spoken Word_ (2003), 60–61



My method is to look at something that seems like a good idea and assume
it’s true.

—Bill Joy



Most people never fulfill their human promise and potential because
they remain perpetually helpless children overwhelmed by a sense of
inferiority. The feeling of being okay does not imply that the person
has risen above all his faults and emotional problems. It merely implies
that he refuses to be paralyzed by them. He is determined to accept
himself as he is but also to assume more and more control of his life.

—Thomas Harris



Her spirits wanted the solitude and silence which only numbers could give.

—Jane Austen, _Persuasion_, CRW Publishing (Barnes & Noble Books), 2004, p. 109



… fancying herself stronger because her strength was not tried …

—Jane Austen, _Persuasion_, CRW Publishing (Barnes & Noble Books), 2004, p. 216



My father, a good man, told me, “Never lose your ignorance; you cannot
replace it.”

—Erich Maria Remarque



If everyone swept his own doorstep, what a clean world it would be.

—Goethe



As you submit your wills to God, you are giving Him the only thing you
can actually give Him that is really yours to give. Don’t wait too long
to find the altar or to begin to place the gift of your wills upon it!
No need to wait for a receipt; the Lord has His own special ways of
acknowledging.

—Neal A. Maxwell, “Remember How Merciful the Lord Hath Been,” Ensign, May 2004, p. 46



Reformation of the world begins with reformation of self. It is a
fundamental article of our faith that “we believe in being honest, true,
chaste, benevolent, [and] virtuous” (Articles of Faith 1:13).
    We cannot hope to influence others in the direction of virtue unless
we live lives of virtue. The example of our living will carry a greater
influence than will all the preaching in which we might indulge. We cannot
expect to lift others unless we stand on higher ground ourselves.

—Gordon B. Hinckley, “In Opposition to Evil,” Ensign, Sept. 2004, p. 4



To put the world in order, we must first put the nation in order; to put
the nation in order, we must first put the family in order; to put the
family in order, we must cultivate our personal life; and to cultivate our
personal life, we must first set our hearts right.

—Confucius



You may not even know today what it is that you need to grow in the future, but
if all of your resources are tied up in basic operations, there won’t be
anything extra to allow for innovation and experimentation. The ability to
adapt and innovate requires a “loose fit” — room for growing in a new way.
Rather than spend all its time and money fine-tuning an existing vehicle, for
example, an automobile manufacturer might also be designing another car on the
side: an innovative vehicle based on “feedforward.” Innovative design takes
time to evolve, but rest assured, in ten years the “perfect” vehicle of today
will be a thing of the past, and if you don’t have the new new thing, one of
your competitors will.

—William McDonough and Michael Braungart, _Cradle to Cradle: Remaking
the Way We Make Things_, North Point Press, 2002



It is a common delusion that you make things better by talking about them.

—Rose Macaulay



It is one thing to praise discipline, and another to submit to it.

—Cervantes



A cynic is a person searching for an honest man, with a stolen lantern.

—Edgar A. Shoaff



Most people exhibit what political scientists call “the conservatism of the
peasantry.” Don’t lose what you’ve got. Don’t change. Don’t take a chance,
because you might end up starving to death. Play it safe. Buy just as much
as you need. Don’t waste time.

When we think about risk, human beings and corporations realize in their
heads that risks are necessary to grow, to survive. But when it comes down
to keeping good people when the crunch comes, or investing money in
something untried, only the brave reach deep into their pockets and play
the game as it must be played.

—David Lammers, “Yakitori”, Electronic Engineering Times, January 18, 1988



What the future-predictors, the change-analysts, and trend-tenders
say in effect is that with the aid of institute resources, computers,
linear programming, etc. they will deal with the kinds of change that
are not the consequence of the Random Event, the Genius, the Maniac,
and the Prophet. To which I can only say: there really aren’t any;
not any worth looking at anyhow.

—Robert Nisbet, in “Commentary”, June 1968 (quoted in Gary North’s
“Reality Check” issue 435, April 5, 2005)



If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom;
and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money it values more, it
will lose that, too.

—W. Somerset Maugham



You and I as individuals can, by borrowing, live beyond our means, but
only for a limited period of time. Why should we think that collectively,
as a nation, we are not bound by that same limitation?

—Ronald Reagan



Signore Gaspare replied: “And what do you say about the game of chess?”

“That is certainly a refined and ingenious recreation,” said Federico,
“but it seems to me to possess one defect; namely, that it is possible
for it to demand too much knowledge, so that anyone who wishes to become
an outstanding player must, I think, give to it as much time and study
as he would to learning some noble science or performing well something
or other of importance; and yet for all his pains when all is said and
done all he knows is a game. Therefore as far as chess is concerned
we reach what is a very rare conclusion: that mediocrity is more to be
praised than excellence.”

—Baldesar Castiglione, “Etiquette for Renaissance Gentlemen,” 1528 A.D.



History has taught us: never underestimate the amount of money, time,
and effort someone will expend to thwart a security system. It’s always
better to assume the worst. Assume your adversaries are better than they
are. Assume science and technology will soon be able to do things they
cannot yet.

—Bruce Schneier



I don’t think it is enough appreciated how much an outdoor book the Bible
is. It is a “hypaethral book,” such as Thoreau talked about—a book open
to the sky. It is best read and understood outdoors, and the farther
outdoors the better. Or that has been my experience of it. Passages
that within walls seem improbable or incredible, outdoors seem merely
natural. This is because outdoors we are confronted everywhere with
wonders; we see that the miraculous is not extraordinary but the
common mode of existence. It is our daily bread. Whoever really has
considered the lilies of the field or the birds of the air and pondered
the improbability of their existence in this warm world within the cold
and empty stellar distances will hardly balk at the turning of water into
wine—which was, after all, a very small miracle. We forget the greater
and still continuing miracle by which water (with soil and sunlight)
is turned into grapes.

—Wendell Berry, “Christianity and the Survival of Creation”, in _Sex,
Economy, Freedom & Community_ (1993), p. 103



You do not examine legislation in the light of the benefits it will
convey if properly administered, but in the light of the wrongs it would
do and the harms it would cause if improperly administered.

—Lyndon Johnson



We reject kings, presidents, and voting. We believe in rough consensus
and running code.

—Dave Clark, IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force), 1982



Faith is the exceedingness of the possible over the real.

—William James



Faith is reason grown courageous.

—Wilfred Grenfell



The best way to predict the future is to invent it.

—Alan Kay, in a 1971 meeting at Xerox PARC



The sexuality of community life, whatever its inevitable vagaries,
is centered on marriage, which joins two living souls as closely as,
in this world, they can be joined. This joining of two who know, love,
and trust one another brings them in the same breath into the freedom
of sexual consent and into the fullest earthly realization of the image
of God. From their joining, other living souls come into being, and with
them great responsibilities that are unending, fearful, and joyful. The
marriage of two lovers joins them to one another, to forebears, to
descendants, to the community, to Heaven and earth. It is the fundamental
connection without which nothing holds, and trust is its necessity.
    Our present sexual conduct, on the other hand, having “liberated”
itself from the several trusts of community life, is public, like our
present economy. It has forsaken trust, for it rests on the easy giving
and breaking of promises. And having forsaken trust, it has predictably
become political. In private life, as in public, we are attempting to
correct bad character and low motives by law and by litigation. “Losing
kindness,” as Lao-tzu said, “they turn to justness.” The superstition of
the anger of our current sexual politics, as of other kinds of anger,
is that somewhere along the trajectory of any quarrel a tribunal will
be reached that will hear all complaints and find for the plaintiff;
the verdict will be that the defendant is entirely wrong, the plaintiff
entirely right and entirely righteous. This, of course, is not going
to happen. And because such “justice” cannot happen, litigation
only prolongs itself. The difficulty is that marriage, family life,
friendship, neighborhood, and other personal connections do not depend
exclusively or even primarily on justice—though, of course, they all
must try for it. They depend also on trust, patience, respect, mutual
help, forgiveness—in other words, the _practice_ of love, as opposed
to the mere _feeling_ of love.
    As soon as the parties to a marriage or a friendship begin to
require strict justice of each other, then that marriage or friendship
begins to be destroyed, for there is no way to adjudicate the competing
claims of a personal quarrel. And so these relationships do not dissolve
into litigation, really; they dissolve into a feud, an endless exchange
of accusations and retributions. If the two parties have not the grace
to forgive the inevitable offenses of close connection, the next best
thing is separation and silence. But why should separation have come
to be the virtually conventional outcome of close relationships in
our society? The proper question, perhaps, is not why we have so much
divorce, but why we are so unforgiving. The answer, perhaps, is that,
though we still recognize the feeling of love, we have forgotten how to
practice love when we don’t feel it.

—Wendell Berry, _Sex, Economy, Freedom & Community_ (1993), pp. 138–140



I know that for a century or so many artists and writers have felt it
was their duty—a mark of their honesty and courage—to offend their
audience. But if the artist has a duty to offend, does not the audience
therefore have a duty to be offended? If the public has a duty to protect
speech that is offensive to the community, does not the community have
the duty to respond, to be offended, and so defend itself against the
offense? A community, as a part of a public, has no right to silence
publicly protected speech, but it certainly has a right not to listen
and to refuse its patronage to speech that it finds offensive. It is
remarkable, however, that many writers and artists appear to be unable
to accept this obvious and necessary limitation on their public freedom;
they seem to think that freedom entitles them not only to be offensive but
also to be approved and subsidized by the people whom they have offended.

—Wendell Berry, _Sex, Economy, Freedom & Community_ (1993), p. 156



[A]ll of us who defend the freedom of speech … are trusting—and
not comfortably—that people who come under the influence of our modern
public arts will yet somehow remain under the influence of Moses and
Jesus. I don’t see how anyone can extend this trust without opposing in
every way short of suppression the abuses and insults that are protected
by it. The more a society comes to be divided in its assumptions and
values, the more necessary public freedom becomes. But the more necessary
public freedom becomes, the more necessary community responsibility
becomes. This connection is unrelenting. And we should not forget that
the finest works of art make a community of sorts of their audience. They
do not divide people or justify or flatter their divisions; they define
our commonwealth, and they enlarge it.

—Wendell Berry, _Sex, Economy, Freedom & Community_ (1993), pp. 160–161



[A] community makes itself up in more intimate circumstances than a
public. And the health of a community depends absolutely on trust. A
community knows itself and knows its place in a way that is impossible
for a public (a nation, say, or a state). A community does not come
together by a covenant, by a conscientious granting of trust. It
exists by proximity, by neighborhood; it knows face to face, and it
trusts as it knows. It learns, in the course of time and experience,
what and who can be trusted. It knows that some of its members are
untrustworthy, and it can be tolerant, because to know in this matter
is to be safe. A community member can be trusted to be untrustworthy
and so can be included. (A community can trust its liars to be liars,
for example, and so enjoy them.) But if a community withholds trust,
it withholds membership. If it cannot trust, it cannot exist.

—Wendell Berry, _Sex, Economy, Freedom & Community_ (1993), pp. 161–162



You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something,
sometime in your life.

—Winston Churchill



… one of the most striking features of recent discussions in the history
and philosophy of science is the realization that events and developments
… occurred only because some thinkers either decided not to be bound
by certain “obvious” methodological rules, or because they unwittingly
broke them.
    This liberal practice, I repeat, is not just a fact of the history of
science. It is both reasonable and absolutely necessary for the growth
of knowledge. More specifically, one can show the following: given
any rule, however “fundamental” or “necessary” for science, there are
always circumstances when it is advisable not only to ignore the rule,
but to adopt its opposite.

—Paul Feyerabend



The distance is commonly very great between actual performances and
speculative possibility. It is natural to suppose that as much as has
been done today may be done tomorrow: but on the morrow some difficulty
emerges, or some external impediment obstructs. Indolence, interruption,
business, and pleasure, all take their turns of retardation; and every
long work is lengthened by a thousand causes that can, and ten thousand
causes that cannot, be recounted. Perhaps no extensive and multifarious
performance was ever effected within the term originally fixed in the
undertaker’s mind. He that runs against Time has an antagonist not
subject to casualties.

—Samuel Johnson (Gibbon’s _Miscellaneous Works_)



Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.

—Philip K. Dick



Government is the only enterprise in the world which expends in size
when its failures increase.

—Janice Brown



Truth can never be told so as to be understood, and not be believed.

—William Blake



I am opposed to free education as much as I am opposed to taking property
from one man and giving it to another… Would I encourage free schools
by taxation? No!

—Brigham Young, _Journal of Discourses_ 18:357



The map is not the territory.

—Alfred Korzybski



Liberty has never come from the government. Liberty has always come from
the subjects of government. The history of liberty is the history of
resistance. The history of liberty is a history of the limitation of
governmental power, not the increase of it.

—Woodrow Wilson



The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield, and government to gain ground.

—Thomas Jefferson, letter to Edward Carrington, Paris, May 27, 1788



Throughout history it has been the inaction of those who could have
acted, the indifference of those who should have known better, the
silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most, that has made it
possible for evil to triumph.

—Haile Selassie



Whenever legislators endeavor to take away and destroy the property of
the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they
put themselves into a state of war with the people, who are thereupon
absolved from any further obedience.

—John Locke



An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor
does truth become error because nobody sees it.

—Mohandas Gandhi



Contemplate the mangled bodies of your countrymen, and then say, “What
should be the reward of such sacrifices?” Bid us and our posterity bow
the knee, supplicate the friendship, and plough, and sow, and reap,
to glut the avarice of the men who have let loose on us the dogs of
war to riot in our blood and hunt us from the face of the earth? If
ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than
the animating contest of freedom, go from us in peace. We ask not your
counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May
your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were
our countrymen!

—Samuel Adams



If the citizens neglect their duty and place unprincipled men in office,
the government will soon be corrupted, laws will be made, not for
the public good so much as for selfish or local purposes. Corrupt or
incompetent men will be appointed to execute the laws, the public
revenues will be squandered on unworthy men and the rights of the
citizens will be violated or disregarded.

—Noah Webster



Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are
men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without
thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its
waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one;
or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle! Power
concedes nothing without a demand. It never did, and it never will.
Find out just what people will submit to, and you have found out the
exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and
these will continue until they are resisted with either words or blows,
or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of
those whom they oppress.

—Frederick Douglass



So long as the people do not care to exercise their freedom, those who
wish to tyrannize will do so; for tyrants are active and ardent, and
will devote themselves in the name of any number of gods, religious and
otherwise, to put shackles upon sleeping men.

—Voltaire



The price of apathy towards public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.

—Plato



Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government
owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people.
To destroy this invisible government, to befoul the unholy alliance
between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the
statesmanship of the day.

—Theodore Roosevelt, April 19, 1906



Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of
authority. It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made
to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are
men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They
promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters.

—Noah Webster



Our government has kept us in a perpetual state of fear, kept us in a
continuous stampede of patriotic fervour, with the cry of grave national
emergency. Always, there has been some terrible evil at home, or some
monstrous foreign power that was going to gobble us up if we did not
blindly rally behind it.

—Douglas MacArthur



The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge
to rule. The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace
alarmed and thus clamorous to be led to safety by menacing it with an
endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

—H. L. Mencken



Posterity — you will never know how much it has cost my generation to
preserve your freedom. I hope you will make good use of it.

—John Quincy Adams



Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to
live at the expense of everybody else.

—Frederic Bastiat (1801–1850)



Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it, misdiagnosing
it, and then misapplying the wrong remedies.

—Groucho Marx



This will be the best security for maintaining our liberties. A nation
of well-informed men who have been taught to know and prize the rights
which God has given them cannot be enslaved. It is in the religion of
ignorance that tyranny begins.

—Ben Franklin



We must be prepared to make the same heroic sacrifices for the cause of
peace that we make ungrudgingly for the cause of war.

—Albert Einstein



Peace hath higher tests of Manhood than battle ever knew.

—John Greenleaf Whittier



Today we need a nation of Minutemen, who are not only prepared to take
arms, but citizens who regard the preservation of freedom as the basic
purpose of their daily lives, and who are willing to consciously work
and sacrifice for that freedom.

—John Fitzgerald Kennedy



The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, or
preventing all possibility of its continuing as a nation at all, would
be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities.

—Theodore Roosevelt



They accomplished a revolution which has no parallel in the annals
of human society. They reared the fabrics of governments which have
no model on the face of the globe. They formed the design of a great
Confederacy, which it is incumbent on their successors to improve and
perpetuate.

—James Madison, Federalist No. 14



[W]ho are “the Country”? … Each of you, for himself, by himself and
on his own responsibility, must speak. And it is a solemn and weight
responsibility, and not lightly to be flung aside at the bullying of
pulpit, press, government, or the empty catch-phrases of politicians.
Each man must for himself alone decide what is right and what is wrong,
which course is patriotic and which isn’t. You cannot shirk this and be
a man. To decide against your conviction is to be an unqualified and
inexcusable traitor, both to yourself and to your country, let men label
you as they may.

—Mark Twain, “Papers of the Adam Family”



The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their
neutrality in times of moral crisis.

—Dante Alighieri



Truth is not determined by majority vote.

—Doug Gwyn



No freeman shall be debarred the use of arms.

—Thomas Jefferson, draft of the Virginia Constitution



Firearms stand next in importance to the Constitution itself. They are
the American people’s liberty teeth and keystone under independence.
To secure peace, securely and happiness, the rifle and the pistol are
equally indispensable. The very atmosphere of firearms everywhere
restrains evil interference - they deserve a place of honor with all
that is good.

—George Washington



Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they
are in almost every kingdom of Europe. The supreme power in America
cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the
people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular
troops that can be, on any pretence, raised in the United States.

—Noah Webster



In truth, a state that deprives its law-abiding citizens of the means
to effectively defend themselves is not civilized but Barbarous, being
an Accomplice of murderers, rapists, and thugs; and revealing its
Totalitarian Plans, by its tacit admission that the disorganized, random
havoc created by criminals is far less a threat than are men and women
who believe themselves free and independent, and act accordingly.

—Jeffrey Snyder, “Nation of Cowards”



The Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions.

—Daniel Webster (1782–1852), US Senator



If men are so wicked with religion, what would they be if without it?

—Benjamin Franklin



If you think of yourselves as helpless and ineffectual, it is certain
that you will create a despotic government to be your master. The wise
despot, therefore, maintains among his subjects a popular sense that
they are helpless and ineffectual.

—Frank Herbert



The government is like a baby’s alimentary canal, with a happy appetite
at one end and no responsibility at the other.

—Ronald Reagan



Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views beyond the
comprehension of the weak; and that it is doing God’s service when it is
violating all his laws.

—John Adams



It is the manners and spirit of a People which preserve a Republic in vigor. A degeneracy in these is a canker which soon eats to the heart of its Laws and Constitution.

—Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the state of Virginia, Query XIX



It is also in the interests of a tyrant to keep his people poor, so that
they may not be able to afford the cost of protecting themselves by arms
and be so occupied with their daily tasks that they have no time for
rebellion.

—Aristotle



If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because
he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears,
however measured or far away.

—Henry David Thoreau



The doctrine of blind obedience and unqualified submission to any human
power, whether civil or ecclesiastical, is the doctrine of despotism,
and ought to have no place among Republicans and Christians.

—Angelica Grimke, 1805–1879, “Anti-Slavery Examiner”, September 1836



Our Founding Fathers designed our system of government in the form of
a constitutionally limited republic with minimum government control
or interference into our personal lives and business affairs. They
didn’t have in mind some gigantic federal bureaucracy with all this
power and control regulating our lives and our businesses. They had in
mind a federal government that would abide by the Tenth Amendment. It
was small, it had limited powers, it took care of national events, and
it defended our borders. It maintained the army and issued national
currency. And all the rest of the rights and responsibilities, they
said, belonged to the states and the people.

—David Alan Black



An unlimited power to tax involves, necessarily, a power to destroy;
because there is a limit beyond which no institution and no property can
bear taxation.

—John Marshall



XXX



They could be made to accept the most flagrant violations of reality,
because they never fully grasped the enormity of what was demanded of
them, and were not sufficiently interested in public events to notice
what was happening. Political language is designed to make lies sound
truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity
to pure wind.

—George Orwell, “Politics and the English Language,” 1946



The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the
active, the brave.

—Patrick Henry



Men of energy of character must have enemies; because there are two sides to every question, and taking one with decision, and acting on it with effect, those who take the other will of course be hostile in proportion as they feel that effect.

—Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, 1817



Mourn not the dead that in the cool earth lie, but rather mourn the
apathetic, the coward and the meek who see the world’s great anguish and
its wrong, and dare not speak.

—Ralph Chaplin



Remember officers and Soldiers, that you are Freemen, fighting for the
blessings of Liberty — that slavery will be your portion, and that of
your posterity, if you do not acquit yourselves like men.

—George Washington



[W]henever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends
(of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness), it is the Right of
the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government,
laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in
such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and
Happiness …

—Declaration of Independence of the American Colonies, 1776



These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the
sunshine patriot will in this crisis shrink from the service of his
country; but he that stands it NOW, deserves the love and thanks of man
and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this
consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the
triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly; ’tis dearness
only that gives everything its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper
price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed, if so celestial
and article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated.

—Thomas Paine



Men wiser and more learned than I have discerned in history a plot,
a rhythm, a predetermined pattern. These harmonies are concealed from
me. I can see only one emergency following upon another … and only one
safe rule for the historian: that he should recognize in the development
of human destinies the play of the contingent and the unforeseen … The
ground gained by one generation may be lost by the next.

—H.A.L. Fisher, 1935 book



Genuine politics — politics worthy of the name, and the only politics
I am willing to devote myself to — is simply a matter of serving those
around us: serving the community, and serving those who will come
after us. Its deepest roots are moral because it is a responsibility,
expressed through action, to and for the whole, a responsibility that
is what it is — a “higher” responsibility — only because it has
a metaphysical grounding: that is, it grows out of a conscious or
subconscious certainty that our death ends nothing, because everything
is forever being recorded and evaluated somewhere else, somewhere
“above us”, in what I have called “the memory of Being” — an integral
aspect of the secret order of the cosmos, of nature, and of life, which
believers call God and to whose judgement everything is subject. Genuine
conscience and genuine responsibility are always, in the end, explicable
only as an expression of the silent assumption that we are observed
“from above”, that everything is visible, nothing is forgotten, and so
earthly time has no power to wipe away the sharp disappointments of
earthly failure: our spirit knows that it is not the only entity aware
of these failures.

—Václav Havel, _Summer Meditations_ (1993), p. 6



Of course, I don’t know whether directness, truth, and the democratic
spirit will succeed. But I do know how _not_ to succeed, which is by
choosing means that contradict the ends. As we know from history, that
is the best way to eliminate the very ends we set out to achieve.
    In other words, if there is to be any chance at all of success,
there is only one way to strive for decency, reason, responsibility,
sincerity, civility, and tolerance, and that is decently, reasonably,
responsibly, sincerely, civilly, and tolerantly. I’m aware that, in
everyday politics, this is not seen as the most practical way of going
about it. But I have one advantage: among my many bad qualities there
is one that happens to be missing — a longing or a love for power. Not
being bound by that, I am essentially freer than those who cling to
their power or position, and this allows me to indulge in the luxury of
behaving untactically.
    I see the only way forward in that old, familiar injunction: “live
in truth”.

—Václav Havel, _Summer Meditations_ (1993), p. 8



Despite the political distress I face every day, I am still deeply
convinced that politics is not essentially a disreputable business; and
to the extent that it is, it is only disreputable people who make it so.
I would concede that it can, more than other spheres of human activity,
tempt one to disreputable practices, and that it therefore places higher
demands on people. But it is simply not true that a politician must lie
or intrigue. That is utter nonsense, spread about by people who — for
whatever reasons — wish to discourage others from taking an interest in
public affairs.

—Václav Havel, _Summer Meditations_ (1993), p. 10



Of course, in politics, as elsewhere in life, it is impossible and
pointless to say everything, all at once, to just anyone. But that does
not mean having to lie. All you need is tact, the proper instincts, and
good taste. One surprising experience from “high politics” is this: I
have discovered that good taste is more useful here than a post-graduate
degree in political science. It is largely a matter of form: knowing how
long to speak, when to begin and when to finish; how to say something
politely that your opposite number may not want to hear; how to say,
always, what is most significant at a given moment, and not to speak of
what is not important or relevant; how to insist on your own position
without offending; how to create the kind of friendly atmosphere that
makes complex negotiations easier; how to keep a conversation going
without prying or being aloof; how to balance serious political themes
with lighter, more relaxing topics; how to plan your official journeys
judiciously and to know when it is more appropriate not to go somewhere,
when to be open and when reticent and to what degree.
    But more than that, it means having a certain instinct for the
time, the atmosphere of the time, the mood of the people, the nature
of their worries, their frame of mind — that too can perhaps be more
useful than sociological surveys. An education in political science,
law, economics, history, and culture is an invaluable asset to any
politician, but I have been persuaded, again and again, that it is not
the most essential asset. Qualities like fellow-feeling, the ability
to talk to others, insight, the capacity to grasp quickly not only
problems but also human character, the ability to make contact, a sense
of moderation: all these are immensely more important in politics.
I am not saying, heaven forbid, that I myself am endowed with these
qualities; not at all! These are merely my observations.

—Václav Havel, _Summer Meditations_ (1993), p. 10–11



[H]owever important it may be to get our economy back on its feet, it is
far from being the only task facing us. It is no less important to do
everything possible to improve the general cultural level of everyday
life. As the economy develops, this will happen anyway. But we cannot
depend on that alone. We must initiate a large-scale program for raising
general cultural standards. And it is not true that we have to wait
until we are rich to do this; we can begin at once, without a crown in
our pockets. No one can persuade me that it takes a better-paid nurse
to behave more considerately to a patient, that only an expensive house
can be pleasing, that only a wealthy merchant can be courteous to his
customers and display a handsome sign outside, that only a prosperous
farmer can treat his livestock well.
    … After all, is there anything that citizens — and this
is doubly true of politicians — should be more concerned about,
ultimately, than trying to make life more pleasant, more interesting,
more varied, and more bearable?

—Václav Havel, _Summer Meditations_ (1993), p. 15–16



If I talk here about my political — or, more precisely, my civil —
program, about my notion of the kind of politics and values and ideals
I wish to struggle for, this is not to say that I am entertaining the
naive hope that this struggle may one day be over. A heaven on earth
in which people all love each other and everyone is hard-working,
well-mannered, and virtuous, in which the land flourishes and everything
is sweetness and light, working harmoniously to the satisfaction
of God: this will never be. On the contrary, the world has had the
worst experiences with utopian thinkers who promised all that. Evil
will remain with us, no one will ever eliminate human suffering,
the political arena will always attract irresponsible and ambitious
adventurers and charlatans. And man will not stop destroying the world.
In this regard, I have no illusions.
    Neither I nor anyone else will ever win this war once and for all.
At the very most, we can win a battle or two — and not even that is
certain. Yet I still think it makes sense to wage this war persistently.
It has been waged for centuries, and it will continue to be waged — we
hope — for centuries to come. This must be done on principle, because
it is the right thing to do. Or, if you like, because God wants it that
way. It is an eternal, never-ending struggle waged not just by good
people (among whom I count myself, more or less) against evil people,
by honourable people against dishonourable people, by people who think
about the world and eternity against people who think only of themselves
and the moment. It takes place inside everyone. It is what makes a
person a person, and life, life.
    So anyone who claims that I am a dreamer who expects to transform
hell into heaven is wrong. I have few illusions. But I feel a
responsibility to work towards the things I consider good and right. I
don’t know whether I’ll be able to change certain things for the better,
or not at all. Both outcomes are possible. There is only one thing I
will not concede: that it might be meaningless to strive in a good
cause.

—Václav Havel, _Summer Meditations_ (1993), p. 16–17



The law and other democratic institutions ensure little if they are
not backed up by the willingness and courage of decent people to guard
against their abuse.

—Václav Havel, _Summer Meditations_ (1993), p. 19



Building an intellectual and spiritual state — a state based on ideas
— does not mean building an ideological state. Indeed, an ideological
state cannot be intellectual or spiritual. A state based on ideas is
precisely the opposite: it is meant to extricate human beings from the
straitjacket of ideological interpretations, and to rehabilitate them
as subjects of individual conscience, of individual thinking backed up
by experience, of individual responsibility, and with a love for their
neighbors that is anything but abstract.

—Václav Havel, _Summer Meditations_ (1993), p. 128



We have heard men who hold the priesthood remark that they would do
anything they were told to do by those who preside over them — even if
they knew it was wrong. But such obedience as this is worse than folly
to us. It is slavery in the extreme. The man who would thus willingly
degrade himself should not claim a rank among intelligent beings until
he turns from his folly.
    A man of God would despise this idea. Others, in the extreme
exercise of their almighty authority have taught that such obedience was
necessary, and that no matter what the Saints were told to do by their
presidents, they should do it without any questions.
    When Elders of Israel will so far indulge in these extreme notions
of obedience as to teach them to the people, it is generally because
they have it in their hearts to do wrong themselves.

—Joseph Smith, _Millennial Star_, vol. 14, number 38, p. 593–595



During my 87 years, I have witnessed a whole succession of technological
revolutions. But none of them has done away with the need for character
in the individual or the ability to think.

—Bernard Baruch



You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers.
You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions.

—Naguib Mahfouz



It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought
without accepting it.

—Aristotle



Holiness is the strength of the soul. It comes by faith and through
obedience to God’s laws and ordinances. God then purifies the heart
by faith, and the heart becomes purged from that which is profane and
unworthy. When holiness is achieved by conforming to God’s will, one
knows intuitively that which is wrong and that which is right before the
Lord. Holiness speaks when there is silence, encouraging that which is
good or reproving that which is wrong.

—James E. Faust, “Standing in Holy Places,” Ensign, May 2005, p. 62



As nightfall does not come all at once, neither does oppression. In
both instances, there is a twilight when everything remains seemingly
unchanged. And, it is in such twilight that we all must be aware of
change in the air, however slight, lest we become unwitting victims of
the darkness.

—William O. Douglas, U.S. Supreme Court Justice (1939–1975)



Oh, the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a
person; having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but to pour
them all out, just as they are, chaff and grain together, knowing that a
faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and
then, with a breath of kindness, blow the rest away.

—George Eliot



If I esteem mankind to be in error, shall I bear them down? No. I will
lift them up, and in their own way too, if I cannot persuade them my way
is better; and I will not seek to compel any man to believe as I do,
only by the force of reasoning, for truth will cut its own way.

—Joseph Smith, _Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith_, pp. 313–314



Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what
nobody else has thought.

—Albert von Szent-Gyorgyi



That I may bring the matter before our minds at once, I will repeat part
of the “Mormon Creed,” viz., “Let every man mind his own business.” If
this is observed, every man will have business sufficient on hand, so as
not to afford time to trouble himself with the business of other people.
You can now comprehend the whole discourse by the nature of the text.

While brother Erastus Snow was speaking, he made use of weedy gardens
as a comparison, to apply to those who complained of other people’s
gardens, while their own were neglected. I will refer to the same idea.
There are plenty of evils about our neighbors; this no person will
pretend to deny; but there is no man or woman on the earth, Saint or
sinner, but what has plenty to do to watch the little evils that cling
to human nature, and weed their own gardens. We are made subject to
vanity, and it is right. We are made subject to the powers of evil,
which is necessary to prove all things. We are apt to neglect our own
feelings, passions, and undertakings, or in other words, to neglect to
weed our own gardens, and while we are weeding our neighbor’s, before we
are aware, weeds will start up and kill the good seeds in our own. This
is the reason why we should most strictly attend to our own business.

—Brigham Young, “Organization and Development of Man”, February 6, 1853,
_Journal of Discourses_ 2:92–93.



All centralized systems mean the rule of the few; and educational
machinery is among the most centralized of all systems. If the modern
American really wants to know what his fathers meant by democracy,
he will never learn it in school. He must make the supreme and awful
sacrifice. He must get out and think.

—G.K. Chesterton



Employee satisfaction is entirely related to the respect and autonomy
employees are given. Over and over again, it has been found that you
cannot buy employee happiness, but you can earn it by treating people
with respect and giving employees the autonomy to make decisions.

—Seth Godin



Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge.

—Charles Darwin



How odd it is that anyone should not see that all observation must be
for or against some view.

—Charles Darwin, cited in Karl Popper, _Science: Problems, Aims,
Responsibilities_, p. 967



A little learning is a dang’rous thing.
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring.

—Alexander Pope, _An Essay on Criticism_



Then did Satan say: “How will I conquer this beleaguered one? He
possesses courage, ingenuity, resourcefulness, and tools of war.” And
then he said: “I’ll not rob his strength nor bridle him, nor rein him
in nor enervate his hand. But this I’ll do — blunt his mind, till he
forgets his cause is just.”

—Nathan Alterman



The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it.

—Flannery O’Connor



It’s hard enough to find an error in your code when you’re looking for
it; it’s even harder when you’ve assumed your code is error-free.

—Steve McConnell, _Code Complete_



The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the
intelligent are full of doubt.

—Bertrand Russell



A charlatan makes obscure what is clear; a thinker makes clear what is
obscure.

—Hugh Kingsmill



Unformed people delight in the gaudy and in novelty. Cooked people
delight in the ordinary.

—Erik Naggum



The process of preparing programs for a digital computer is especially
attractive, not only because it can be economically and scientifically
rewarding, but also because it can be an aesthetic experience much like
composing poetry or music.

—Donald Knuth



You’re bound to be unhappy if you optimize everything.

—Donald Knuth



Some problems are so complex that you have to be highly intelligent and
well informed just to be undecided about them.

—Laurence J. Peter



Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

—George Santayana



For a successful technology, honesty must take precedence over public
relations, for nature cannot be fooled.

—Richard P. Feynman, “Personal observations on the reliability of the Shuttle”



A most important, but also most elusive, aspect of any tool is its
influence on the habits of those who train themselves in its use. If the
tool is a programming language this influence is, whether we like it or
not, an influence on our thinking habits.

—Edsger Dijkstra



Increasingly, people seem to misinterpret complexity as sophistication,
which is baffling—-the incomprehensible should cause suspicion rather
than admiration. Possibly this trend results from a mistaken belief that
using a somewhat mysterious device confers an aura of power on the user.

—Niklaus Wirth



There’s no sense in being precise when you don’t even know what you’re
talking about.

—John von Neumann



There are two ways of constructing a software design. One way is to make
it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies. And the other way
is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies.

—C.A.R. Hoare



Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit
there.

—Will Rogers



Incompetents invariably make trouble for people other than themselves.

—Larry McMurtry



Simplicity is prerequisite for reliability.

—Edsger W. Dijkstra



There is nothing more difficult to carry out, nor more doubtful of
success, nor more dangerous to handle, than to initiate a new order of
things. For the reformer has enemies in all those who profit by the old
order, and only lukewarm defenders in all those who would profit by the
new …

—Niccolo Macchiavelli, _The Prince_



The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to
change; the realist adjusts the sails.

—William Arthur Ward



Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad
judgement.

—Fred Brooks



Learning is not compulsory. Neither is survival.

—W. Edwards Deming



I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is
indispensable.

—Dwight Eisenhower



Hofstadter’s Law: It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter’s Law.

—Douglas Hofstadter, _Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid_, 1979



The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the
necessary may speak.

—Hans Hoffmann



Moving parts in rubbing contact require lubrication to avoid excessive
wear. Honorifics and formal politeness provide the lubrication where
people rub together. Often the very young, the untraveled, the naive,
the unsophisticated deplore these formalities as “empty,” “meaningless,”
or “dishonest,” and scorn to use them. No matter how “pure” their
motives, they thereby throw sand into machinery that does not work too
well at best.

—Robert A. Heinlein



If you can’t be a good example, then you’ll just have to be a horrible
warning.

—Catherine Aird



Alas, to wear the mantle of Galileo it is not enough that you be
persecuted by an unkind establishment, you must also be right.

—Bob Park



You can know the name of a bird in all the languages of the world, but
when you’re finished, you’ll know absolutely nothing whatever about the
bird … So let’s look at the bird and see what it’s doing — that’s what
counts. I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of
something and knowing something.

—Richard Feynman



Incorrect documentation is often worse than no documentation.

—Bertrand Meyer



Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place.
Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by
definition, not smart enough to debug it.

—Brian W. Kernighan



There are no solutions. There are only trade-offs.

—Thomas Sowell



The difference between where you are today and where you’ll be five
years from now will be found in the quality of books you’ve read.

—Jim Rohn



To avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing, be nothing.

—Elbert Hubbard



Steady movement is more important than speed, much of the time. So long
as there is a regular progression of stimuli to get your mental hooks
into, there is room for lateral movement. Once this begins, its rate is
a matter of discretion.

—Corwin, Prince of Amber



The complexity of software is an essential property, not an accidental
one. Hence, descriptions of a software entity that abstract away its
complexity often abstract away its essence.

—Fred Brooks, Jr.



Our lives are a fierce attempt to find an aspect of this world _not_
open to interpretation.

—David Mamet, _Kafka’s Grave_.



It is better for the development of character and contentment to do
certain things badly yourself than to have them done better for you by
someone else.

—Glover, Oxford University historian



Real change is instantaneous — deciding to change can take forever.

—Andy Grove



Chance favors the prepared mind.

—Louis Pasteur



… in questions of power then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the constitution.

—Thomas Jefferson, draft of Kentucky Resolutions of 1798



The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the
instruments of tyranny at home.

—James Madison



Doubt is a noble thing. … [D]o not think that when I speak as one who
knows with certainty that I do not also doubt; do not think, either,
that when I doubt I am not also sensing right beside me, close enough to
touch them, definite, indisputable things.

—Czeslaw Milosz



To deny, to believe, and to doubt absolutely — this is for man what
running is for a horse.

—Pascal



You do not examine legislation in the light of the benefits it will
convey if properly administered, but in the light of the wrongs it would
do and the harms it would cause if improperly administered.

—Lyndon B. Johnson



Talking much about oneself can also be a means to conceal oneself.

—Friedrich Nietzsche



Disco at its best is a neurological event, a shamanistic vehicle of
space-time travel.

—Camille Paglia, “Dancing as fast as she can”, Salon, December 2, 2005
http://dir.salon.com/story/ent/feature/2005/12/02/madonna/index.html



Im Nächsten Frühjahr sollte ich das Gymnasium verlassen und studieren
gehen, ich wußte noch nicht wo und was. Auf meinen Lippen wuchs ein
kleiner Bart, ich war ein ausgewachsener Mensch, und doch vollkommen
hilflos und ohne Ziele. Fest war nur eines: die Stimme in mir, das
Traumbild. Ich fühlte die Aufgabe, dieser Führung blind zu folgen.
Aber es fiel mir schwer, und täglich lehnte ich mich auf. Vielleicht
war ich verrückt, dachte ich nicht selten, vielleicht war ich nicht
wie andere Menschen? Aber ich konnte das, was andere leisteten, alles
auch tun, mit ein wenig Fleiß und Bemühung konnte ich Plato lesen,
konnte trigonometrische Aufgaben lösen oder einer chemischen Analyse
folgen. Nur eines konnte ich nicht: das in mir dunkel verborgene Ziel
herausreißen und irgendwo vor mich hinmalen, wie andere es taten,
welche genau wußten, daß sie Professor oder Richter, Arzt oder
Künstler werden wollten, wie lang das dauern und was für Vorteile es
haben würde. Das konnte ich nicht. Vielleicht würde ich auch einmal
so etwas, aber wie sollte ich das wissen. Vielleicht mußte ich auch
suchen und weitersuchen, jahrelang, und wurde nichts, und kam an kein
Ziel. Vielleicht kam ich auch an ein Ziel, aber es war ein böses,
gefährliches, furchtbares.
    Ich wollte ja nichts als das zu leben versuchen, was von selber aus
mir heraus wollte. Warum war das so sehr schwer?

—Hermann Hesse, _Demian: Die Geschichte von Emil Sinclairs Jugend_,
pp. 95–96, 1925 (Suhrkamp Taschenbuch 206, 1974)



Und hier brannte mich plötzlich wie eine scharfe Flamme die Erkenntnis:
— es gab für jeden ein «Amt», aber für keinen eines, das er selber
wählen, umschreiben und beliebig verwalten durfte. Es war falsch,
neue Götter zu wollen, es war völlig falsch, der Welt irgend etwas
geben zu wollen! Es gab keine, keine, keine Pflicht für erwachte
Menschen als die eine: sich selber zu suchen, in sich fest zu werden,
den eigenen Weg vorwärts zu tasten, einerlei wohin er führte. — Das
erschütterte mich tief, und das war die Frucht dieses Erlebnisses
für mich. Oft hatte ich mit Bildern der Zukunft gespielt, ich hatte
von Rollen geträumt, die mir zugedacht sein könnten, als Dichter
vielleicht oder als Prophet, oder als Maler, oder irgendwie. All das war
nichts. Ich war nicht da, um zu dichten, um zu predigen, um zu malen,
weder ich noch sonst ein Mensch war dazu da. Das alles ergab sich nur
nebenher. Wahrer Beruf für jeden war nur das eine: zu sich selbst zu
kommen. Er mochte als Dichter oder als Wahnsinniger, als Prophet oder
als Verbrecher enden — dies war nicht seine Sache, ja dies war letzten
Endes belanglos. Seine Sache war, das eigene Schicksal zu finden, nicht
ein beliebiges, und es in sich auszuleben, ganz und ungebrochen. Alles
andere war halb, war Versuch zu entrinnen, war Rückflucht ins Ideale
der Masse, war Anpassung und Angst vor dem eigenen Innern. Furchtbar und
heilig stieg das neue Bild vor mir auf, hundertmal geahnt, vielleicht
oft schon ausgesprochen, und doch erst jetzt erlebt. Ich war ein Wurf
der Natur, ein Wurf ins Ungewisse, vielleicht zu Neuem, vielleicht zu
Nichts, und diesen Wurf aus der Urtiefe auswirken zu lassen, seinen
Willen in mir zu fühlen und ihn ganz zu meinem zu machen, das allein
war mein Beruf. Das allein!
    Viel Einsamkeit hatte ich schon gekostet. Nun ahnte ich, daß es
tiefer gab, und daß sie unentrinnbar sei.

—Hermann Hesse, _Demian: Die Geschichte von Emil Sinclairs Jugend_,
pp. 126–127, 1925 (Suhrkamp Taschenbuch 206, 1974)



All truth passes through three stages:
    First, it is ridiculed;
    Second, it is violently opposed; and
    Third, it is accepted as self-evident.

—Arthur Schopenhauer



Ein skeptischer Katholik ist mir lieber als ein gläubiger Atheist.

—Kurt Tucholsky



Manche meinen, sie seien liberal geworden, nur weil sie die Richtung
ihrer Intoleranz geändert haben.

—Wieslaw Brudzinski



Wer seinen Mund nicht halten kann, der wird auch sein Wort nicht
halten.

—Werner Mitsch



Die große Kunst in der Ehe besteht darin, Recht zu behalten, ohne den
anderen ins Unrecht zu setzen.

—Käte Haak



Kunst wäscht den Staub des Alltags von der Seele.

—Pablo Picasso



A master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between his
work and his play; his labor and his leisure; his mind and his body;
his education and his recreation. He hardly knows which is which. He
simply pursues his vision of excellence through whatever he is doing,
and leaves others to determine whether he is working or playing. To
himself, he always appears to be doing both.

—Francois Auguste Rene Chateaubriand



Why should men love the Church?
Why should they love her laws?
She tells them of Life and Death,
and of all that they would forget.
She is tender where they would be hard,
and hard where they like to be soft.
She tells them of Evil and Sin,
and other unpleasant facts.
They constantly try to escape
From the darkness outside and within
By dreaming of systems so perfect
that no one will need to be good.
But the man that is will shadow
The man that pretends to be.

—T.S. Eliot, _Choruses from “The Rock”_



But it is certain that a book is not harmless merely because no one is
consciously offended by it.

—T.S. Eliot, in _Religion and Literature_, 1935



Every time you went into the library, the Creator of the Universe held
His Breath. With such a higgledy-piggledy cultural smorgasbord before
you, what would you, with your free will, choose?

—Kurt Vonnegut, _Breakfast of Champions_



Irrtümer haben ihren Wert, jedoch nur hier und da.
Nicht jeder, der nach Indien fährt, entdeckt Amerika.

—Erich Kästner



I hope that you will develop the questing spirit. Be unafraid of new
ideas for they are the stepping stones of progress. You will of course
respect the opinions of others but be unafraid to dissent — if you are
informed.
   … Now I have mentioned freedom to express your thoughts, but
I caution you that … in that search you will need at least three
virtues: courage, zest, and modesty. The ancients put that thought in
the form of a prayer. They said, “From the cowardice that shrinks from
new truth, from the laziness that is content with half truth, from the
arrogance that thinks it has all truth — O God of truth deliver us”.

—Hugh B. Brown, Brigham Young University speech, 1958



Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you’ve
imagined. As you simplify your life, the universe will be simpler.

—Henry David Thoreau



Adventure is simply physical and emotional discomfort recollected in
tranquility.

—Tim Cahill



In der Politik ist es manchmal wie in der Grammatik: Ein Fehler, den
alle begehen, wird schließlich als Regel anerkannt.

—André Malraux



As a cold-blooded proposition, an investment in itself, it pays to be
decent.
   My sizeup is that well-behaved people seem to get along better than
the others. One is more comfortable and better off that way, it strikes
me. I believe you can get more out of life this way.

—Charles F. Ball, d. 1941; cited in the Idaho State Journal
[Pocatello], January 29, 1967, p. 13; he was the basis of the principal
character in Owen Wister’s book, _The Virginian_ (1902)



Greatness is always built on this foundation: the ability to appear,
speak, and act, as the most common man.

—Shams-ud-din Muhammed Hafiz



All courses of action are risky, so prudence is not in avoiding danger
(it’s impossible), but calculating risk and active decisively. Make
mistakes of ambition and not mistakes of sloth. Develop the strength to
do bold things, not the strength to suffer.

—Niccolò Machiavelli



It is far better for a man to go wrong in freedom than to go right in
chains.

—Thomas H. Huxley



Many of these theories have been killed off only when some decisive
experiment exposed their incorrectness. … Thus the yeoman work in
any science … is done by the experimentalist, who must keep the
theoreticians honest.

—Michio Kaku, _Hyperspace_



Creation is a better means of self-expression than possession; it is
through creating, not possessing, that life is revealed.

—Vida D. Scudder, _The Life of the Spirit in the Modern English Poets_



I not only use all the brains that I have, but all that I can borrow.

—Woodrow Wilson



As to methods there may be a million and then some, but principles are
few. The man who grasps principles can successfully select his own
methods. The man who tries methods, ignoring principles, is sure to have
trouble.

—Ralph Waldo Emerson



A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let
alone.

—Henry David Thoreau



A schedule defends from chaos and whim.

—Annie Dillard



Learning to ignore things is one of the great paths to inner peace.

—Robert J. Sawyer, _Calculating God_



What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention
of its recipients. Hence, a wealth of information creates a poverty of
attention and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the
overabundance of information sources that might consume it.

—Herbert Simon



Reading, after a certain age, diverts the mind too much from its
creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too
little falls into lazy habits of thinking.

—Albert Einstein



There are many things of which a wise man might wish to be ignorant.

—Ralph Waldo Emerson



I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them
never happened.

—Mark Twain



There’s no difference between a pessimist who says, “Oh, it’s hopeless,
so don’t bother doing anything,” and an optimist who says, “Don’t bother
doing anything, it’s going to turn out fine anyway.” Either way, nothing
happens.

—Yvon Chouinard, founder of Patagonia



Set aside a certain number of days, during which you shall be content
with the scantiest and cheapest fare, with course and rough dress,
saying to yourself the while: “Is this the condition that I feared?”

—Seneca



Action may not always bring happiness, but there is no happiness without
action.

—Benjamin Disraeli



I can’t give you a surefire formula for success, but I can give you a
formula for failure: try to please everybody all the time.

—Herbert Bayard Swope



The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the
easiest person to fool.

—Richard P. Feynman



Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to
pause and reflect.

—Mark Twain



All these things were to be done in their time, place, and season. All
this was plain and simple, yet some apostatized because there was not
more of it, and others because there was too much.

—George A. Smith, _Journal of Discourses_ 2:215, March 18, 1855



Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.

—George Bernard Shaw



Before the development of tourism, travel was conceived to be like
study, and its fruits were considered to be the adornment of the mind
and the formation of the judgment.

—Paul Fussel, _Abroad_



The simple willingness to improvise is more vital, in the long run, than
research.

—Rolf Potts, _Vagabonding_



Human beings have the capacity to learn to want almost any conceivable
material object. Given, then, the emergence of a modern industrial
culture capable of producing almost anything, the time is ripe for
opening the storehouse of infinite need! … It is the modern Pandora’s
box, and its plagues are loose upon the world.

—Jules Henry



To be free, to be happy and fruitful, can only be attained through the
sacrifice of many common but overestimated things.

—Robert Henri



It is fatal to know too much at the outcome: boredom comes as quickly to
the traveler who knows his route as to the novelist who is overcertain
of his plot.

—Paul Theroux, _To the Ends of the Earth_



Man is so made that he can only find relaxation from one kind of labor
by taking up another.

—Anatole France



What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the
striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal, a freely chosen task.

—Victor E. Frankl



If you don’t make mistakes, you’re not working on hard enough problems.
And that’s a big mistake.

—Frank Wilczek



Men cannot be governed and remain men. Domesticate the wolf and he
changes both physically and mentally. His muzzle shrinks, his teeth
diminish, he loses size, speed, and strength, he grows spots. His
ears flop. His brain withers. He becomes a dog. Men are on the verge
of becoming dogs — the changes are underway already — unless we do
something to stop it.

—The Ceo Lia Wheeler, _Phoebus Krumm_, forthcoming



The ass was born in March. The rains came in November.
Such a flood as this, he said, I scarcely can remember.

—Ogden Nash



Information Wants To Be Free. Information also wants to be expensive.
Information wants to be free because it has become so cheap to
distribute, copy, and recombine —- too cheap to meter. It wants to be
expensive because it can be immeasurably valuable to the recipient. That
tension will not go away. It leads to endless wrenching debate about
price, copyright, “intellectual property”, the moral rightness of casual
distribution, because each round of new devices makes the tension worse,
not better.

—Stewart Brand, _The Media Lab: Inventing the Future at MIT_ (1987), p.
202, ISBN 0140097015; see Roger Clarke, “Information Wants to be Free”,
http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/II/IWtbF.html



We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and
underestimate the effect in the long run.

—Roy Amara, 1925–2007



[I]t is better to trust and sometimes be disappointed than to be forever
mistrusting and be right occasionally. This is to endorse empathy, not
naivete.

—Neal A. Maxwell, “Insights from My Life”, an address at Brigham Young
University, 26 October 1976, in _The Inexhaustible Gospel_, 2004, p. 50



Over a half century ago, while I was still a child, I recall hearing
a number of old people offer the following explanation for the great
disasters that had befallen Russia: “Men have forgotten God; that’s why
all this has happened.”
    Since then I have spent well-nigh 50 years working on the history
of our revolution; in the process I have read hundreds of books,
collected hundreds of personal testimonies, and have already contributed
eight volumes of my own toward the effort of clearing away the rubble
left by that upheaval. But if I were asked today to formulate as
concisely as possible the main cause of the ruinous revolution that
swallowed up some 60 million of our people, I could not put it more
accurately than to repeat: “Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this
has happened.”

—Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn



A little philosophy inclineth man’s mind to atheism, but depth in
philosophy bringeth men’s minds about to religion.

—Francis Bacon



A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot
survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable,
for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves
amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through
all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the
traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his
victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to
the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul
of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine
the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no
longer resist. A murderer is less to fear. The traitor is the plague.

—Marcus Tullius Cicero



An intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way. An artist says a hard
thing in a simple way.

—Charles Bukowski



The dominant story of our age, undoubtedly, is that of adultery and
divorce. This is true both literally and figuratively: The dominant
_tendency_ of our age is the breaking of faith and the making of
divisions among things that once were joined. This story obviously must
be told by somebody. Perhaps, in one form or antoher, it must be told
(because it must be experienced) by everybody. But how has it been
told, and how ought it be told? This is a critical question, but not
a question merely for art criticism. The story can be told in a way
that clarifies, that makes imaginable and compassionable, the suffering
and the costs; or it can be told in a way that seems to grant an easy
permission and absolution to adultery and divorce. Can literature, for
example, be written according to standards that are not merely literary?
Obviously it can. And it had better be.

—Wendell Berry, _Life Is a Miracle: An Essay Against Modern Superstition_, 2001, pp. 133–134



Treason doth never prosper: what’s the reason? Why if it prosper, none
dare call it treason.

—Ovid



When you tell me I should give proprietary software a fair technical
evaluation because its features are so nice, what you are actually
doing is saying “Look at the shine on those manacles!” to someone who
remembers feeling like a slave.

—Eric S. Raymond



In a real revolution, the best characters do not come to the front.
A violent revolution falls into the hands of narrow-minded fanatics
and of tyrannical hypocrites at first. Afterwards come the turn of all
the pretentious intellectual failures of the time. Such are the chiefs
and the leaders. You will notice that I have left out the mere rogues.
The scrupulous and the just, the noble, humane and devoted natures,
the unselfish and the intelligent may begin a movement, but it passes
away from them. They are not the leaders of a revolution. They are its
victims: the victims of disgust, disenchantment — often of remorse.
Hopes grotesquely betrayed, ideals caricatured — that is the definition
of revolutionary success.

—Joseph Conrad, _Under Western Eyes_ (1911), cited in Paul Johnson,
_Modern Times: The World from the Twenties to the Nineties_ (1991) p. 86



Management is doing things right, leadership is doing the right things.

—Peter Drucker?



Political tags such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist,
liberal, conservative, and so forth are never basic criteria. The human
race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and
those who have no such desire.

—Robert A. Heinlein



Faith isn’t the ability to believe long and far into the misty future.
It’s simply taking God at His Word and taking the next step.

—Joni Erickson Tada



People of character do the right thing, not because they think it will
change the world but because they refuse to be changed by the world.

—Michael Josephson



[T]here are, indeed, few things that are more frightening than the
steadily increasing prestige of scientifically minded brain trusters
in the councils of government during the last decades. The trouble is
not that they are cold-blooded enough to ‘think the unthinkable,’ but
that they do not think. Instead of indulging in such an old-fashioned,
uncomputerizable activity, they reckon with the consequences of certain
hypothetically assumed constellations without, however, being able
to test their hypotheses against actual occurrences. The logical
flaw in these hypothetical constructions of future events is always
the same: what first appears as a hypothesis — with or without its
implied alternatives, according to the level of sophistication — turns
immediately, usually after a few paragraphs, into a ‘fact,’ which then
gives birth to a whole string of similar non-facts, with the result that
the purely speculative character of the whole enterprise is forgotten.

—Hannah Arendt, 1970



Charity, the greatest of Godly virtues, would never be possible without
property rights, for one cannot give what one does not own.

—Ezra Taft Benson



Finally, I should like to put before you a relevant observation made by
Paul Watzlawick (et al.) in _The Pragmatics of Human Communications_:
“… crazy communication (behavior) is not necessarily the manifestation
of a ‘sick’ mind, but may be the only possible reaction to an absurd
or untenable communications context.” There are two ideas here worth
thinking about, in my opinion. The first is that it sometimes happens
that we find ourselves in an environment whose definitions are so
utterly irrational that we can at no point grant their legitimacy
without becoming “crazy.” If, for example, we are part of a system which
defines certain groups of people as subhuman (e.g., blacks, Jews), we
cannot accept such a definition without, fairly soon, beginning to
talk and act a little crazy. The second idea is that if we reject such
a definition, and refuse to act on it, those to whom the definition
seems reasonable will think _us_ crazy. And so, it would appear that
we lose either way. We are “crazy” when we accept irrational or evil
definitions. And we are “crazy” when we do not (if everyone else does).
It is a bad situation, but I am inclined to think that the second crazy
has given our species some of its finest moments. The first has not,
and, I think, never will.

—Neil Postman, _Crazy Talk, Stupid Talk_, 1976, pp. 190–191



Finally, I must avow my belief that the best defense against all
varieties of crazy talk is our old friend a sense of humor, which is
always available as an escort through hard and confusing times. I mean
by a sense of humor an active appreciation of the fact that time’s
winged chariot is always at our backs and that therefore there is a
profound and essential foolishness, transiency, and ineptitude to all
our adventures, including the hardest of all, talking to each other.
Without a sense of humor, almost any talk will, soon or late, descend
into craziness, brought down by its own unrelieved gravity. I believe
that a sense of humor is at the core of all our humane impulses, and
he who would make us mad must first exorcise our appreciation of human
frailty, which is what a sense of humor is.

—Neil Postman, _Crazy Talk, Stupid Talk_, 1976, p. 253



The most dangerous person on earth is the arrogant intellectual who
lacks the humility necessary to see that society needs no masters and
cannot be planned from the top down.

—F.A. Hayek



Have nothing in your houses which you do not know to be useful or
believe to be beautiful.

—William Morris



It’s not bad to own fine things that you like. What you need are things that
you GENUINELY like. Things that you cherish, that enhance your existence
in the world. The rest is dross.

Do not “economize.” Please. That is not the point. The economy is
clearly insane. Even its champions are terrified by it now. It’s melting
the North Pole. So “economization” is not your friend. Cheapness can
be value-less. Voluntary simplicity is, furthermore, boring. Less can
become too much work.

The items that you use incessantly, the items you employ every day, the
normal, boring goods that don’t seem luxurious or romantic: these are
the critical ones. They are truly central. The everyday object is the
monarch of all objects. It’s in your time most, it’s in your space most.
It is “where it is at,” and it is “what is going on.”

—Bruce Sterling



Training is a tax you pay for a lousy hiring environment … Marketing
is a tax you pay for being unremarkable.

—Robert Stephens of Geek Squad in “A Geek’s Guide to Great Service”, http://www.mavericksatwork.com/?p=139



Life is an ongoing process of choosing between safety (out of fear and
need for defense) and risk (for the sake of progress and growth): Make
the growth choice a dozen times a day.

—Abraham Maslow in “8 Ways to Self-Actualize”



One reason to launch quickly is that it forces you to actually finish
some quantum of work. Nothing is truly finished till its released; you
can see that from the rush of work thats always involved in releasing
anything, no matter how finished you thought it was. The other reason
you need to launch is that its only by bouncing your idea off users that
you fully understand it.

—Paul Graham in “The 18 Mistakes That Kill Startups”



Test just enough to know what your gear can do, and then get on with
real photography.

—Ken Rockwell in “The Seven Levels of Photographers”



36:1

I had a photography teacher (Richard Stromberg at The Chicago
Photography Center) tell me once that if you get one good shot on a
roll of 36, you were doing good. That’s the ratio: 36:1. When you
edit ruthlessly like that, you come out with great results. People
think you’re better than you are. It’s not that you became a brilliant
photographer, it’s just that you started exercising taste and restraint.

It’s one of the biggest challenges in the digital age: When you can
bombard people with everything, it’s tempting to do so. That’s why
taste, restraint, and editing are so important. Sometimes it’s about
throwing out the 35 bad shots and revelling in the one great shot.

Omit, then submit

What you leave out is often what turns good into great. What you leave
out is the difference between something that is either 1) never seen
or used or 2) simple, clear, and actually digestable. It’s true for
photography. It’s true for features in software. And it’s true for
plenty more too.

—Matt Linderman, http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/1228-a-361-ratio-is-actually-pretty-good



Scientists investigate that which already is;
Engineers create that which has never been.

—Albert Einstein



I believe that quality level is determined primarily by the actual
design of the product itself, not by quality control in the production
process.

—Hideo Sugiura, Honda Motor Company



If a major project is truly innovative, you cannot possibly know its
exact cost and its exact schedule at the beginning. And if in fact you
do know the exact cost and the exact schedule, chances are that the
technology is obsolete.

—Joseph G. Gavin, Jr., “Fly Me to the Moon: An Interview with Joseph G. Gavin, Jr.”,
Technology Review, 97:5, July, 1994, p. 62



Think of arm chairs and reading chairs and dining-room chairs, and
kitchen chairs, chairs that pass into benches, chairs that cross the
boundary and become settees, dentists chairs, thrones, opera stalls,
seats of all sorts, those miraculous fungoid growths that cumber the
floor of arts and crafts exhibitions, and you will perceive what a lax
bundle in fact is this simple straightforward term. In cooperation with
an intelligent joiner I would undertake to defeat any definition of
chair or chairishness that you gave me.

—H.G. Wells, quoted in _Fuzzy Logic_, Daniel McNeill and Paul Freiberger, 1993, p. 82



If you think you are too small to be effective, you have never been in
bed with a mosquito.

—Betty Reese



The fairest rules are those to which everyone would agree if they did
not know how much power they would have.

—John Rawls



We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a
habit.

—Aristotle



In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. But, in
practice, there is.

—Jan L.A. van de Snepscheut



Life does not ask what we want. It presents us with options.

—Thomas Sowell



In retrospect, all revolutions seem inevitable. Beforehand, all
revolutions seem impossible.

—Michael McFaul



Watch what people are cynical about, and one can often discover what
they lack.

—George Patton



Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.

—Theodore Roosevelt



The trouble with socialism is that eventually you run out of other
people’s money.




If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.

—Albert Einstein



To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle.

—George Orwell



It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.

—Henry David Thoreau



Beware the investment activity that produces applause; the great moves
are usually greeted by yawns.

—Warren Buffet



Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of
leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of
non-essentials.

—Lin Yutang



[T]he hole and the patch should be commensurate.

—Thomas Jefferson, letter to James Madison, 20 June 1787, Papers 11:480–81



In all affairs, it’s a healthy thing now and then to hang a question
mark on the things you have long taken for granted.

—Bertrand Russell



Whenever you feel a warmth of temper rising check it at once, and suppress it, recollecting it will make you unhappy within yourself and disliked by others. Nothing gives one person so great advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances.

—Thomas Jefferson, letter to his grandson Francis Eppes, 21 May 1816, Memorial edition of the Writings of Thomas Jefferson, 1904, vol. 19, page 242



It isn’t that they can’t see the solution. It is that they can’t
see the problem.

—Gilbert Chesterton



If I had asked my customers what they wanted, they would have said a
faster horse.

—Henry Ford



Often people attempt to live their lives backwards; they try to have
more things, or more money, in order to do more of what they want, so
they will be happier. The way it actually works is the reverse. You must
first be who you really are, then do what you need to do, in order to
have what you want.

—Margaret Young



God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the
difference.

—Reinhold Niebuhr



The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when
one will do.

—attributed to Thomas Jefferson



Don’t read what they write about you, just measure it in inches.

—Andy Warhol



We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used
when we created them.

—Albert Einstein



Knowledge is the beginning of practice; doing is the completion of
knowing.

—Wang Yangming



The truth is incontrovertible, malice may attack it, ignorance may
deride it, but in the end; there it is.

—Winston Churchill



There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not
be done at all.

—Peter F. Drucker



Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated
simple, awesomely simple, that’s creativity.

—Charles Mingus



The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, but illusion of
knowledge.

—Stephen Hawking



You know long it takes to do simple? About ten times longer than fast
and dirty.

—Paul Giambarba



A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by
little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great
soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with
his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and
to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it
contradict every thing you said to-day. — ‘Ah, so you shall be sure
to be misunderstood.’ — Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood?
Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and
Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that
ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.

—Ralph Waldo Emerson



Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that
counts can be counted.

—Albert Einstein



The best way to predict the future is to invent it.

—Alan Kay



Style is time’s fool. Form is time’s student.

—Stewart Brand



In the hopes of reaching the moon men fail to see the flowers that
blossom at their feet.

—Albert Schweitzer



Never offend people with style when you can offend them with substance.

—Sam Brown



Don’t worry about people stealing an idea. If it’s original, you
will have to ram it down their throats.

—Howard Aiken



You can accomplish anything you want in life provided you don’t mind
who gets the credit.

—Harry S Truman



The temptation to quit will be greatest just before you are about to
succeed.

—Chinese proverb



As we know, there are known knowns. There are things we know we know.
We also know there are known unknowns. That is to say we know there are
some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns, the
ones we don’t know we don’t know.

—Donald Rumsfeld



Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when
there is nothing left to take away.

—Antoine de Saint-Exupery



Put one dumb foot in front of the other and course-correct as you go.

—Barry Diller



A cynic knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.

—Oscar Wilde



A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from
a simple system that worked….A complex system designed from scratch
never works and cannot be patched up to make it work. You have to start
over, beginning with a working simple system.

—J. Gall



A good plan violently executed today, is far and away better than a
perfect plan next week.

—Patton



Well done is better than well said.

—Benjamin Franklin



You must be the change you wish to see in the world.

—Mohandas Gandhi



Most of the wonderful places in the world were not made by architects
but by the people.

—Christopher Alexander



The Universe is difficult to comprehend because it is obvious.

—Albert Einstein



I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to
please everybody.

—Bill Cosby



A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough
to take it all away.

—Barry Goldwater



Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more
violent. It takes a touch of genius—and a lot of courage—to move in
the opposite direction.

—Albert Einstein



The details are not the details. They make the design.

—Charles Eames



As much as anything, good design says that somebody is taking this
object very seriously.

—Jacob Covey



A person reveals his character by nothing so clearly as the joke he
resents.

—George C. Lichtenberg



Everyone who’s ever taken a shower has an idea. It’s the person who
gets out of the shower, dries off and does something about it that makes
a difference.

—Nolan Bushnell



I notice increasing reluctance on the part of marketing executives to
use judgment; they are coming to rely too much on research, and they
use it as a drunkard uses a lamp post, for support, rather than for
illumination.

—David Ogilvy



We are more easily persuaded, in general, by the reasons we ourselves
discover than by those which are given to us by others.

—Blaise Pascal



Nothing draws a crowd like a crowd.

—P.T. Barnum



It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the
strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them
better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena,
whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly;
who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort
without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the
deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends
himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph
of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails
while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold
and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.

—Theodore Roosevelt



I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.

—Wayne Gretzky



You know, I don’t agree with myself on everything.

—Rudy Giuliani



If you want to increase the probability of success, double your failure
rate.

—Thomas Watson



Having small touches of colour makes it more colourful than having the
whole thing in colour.

—Dieter Rams



Lose an hour in the morning, chase it all day.

—Yiddish Saying



When performance is measured, performance improves. When performance is
measured and reported back, the rate of improvement accelerates.

—cited by Thomas S. Monson, _Favorite Quotations from the Collection of
Thomas S. Monson_, Deseret Book, 1985, p. 61 (also known as “Pearson’s Law”)



The important question is not, what will yield to man a few scattered
pleasures, but what will render his life happy on the whole amount.

—Joseph Addison



when you don’t create things, you become defined by your tastes rather
than ability. your tastes only narrow & exclude people. so create.

—why the lucky stiff



The Cult of Done Manifesto

1. There are three states of being. Not knowing, action and completion.

2. Accept that everything is a draft. It helps to get it done.

3. There is no editing stage.

4. Pretending you know what you’re doing is almost the same as knowing
what you are doing, so just accept that you know what you’re doing even
if you don’t and do it.

5. Banish procrastination. If you wait more than a week to get an idea
done, abandon it.

6. The point of being done is not to finish but to get other things
done.

7. Once you’re done you can throw it away.

8. Laugh at perfection. It’s boring and keeps you from being done.

9. People without dirty hands are wrong. Doing something makes you
right.

10. Failure counts as done. So do mistakes.

11. Destruction is a variant of done.

12. If you have an idea and publish it on the internet, that counts as a
ghost of done.

13. Done is the engine of more.

—Bre Pettis, http://www.brepettis.com/blog/2009/3/3/the-cult-of-done-manifesto.html



In other words, we don’t seek to escape this life by dreaming of heaven.
But we do find we can endure this life because of the certainty of
heaven. Heaven is eternal. Earth is temporal. Those who fix all their
affections on the fleeting things of this world are the real escapists,
because they are vainly attempting to avoid facing eternity—by hiding
in the fleeting shadows of things that are only transient.

—John F. MacArthur, _The Glory of Heaven_, 1996



Our lives have already become jeopardized by revealing the wicked and
bloodthirsty purposes of our enemies; and for the future we must cease
to do so. All we have said about them is truth, but it is not always
wise to relate all the truth. Even Jesus, the Son of God, had to refrain
from doing so, and had to restrain His feelings many times for the
safety of Himself and His followers, and had to conceal the righteous
purposes of His heart in relation to many things pertaining to His
Father’s kingdom.

—Joseph Smith, 27 June 1844



Ultimately, power only really listens to power, and if government is to
be improved, we must be able to threaten its existence, not merely its
reputation.

—Václav Havel, “On the theme of an opposition”



There is one principle which is eternal; it is the duty of all men to
protect their lives and the lives of the household, whenever necessity
requires, and no power has a right to forbid it, should the last extreme
arrive, but I anticipate no such extreme, but caution is the parent of
safety.

—Joseph Smith, in a letter to his wife Emma from Carthage Jail, Illinois, 27 June 1844



A wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities.

—Thomas Jefferson, First Inaugural Address, 4 March 1801



The general rule is that an unconstitutional statute, though having the
form and name of law, is in reality no law, but is wholly void, and
ineffective for any purpose; since unconstitutionality dates from the
time of its enactment, and not merely from the date of the decision so
branding it.… No one is bound to obey an unconstitutional law, and no
courts are bound to enforce it.

—16 Am Jur 2d, Sec 177 late 2d, Sec 256



Yea, behold I do not fear your power nor your authority, but it is my
God whom I fear … I seek not for power, but to pull it down. I seek
not for honor of the world, but for the glory of my God and the freedom
and welfare of my country.

—The Book of Mormon, Alma 60: 28, 36



Legislators and revolutionaries who promise equality and liberty at the
same time are either psychopaths or mountebanks.

—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe



Under a free market, each additional person is another pair of hands and
another mind. Under socialism, each new person is another mouth to feed.

—Richard W. Fulmer, American Spectator, October 1996



The potential transformation of the Establishment Clause [of the 1st
Amendment to the Constitution] from a guardian of religious liberty into
a guarantor of public secularism raises prospects at once dismal and
dreadful … maybe there are not any principles involved. Maybe it is
just another effort to ensure that intermediate institutions, such as
the religions, do not get in the way of the government’s will. Perhaps,
in short, it is a way of ensuring that only one vision of the meaning of
reality — that of the powerful group of individuals called the state —
is allowed a political role. Back in Tocqueville’s day, this was called
tyranny. Nowadays, all too often, but quite mistakenly, it is called the
separation of church and state.

—Stephen L. Carter, _The Culture of Disbelief_ (1993), pp. 122–123



There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government
has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t
enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a
crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.
Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What’s there in that for
anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed
nor enforced nor objectively interpreted—and you create a nation of
law-breakers—and then you cash in on guilt.

—Ayn Rand, _Atlas Shrugged_, p. 411



The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public
debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered
and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed
lest Rome become bankrupt.

—Cicero, 63 BC



Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.

—Plato



The majority of mortals, Paulinus, complain bitterly of the spitefulness
of Nature, because we are born for a brief span of life, because even
this space that has been granted to us rushes by so speedily and so
swiftly that all save a very few find life at an end just when they
are getting ready to live. Nor is it merely the common herd and the
unthinking crowd that bemoan what is, as men deem it, an universal ill;
the same feeling has called forth complaint also from men who were
famous. It was this that made the greatest of physicians exclaim that
“life is short, art is long;” it was this that led Aristotle, while
expostulating with Nature, to enter an indictment most unbecoming to a
wise man—that, in point of age, she has shown such favour to animals
that they drag out five or ten lifetimes, but that a much shorter
limit is fixed for man, though he is born for so many and such great
achievements. It is not that we have a short space of time, but that
we waste much of it. Life is long enough, and it has been given in
sufficiently generous measure to allow the accomplishment of the very
greatest things if the whole of it is well invested. But when it is
squandered in luxury and carelessness, when it is devoted to no good
end, forced at last by the ultimate necessity we perceive that it has
passed away before we were aware that it was passing. So it is—the
life we receive is not short, but we make it so, nor do we have any lack
of it, but are wasteful of it. Just as great and princely wealth is
scattered in a moment when it comes into the hands of a bad owner, while
wealth however limited, if it is entrusted to a good guardian, increases
by use, so our life is amply long for him who orders it properly.

—Seneca, _On the shortness of life_, chapter 1, translated by John W. Basore,
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/On_the_shortness_of_life/Chapter_I



… to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical …

—Thomas Jefferson, Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, 1779



Our innate imbalances are further aggravated by practical demands. Our
jobs make relentless calls on a narrow band of our faculties, reducing
our chances of achieving rounded personalities and leaving us to suspect
(often in the gathering darkness of a Sunday evening) that much of who
we are, or could be, has gone unexplored.

—Alain de Botton, _The Architecture of Happiness_, p. 157



XXX



Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action.

—Ian Fleming, _Goldfinger_ (character Auric Goldfinger)



Happiness is not achieved by the conscious pursuit of happiness; it is
generally the by-product of other activities.

—Aldous Huxley



Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask,
and he will tell you the truth.

—Oscar Wilde



Throughout history, the attachment of even the humblest people to their
freedom has come as an unpleasant shock to condescending ideologues.

—Paul Johnson



It is books, poems and paintings which often give us the confidence to
take seriously feelings in ourselves that we might otherwise never have
thought to acknowledge.

—Alain de Botton, _The Architecture of Happiness_, p. 262



There are few harsher indictments against architecture than the sadness
we feel at the arrival of bulldozers, for our grief is in almost all
cases fuelled more by a distaste for what is to be built than by any
hatred of the idea of development itself.

—Alain de Botton, _The Architecture of Happiness_, p. 265



Truth is much too complicated to allow anything but approximations.

—John von Neumann, quoted in _Fractals, Chaos, Power Laws: Minutes from an Infinite Paradise_ (1991) by Manfred Schroder



In the absence of clearly-defined goals, we become strangely loyal to
performing daily trivia until ultimately we become enslaved by it.

—Robert Heinlein



The fatal attraction of government is that it allows busybodies to
impose decisions on others without paying any price themselves. That
enables them to act as if there were no price, even when there are
ruinous prices — paid by others.

—Thomas Sowell



As long as the centuries continue to unfold, the number of books will
grow continually, and one can predict that a time will come when it
will be almost as difficult to learn anything from books as from the
direct study of the whole universe. It will be almost as convenient to
search for some bit of truth concealed in nature as it will be to find
it hidden away in an immense multitude of bound volumes.

—Diderot, 1755



In an information-rich world, the wealth of information means a dearth
of something else: a scarcity of whatever it is that information
consumes. What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the
attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a
poverty of attention and a need to allocate that attention efficiently
among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it.

—Herbert Simon (1916–2001)



Forgiveness does not change the past, but it does enlarge the future.

—Paul Boese



Habitualization devours works, clothes, furniture, one’s wife, and
the fear of war. “If the whole complex lives of many people go on
unconsciously, then such lives are as if they had never been.” And art
exists that one may recover the sensation of life; it exists to make one
feel things, to make the stone _stony_. The purpose of art is to impart
the sensation of things as they are perceived and not as they are known.
The technique of art is to make objects “unfamiliar,” to make forms
difficult, to increase the difficulty and length of perception because
the process of perception is an aesthetic end in itself and must be
prolonged.

—Viktor Shklovsky, from “Art as Technique” (quoting Leo Tolstoy’s
Diary, March 1, 1897), in _Russian Formalist Criticism: Four Essays_,
tr. Lee T. Lemon and Marion J. Reis (1965), p. 12



Young man, in mathematics you don’t understand things. You just get used to them.

—John von Neumann



You don’t have to be responsible for the world that you’re in.

—John von Neumann



The only serious philosophical problem is whether or not to commit suicide.

—Albert Camus



The Lord will not translate one’s good hopes and desires and
intentions into works. Each of us must do that for himself.

—Spencer W. Kimball



I learned that you have to evaluate the effects of public policy as
opposed to intentions.

—Walter Williams



Le doute n’est pas une condition agréable, mais la certitude est absurde.
[Doubt is not an agreeable condition, but certainty is an absurd one.]

—Voltaire, Letter to Frederick II of Prussia, 6 April 1767



The policies that publicly express good will and mutual respect—that
successfully broadcast that we care about one another—often are not
the policies that would actually deliver the goods—the policies you’d
favour if you cared more about people than signaling that you care about
people.

—W.W., Iowa City, in _The Economist_, 25 April 2011,
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2011/04/sacred_and_profane



You can walk around softly everywhere by putting on a pair of shoes, or
you can demand that the whole Earth becomes covered by soft leather.

—Indian proverb



For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.

—T.S. Eliot, “East Coker” in _Four Quartets_, 1943, p. 31



Not only is the universe stranger than you imagine, it is stranger than
you can imagine.

—Sir Arthur Eddington



If you knew a tenth of the laws of the Celestial Kingdom, Brethren, you
would rend me limb from limb.

—Joseph Smith



Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate,
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous—
Actually, who are you not to be?

You are a child of God.
Your playing small doesn’t serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people
Won’t feel insecure around you.

We were born to make manifest the glory of God within us.
It is not just in some of us: it is in everyone,
And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously
Give other people permission to do the same.

—Marianne Williamson, _A Return to Love_, 1992



Truth lies not only in what is said, but also in who says it, and to whom, why, how and under what circumstances it is expressed.

—Václav Havel



I knew all along that I shouldn’t feel the way I did, but that just made me feel guilty for not appreciating what I had. I recognize how fortunate I’ve been in life, and not being happy makes it that much more difficult.

—Nate Kohari, “Rekindling”, from blog Dowhatyoulovewhatyoudo, http://nate.io/post/16101254267/rekindling, 2012-01-18



Nicht daß er innerlich dem kühnen Redner zugestimmt hätte, aber es gab Zweifel, von deren Existenz oder Möglichkeit man nur zu wissen brauchte, um an ihnen zu leiden. Es war vorerst kein schlimmes Leiden, es war nur ein Angerührtsein und eine Unruhe, ein Gefühl, gemischt aus heftigem Drang und schlechtem Gewissen.

—Hermann Hesse, _Das Glasperlenspiel_, 1943 (1972), p. 97



We never ought to be without three or five years provisions on hand.

—Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses 3:196, January 27, 1856



Wer Geschichte betrachtet, soll meinetwegen den rührendsten Kinderglauben an die ordnende Macht unsres Geistes und unsrer Methoden mitbringen, aber außerdem und trotzdem soll er Respekt haben vor der unbegreiflichen Wahrheit, Wirklichkeit, Einmaligkeit des Geschehens. Geschichte treiben, mein Lieber, ist kein Spaß und kein verantwortungsloses Spiel. Geschichte treiben setzt das Wissen darum voraus, daß man damit etwas Unmögliches und dennoch Notwendiges und höchst Wichtiges anstrebt. Geschichte treiben heißt: sich dem Chaos überlassen und dennoch den Glauben an die Ordnung und den Sinn bewahren. Es ist eine sehr ernste Aufgabe, junger Mann, und vielleicht eine tragische.

—Hermann Hesse, _Das Glasperlenspiel_, 1943 (1972), p. 180



Sometimes I think we’re alone. Sometimes I think we’re not. In either case, the thought is staggering.

—R. Buckminster Fuller



[Responding to the assertion “Facts speak for themselves”:] Facts, like everything, must be interpreted to make sense. They do nothing for themselves, much less “speak.”

—Michael J. Haire, in a Facebook discussion, 9 February 2012



If you can get out of your own way, you won’t be in anyone else’s.

—Susila in Aldous Huxley’s _Island_, 1962, 2009 ed., p. 294



How good bad music and bad reasons sound when we are marching into battle against an enemy.

—Nietzsche



XXX



Wir sollen nicht aus der Vita activa in die Vita contemplativa fliehen, noch umgekehrt, sondern zwischen beiden wechselnd unterwegs sein, in beiden zu Hause sein, an beiden teilhaben.

—Hermann Hesse, _Das Glasperlenspiel_, 1943 (1972), p. 257



It is amazing, how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness.

—Leo Tolstoy



Er war einen anderen Weg gegangen, vielmehr geführt worden, und es kam nur darauf an, diesen ihm nun zugewiesenen Weg gerade und treu zu gehen, nicht ihn mit den Wegen anderer zu vergleichen.

—Hermann Hesse, _Das Glasperlenspiel_, 1943 (1972), p. 269



The man who insists on seeing with perfect clearness before he decides, never decides.

—Henri Frederic Amiel



Suddenly there is a point where religion becomes laughable. Then you decide that you are nevertheless religious.

—Thomas Merton, 1968



The beneficial effect of State intervention, especially in the form of legislation, is direct, immediate, and, so to speak, visible, whilst its evil effects are gradual and indirect, and lie out of sight …. few are those who realize the undeniable truth that State help kills self-help. Hence the majority of mankind must almost of necessity look with undue favour upon governmental intervention. This natural bias can be counteracted only by the existence, in a given society, as in England between 1830 and 1860, of a presumption or prejudice in favour of individual liberty—that is, of _laissez faire_. The mere decline, therefore, of faith in self-help—and that such a decline has taken place is certain—is of itself sufficient to account for the growth of legislation tending towards socialism.

—A.V. Dicey, _Lectures on the Relation Between Law and Public Opinion in England during the Nineteenth Century_ (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2008), p. 182 [cited in _After the Welfare State: Politicians Stole Your Future … You Can Get It Back_, ed. Tom G. Palmer, 2012



There is no one personality style that leads to corporate or any other kind of success. But they found that the traits that correlated most powerfully with success were attention to detail, persistence, efficiency, analytical thoroughness, and the ability to work long hours. That is to say, the ability to organize and execute.

—David Brooks, _The Social Animal_, p. 164, 2011, referencing a 2009 study by Steven N. Kaplan, Mark M. Klebanov, and Morten Sorenson called “Which CEO Characteristics and Abilities Matter?”, at Swedish Institute for Financial Research Conference on the Economics of the Private Equity Market, July 2008, http://faculty.chicagobooth.edu/steven.kaplan/research/kks.pdf



Und für Erinnerungen sind Sinneseindrücke ein tieferer Nährboden als die besten Systeme und Denkmethoden.

—Hermann Hesse, _Das Glasperlenspiel_, 1943 (1972), p. 500



Die Angst war der Druck, unter dem das Leben dieser Menschen stand, und ohne diesen hohen Druck hätte ihrem Leben zwar der Schrecken, aber auch die Intensität gefehlt.

—Hermann Hesse, _Das Glasperlenspiel_, 1943 (1972), p. 503



The proper thing for every believer in the Law is to receive these ordinances first by tradition, and only afterward, with the help of his divine Rock, to seek the knowledge of the cause for every ordinance, according to its interpretations, particulars, and biblical examples. This is the way of him who desires and longs for moral perfection… If he were to endeavor first to learn the reasons and the biblical examples for every commandment, and accept it by tradition only afterward, he would be like a man who refuses to eat bread until he learns how it was sown, how it was harvested, how it was ground, and how it was baked, and who would consequently go hungry a long time until he shall have learned its causes and beginnings.

—Elijah Bashyatchi, _Adderet Eliyahu_, as quoted in Leon Nemoy, _Karaite Anthology: Excerpts from the Early Literature_ (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1952), p. 242, in http://www.withoutend.org/celebrations-learned-men-nibley-schoolmen-denial-revelation/#sthash.OxQ98z9l.dpuf



[H]e thought that all the cats and kittens were let out of the bag … it was thought there was no other cat to let out. But allow me to tell you, … you may expect an eternity of cats, that have not yet escaped from the bag. Bless your souls, there is no end to them, for if there is not one thing, there will always be another.

—Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, 1:188, June 19, 1853



Ideally, what should be said to every child, repeatedly, throughout his or her school life is something like this: “You are in the process of being indoctrinated. We have not yet evolved a system of education that is not a system of indoctrination. We are sorry, but it is the best we can do. What you are being taught here is an amalgam of current prejudice and the choices of this particular culture. The slightest look at history will show how impermanent these must be. You are being taught by people who have been able to accommodate themselves to a regime of thought laid down by their predecessors. It is a self-perpetuating system. Those of you who are more robust and individual than others will be encouraged to leave and find ways of educating yourself — educating your own judgements. Those that stay must remember, always, and all the time, that they are being moulded and patterned to fit into the narrow and particular needs of this particular society.”

—Doris Lessing, _The Golden Notebook_, Introduction, 1971



Programming is a Dark Art, and it will always be. The programmer is fighting against the two most destructive forces in the universe: entropy and human stupidity. They’re not things you can always overcome with a “methodology” or on a schedule.

—Damian Conway



Saying “Life is what we make it to be”,
  is like saying “Language is what we make it to be” —
    True, but not at once;
      — just one bit at a time.

—Audrey Tang, http://pugs.blogs.com/pugs/2014/04/programming-languages-and-rails-girls.html



A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding. When it is not, he takes his mind off his own meaningless affairs by minding other people’s business.

—Eric Hoffer



You cannot overestimate the unimportance of practically everything.

—John Maxwell, in _Developing the Leader Within You_, 1993, pp. 22–23, cited in Greg McKeown, _Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less_, 2014, p. 45



[P]roductivity in my experience consists of NOT doing anything that helps the work of other people but to spend all one’s time on the work the Good Lord has fitted one to do, and to do well.

—Peter Drucker, in a letter to Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, cited in Greg McKeown, _Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less_, 2014, p. 136



Our faith in “progress” must be broken. All is not well, nor are things proceeding along smoothly from cause to effect to effect. We must learn to see history from a new perspective. When we learn to view history as does [Walter] Benjamin’s own “angel of history,” then we will find ourselves incapable of continued belief in the paralyzing promise of progress. Instead of viewing the past as a wave of momentous events whose crest has successfully carried us thus far and will carry us through to the end, we will learn to see the past and present as they genuinely stand: in need of salvation.

—Adam S. Miller, “Messianic History: Walter Benjamin and the Book of Mormon”, in _Rube Goldberg Machines: Essays in Mormon Theology_ (2012), p. 25



…twentieth century institutions were caught in savage crossfire between uncritical lovers and unloving critics. On the one side, those who loved their institutions tended to smother them in an embrace of death, loving their rigidities more than their promise, shielding them from life-giving criticism. On the other side, there arose a breed of critics without love, skilled in demolition but untutored in the arts by which human institutions are nurtured and strengthened and made to flourish.

Between the two, the institutions perished.

…love without criticism brings stagnation, and criticism without love brings destruction.

… men must be discriminating appraisers of their society, knowing coolly and precisely what it is about the society that thwarts or limits them and therefore needs modification. And so must they be discriminating protectors of their institutions, preserving those features that nourish and strengthen them and make them more free. To fit themselves for such tasks, they must be sufficiently serious to study their institutions, sufficiently dedicated to become expert in the art of modifying them.

—John W. Gardner, http://www.patheos.com/blogs/kiwimormon/2015/04/uncritical-lovers-mormonisms-problem-children/



There are all these things that you never know whether they’re features or bugs—in a company or organization, or even in a personal trait. I’m interested in lots of different things. I’m interested in business but also economics and philosophy and literature. I always like to rationalize that as helping me think about things better, or that these things are interdisciplinary. But maybe it’s just being a dilettante or procrastinating and not ever really getting focused.

—Peter Thiel, “Peter Thiel on what works at work”, interview in The Washington Post, 10 October 2014, http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/on-leadership/wp/2014/10/10/peter-thiel-on-what-works-at-work/



People always say you should live every day as though it’s your last. I sort of have taken the opposite tack, where I think you should live every day as though it’s going to go on forever. You should treat people like you’re going to see them again in the future. You should start working on projects that may take a long time. And so I want to live every day as though it’s going to go on forever.

—Peter Thiel, “Peter Thiel on what works at work”, interview in The Washington Post, 10 October 2014, http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/on-leadership/wp/2014/10/10/peter-thiel-on-what-works-at-work/



If you want truly to understand something, try to change it.

—Kurt Lewin, in Charles W. Tolman (1996), _Problems of Theoretical Psychology — ISTP 1995_, p. 31



One cannot think of beginning a novel without thinking within, as opposed to thinking “of,” these established practices, and even if one “decides” to “ignore” them or “violate” them or “set them aside,” the actions of ignoring and violating and setting aside will themselves have a shape that is constrained by the preexisting shape of those practices. … In short, he is neither free nor constrained … but free _and_ constrained.

—Stanley Fish, “Working on the Chain Gang: Interpretation in Law and Literature”, 1989



It is tempting to think that the more information one has (the more history) the more directed will be one’s interpretation; but information only comes in an interpreted form (it does not announce itself). No matter how much or how little you have, it cannot be a check against interpretation because even when you first “see” it, interpretation has already done its work.

—Stanley Fish, “Working on the Chain Gang: Interpretation in Law and Literature”, 1989



The Barbarian hopes — and that is the mark of him — that he can have his cake and eat it too. He will consume what civilization has slowly produced after generations of selection and effort, but he will not be at pains to replace such goods, nor indeed has he a comprehension of the virtue that has brought them into being. Discipline seems to him irrational, on which account he is ever marvelling that civilization should have offended him with priests and soldiers…. In a word, the Barbarian is discoverable everywhere in this, that he cannot make: that he can befog and destroy but that he cannot sustain; and of every Barbarian in the decline or peril of every civilization exactly that has been true.

    We sit by and watch the barbarian. We tolerate him in the long stretches of peace, we are not afraid. We are tickled by his irreverence; his comic inversion of our old certitudes and our fixed creed refreshes us; we laugh. But as we laugh we are watched by large and awful faces from beyond, and on these faces there are no smiles.

—Hilaire Belloc



It is a vulgar superstition, now, fortunately being dispelled, that archaeology is an empirical discipline … archaeological interpretations are a function not only of the evidence at hand, but also of the ideas and assumptions … that the interpreter carries about with him.

—R.B. Trigger, “The Strategy of Iroquoian Prehistory,” Ontario Archaeologist 14 (1970): 30, cited in William N. Irving, “Context and Chronology of Early Man in the Americas,” Annual Review of Anthropology 14 (1985): 529, from http://etherscave.blogspot.com/2015/07/scholars-are-people-too-attitudes.html



Until recently, archaeologists have largely adhered to the belief that their profession is objective and free of value judgment. This idea is associated with the philosophy of positivism, according to which the physical phenomena of the universe are characterized by inherent immutable features; since the meaning of these qualities should be self-evident to the observer, it can be discovered by the scientist, regardless of his or her personal perspective or inclinations. However … it is generally accepted today that science depends for its ultimate authority on the attitude of the scientific community, rather than on a rule-governed method of inquiry.

—Talia Shay, “Israeli Archaeology–Ideology and Practice,” Antiquity 63 (1989): 768, from http://etherscave.blogspot.com/2015/07/scholars-are-people-too-attitudes.html



Over time, all data approaches deleted, or public.

—Quinn Norton, “Hello Future Pastebin Readers: Welcome to the New Normal”, 2015-08-31, https://medium.com/message/hello-future-pastebin-readers-39d9b4eb935f



An acquaintanceship with the literature of the world may be won by any person who will devote half an hour a day to the careful reading of the best books. The habit of reading good books is one that gives great comfort in all the stages and among all the vicissitudes of life. The man who has learned to love good reading is never alone. His friends are the great ones of human history, and to them he may always go for stimulating and helpful communion.

—John Andreas Widtsoe (1872–1952)



I think perfect objectivity is an unrealistic goal; fairness, however, is not.

—Michael Pollan



Reason is itself a matter of faith. It is an act of faith to assert that our thoughts have any relation to reality at all.

—G.K. Chesterton



To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible.

—Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274)



Much good work is lost for the lack of a little more.

—Edward H. Harriman



Half of disbelief in God in the world is caused by people who make religion look ugly due to their bad conduct and ignorance.

—Al-Ghazali (1058–1111)



If you choose between two evils, let your choice fall on the obvious rather than the hidden, even though the first appears greater than the second.

—Kahlil Gibran, _Spiritual Sayings of Kahlil Gibran_, 1962, ed. & tr. Anthony Rizcallah Ferris



Deliver me from him who does not tell the truth unless he stings; and from the man of good conduct and bad intentions; and from him who acquires self-esteem by finding fault in others.

—Kahlil Gibran, _Spiritual Sayings of Kahlil Gibran_, 1962, ed. & tr. Anthony Rizcallah Ferris



How gravely the glutton counsels the famished to bear the pangs of hunger.

—Kahlil Gibran, _Spiritual Sayings of Kahlil Gibran_, 1962, ed. & tr. Anthony Rizcallah Ferris



Life is a succession of tasks rather than a cascade of inspiration, an experience that is more repetitive than revelatory, at least on a day-to-day basis. The thing is to perform the task well and find reward even in the mundane. …

I’ve grown suspicious of the inspirational. It’s overrated. I suspect duty — that half-forgotten word — may be more related to happiness than we think. Want to be happy? Mow the lawn. Collect the dead leaves. Paint the room. Do the dishes. Get a job. Labor until fatigue is in your very bones. Persist day after day. Be stoical. Never whine. Think less about the why of what you do than getting it done. Get the column written. Start pondering the next. …

I am less interested in the inspirational hero than I am in the myriad doers of everyday good who would shun the description heroic; less interested in the exhortation to “live your dream” than in the obligation to make a living wage. …

In the everyday task at hand, for woman or man, happiness lurks.

—Roger Cohen, New York Times, 12 June 2015, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/13/opinion/cohen-mow-the-lawn.html



[E]verything which is gigantic is spiritually suspect.

—Gabriel Marcel, cited in _Best Sermons volume VII, 1959–1960 Protestant edition_, ed. G. Paul Butler, 1959, p. 82



Questions are places in your mind where answers fit. If you haven’t asked the question, the answer has nowhere to go. It hits your mind and bounces right off. You have to ask the question — you have to want to know — in order to open up the space for the answer to fit.

—Clayton Christensen, paraphrased by Jason Fried, 2016-08-01, https://m.signalvnoise.com/what-are-questions-51c20fde777d



… many partisan loyalists are unprincipled hypocrites with no real convictions other than a quest for power …

—Glenn Greenwald, _No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State_, 2014, p. 199



You _show_ loving-kindness, or _do_ loving-kindness. You never feel it. Emotion is cheap. You can sit in an armchair before the fire, and love the whole wide world. And it does not mean a thing. It may give a comfortable glow of self-righteousness, but it is in the end only self-deception and does no one any good. Loving-kindness must be expressed in action, and the doing of it may take us into the filth …

—Lawrence E. Toombs, “Love in a Slave Market”, in _Best Sermons, volume VII, 1959–1960 Protestant Edition_, ed. G. Paul Butler, 1959, p. 220



Criticizing to destroy is easy, thinking in order to build is much more difficult to achieve.

—Tariq Ramadan



Men occasionally stumble over truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.

—Winston Churchill, ca. 1936, adapted by Charles G. Sampas in 1945



[D]ogmatic theology may, like grammar, seem a tiresome subject, except to specialists, but, like the rules of grammar, it is a necessity.

—W.H. Auden, in Dag Hammarskjöld, _Markings_, tr. Leif Sjöberg & W.H. Auden, 1965, p. xxii



“Better than other people.” Sometimes he says: “That, at least, you are.” But more often: “Why should you be? Either you are what you can be, or you are not—like other people.”

—Dag Hammarskjöld, _Markings_, tr. Leif Sjöberg & W.H. Auden, 1965, p. 8



Your cravings as a human animal do not become a prayer just because it is God whom you ask to attend to them.

—Dag Hammarskjöld, _Markings_, tr. Leif Sjöberg & W.H. Auden, 1965, p. 11



You cannot play with the animal in you without becoming wholly animal, play with falsehood without forfeiting your right to truth, play with cruelty without losing your sensitivity of mind. He who wants to keep his garden tidy doesn’t reserve a plot for weeds.

—Dag Hammarskjöld, _Markings_, tr. Leif Sjöberg & W.H. Auden, 1965, p. 15



O how much self-discipline, nobility of soul, lofty sentiments, we can treat ourselves to, when we are well-off and everything we touch prospers— Cheap: scarcely better than believing success is the reward of virtue.

—Dag Hammarskjöld, _Markings_, tr. Leif Sjöberg & W.H. Auden, 1965, p. 56



God does not die on the day when we cease to believe in a personal deity, but we die on the day when our lives cease to be illumined by the steady radiance, renewed daily, of a wonder, the source of which is beyond all reason.

—Dag Hammarskjöld, _Markings_, tr. Leif Sjöberg & W.H. Auden, 1965, p. 56



“Treat others as ends, never as means.” And myself as an end only in my capacity as a means: to shift the dividing line in my being between subject and object to a position where the subject, even if it is in me, is outside and above me—so that my _whole_ being may become an instrument for that which is greater than I.

—Dag Hammarskjöld, _Markings_, tr. Leif Sjöberg & W.H. Auden, 1965, p. 57



“Lack of character—” All too easily we confuse a fear of standing up for our beliefs, a tendency to be more influenced by the convictions of others than by our own, or simply a lack of conviction—with the need that the strong and mature feel to give full weight to the arguments of the other side. A game of hide-and-seek: when the Devil wishes to play on our lack of character, he calls it tolerance, and when he wants to stile our first attempts to learn tolerance, he calls it lack of character.

—Dag Hammarskjöld, _Markings_, tr. Leif Sjöberg & W.H. Auden, 1965, p. 64



A fable: once upon a time, there was a crown so heavy that it could only be worn by one who remained completely oblivious to its glitter.

—Dag Hammarskjöld, _Markings_, tr. Leif Sjöberg & W.H. Auden, 1965, p. 64



He was a member of the crew on Columbus’s caravel—he kept wondering whether he would get back to his home village in time to succeed the old shoemaker before anybody else could grab the job.

—Dag Hammarskjöld, _Markings_, tr. Leif Sjöberg & W.H. Auden, 1965, p. 66



Not to encumber the earth— No pathetic Excelsior, but just this: not to encumber the earth.

—Bertil Ekman (1894–1920), in Dag Hammarskjöld, _Markings_, tr. Leif Sjöberg & W.H. Auden, 1965, p. 66



To exist in the fleet joy of becoming, to be a channel for life as it flashes by in its gaiety and courage, cool water glittering in the sunlight—in a world of sloth, anxiety, and aggression.

    To exist for the future of others without being suffocated by their present.

—Dag Hammarskjöld, _Markings_, tr. Leif Sjöberg & W.H. Auden, 1965, p. 67



When you have reached the point where you no longer expect a response, you will at last be able to give in such a way that the other is able to receive, and be grateful. When Love has matured and, through a dissolution of the self into light, become a radiance, then shall the Lover be liberated from dependence upon the Beloved, and the Beloved also be made perfect by being liberated from the Lover.

—Dag Hammarskjöld, _Markings_, tr. Leif Sjöberg & W.H. Auden, 1965, p. 76



A landscape can sing about God, a body about Spirit.

—Dag Hammarskjöld, _Markings_, tr. Leif Sjöberg & W.H. Auden, 1965, p. 93



If only I may grow: firmer, simpler—quieter, warmer.

—Dag Hammarskjöld, _Markings_, tr. Leif Sjöberg & W.H. Auden, 1965, p. 93



The humility which comes from others having faith in you.

—Dag Hammarskjöld, _Markings_, tr. Leif Sjöberg & W.H. Auden, 1965, p. 93



With all the powers of your body concentrated in the hand on the tiller,
All the powers of your mind concentrated on the goal beyond the horizon,
You laugh as the salt spray catches your face in the second of rest
Before a new wave—
Sharing the happy freedom of the moment with those who share your responsibility.
So—in the self-forgetfulness of concentrated attention—the door opens for you into a pure living intimacy,
A shared, timeless happiness,
Conveyed by a smile,
A wave of the hand.

    Thanks to those who have taught me this. Thanks to the days which have taught me this.

—Dag Hammarskjöld, _Markings_, tr. Leif Sjöberg & W.H. Auden, 1965, p. 96



Your responsibility is a “to—”: you can never save yourself by a “not-to—”.

—Dag Hammarskjöld, _Markings_, tr. Leif Sjöberg & W.H. Auden, 1965, p. 98



_Never_ at your destination. —The greater task is only a higher class in this school, as you draw closer to your final exam, which nobody else will know about, because then you will be _completely alone_.

—Dag Hammarskjöld, _Markings_, tr. Leif Sjöberg & W.H. Auden, 1965, p. 101



On a really clean tablecloth, the smallest speck of dirt annoys the eye. At high altitudes, a moment’s self-indulgence may mean death.

—Dag Hammarskjöld, _Markings_, tr. Leif Sjöberg & W.H. Auden, 1965, p. 103



“What! _He_ is now going to try to teach _me_!” —Why not? There is nobody from whom you cannot learn. Before God, who speaks through all men, you are always in the bottom class of nursery school.

—Dag Hammarskjöld, _Markings_, tr. Leif Sjöberg & W.H. Auden, 1965, p. 104



Your errors of the past make your relation to others difficult when the present shows you that you might repeat them.

—Dag Hammarskjöld, _Markings_, tr. Leif Sjöberg & W.H. Auden, 1965, p. 106



The only kind of dignity which is genuine is that which is not diminished by the indifference of others.

—Dag Hammarskjöld, _Markings_, tr. Leif Sjöberg & W.H. Auden, 1965, p. 106



_Respect for the word_ is the first commandment in the discipline by which a man can be educated to maturity—intellectual, emotional, and moral.

    Respect for the word—to employ it with scrupulous care and an incorruptible heartfelt love of truth—is essential if there is to be any growth in a society or in the human race.

    To misuse the word is to show contempt for man. It undermines the bridges and poisons the wells. It causes Man to regress down the long path of his evolution.

    “But I say unto you, that every idle word that men speak …”

—Dag Hammarskjöld, _Markings_, tr. Leif Sjöberg & W.H. Auden, 1965, p. 112



In many matters, profound seriousness can only be expressed in words which are lighthearted, amusing, and detached; such a conversation as you may expect to hear from someone who, while deeply concerned for all things human, has nothing he is trying to gain or defend.

—Dag Hammarskjöld, _Markings_, tr. Leif Sjöberg & W.H. Auden, 1965, p. 121



Sun and stillness. Looking down through the jade-green water, you see the monsters of the deep playing on the reef. Is this a reason to be afraid? Do you feel safer when scudding waves hide what lies beneath the surface?

—Dag Hammarskjöld, _Markings_, tr. Leif Sjöberg & W.H. Auden, 1965, p. 121



Do what you can—and the task will rest lightly in your hand, so lightly that you will be able to look forward to the more difficult tests which may be awaiting you.

—Dag Hammarskjöld, _Markings_, tr. Leif Sjöberg & W.H. Auden, 1965, p. 124



In the presence of God, nothing stands between Him and us—we _are_ forgiven. But we _cannot_ feel His presence if anything is allowed to stand between ourselves and others.

—Dag Hammarskjöld, _Markings_, tr. Leif Sjöberg & W.H. Auden, 1965, p. 124



The “great” commitment all too easily obscures the “little” one. But without the humility and warmth which you have to develop in your relations to the few with whom you are personally involved, you will never be able to do anything for the many. Without them, you will live in a world of abstractions, where your solipsism, your greed for power, and your death-wish lack the one opponent which is stronger than they—love. Love, which is without an object, the outflowing of a power released by self-surrender, but which would remain a sublime sort of superhuman self-assertion, powerless against the negative forces within you, if it were not tamed by the yoke of human intimacy and warmed by its tenderness. It is better for the health of the soul to make one man good than “to sacrifice oneself for mankind.” For a mature man, these are not alternatives, but two aspects of self-realization, which mutually support each other, both being the outcome of one and the same choice.

—Dag Hammarskjöld, _Markings_, tr. Leif Sjöberg & W.H. Auden, 1965, p. 133



Without our being aware of it, our fingers are so guided that a pattern is created when the thread gets caught in the web.

—Dag Hammarskjöld, _Markings_, tr. Leif Sjöberg & W.H. Auden, 1965, p. 140



We have to acquire a peace and balance of mind such that we can give every word of criticism its due weight, and humble ourselves before every word of praise.

—Dag Hammarskjöld, _Markings_, tr. Leif Sjöberg & W.H. Auden, 1965, p. 151



The madman shouted in the market place. No one stopped to answer him. Thus it was confirmed that his thesis was incontrovertible.

—Dag Hammarskjöld, _Markings_, tr. Leif Sjöberg & W.H. Auden, 1965, p. 161



We should not be able to say of a man, “He is a mathematician,” or “a preacher,” or “eloquent”; but that he is “a gentleman.” That universal quality alone pleases me. It is a bad sign when, on seeing a person, you remember his book. I would prefer you to see no quality till you meet it and have occasion to use it (Ne quid nimis), for fear some one quality prevail and designate the man. Let none think him a fine speaker, unless oratory be in question, and then let them think it.

—Blaise Pascal, _Pensées_, tr. W.F. Trotter, 1958, #35



The most important affair in life is the choice of a calling; chance decides it. Custom makes men masons, soldiers, slaters. “He is a good slater,” says one, and, speaking of soldiers, remarks, “They are perfect fools.” But others affirm, “There is nothing great but war, the rest of men are good for nothing.” We choose our callings according as we hear this or that praised or despised in our childhood … It is custom then which does this, for it constrains nature. But sometimes nature gains the ascendancy, and preserves man’s instinct, in spite of all custom, good or bad.

—Blaise Pascal, _Pensées_, tr. W.F. Trotter, 1958, #97



When our passion leads us to do something, we forget our duty; for example, we like a book and read it, when we ought to be doing something else. Now, to remind ourselves of our duty, we must set ourselves a task we dislike; we then plead that we have something else to do, and by this means remember our duty.

—Blaise Pascal, _Pensées_, tr. W.F. Trotter, 1958, #104



Although people may have no interest in what they are saying, we must not absolutely conclude from this that they are not lying; for there are some people who lie for the mere sake of lying.

—Blaise Pascal, _Pensées_, tr. W.F. Trotter, 1958, #108



Time heals griefs and quarrels, for we change and are no longer the same persons. Neither the offender nor the offended are any more themselves. It is like a nation which we have provoked, but meet again after two generations. They are still Frenchmen, but not the same.

—Blaise Pascal, _Pensées_, tr. W.F. Trotter, 1958, #122



We view things not only from different sides, but with different eyes; we have no wish to find them alike.

—Blaise Pascal, _Pensées_, tr. W.F. Trotter, 1958, #124



Contraries.—Man is naturally credulous and incredulous, timid and rash.

—Blaise Pascal, _Pensées_, tr. W.F. Trotter, 1958, #125



Our nature consists in motion; complete rest is death.

—Blaise Pascal, _Pensées_, tr. W.F. Trotter, 1958, #129



A mere trifle consoles us, for a mere trifle distresses us.

—Blaise Pascal, _Pensées_, tr. W.F. Trotter, 1958, #136



_Diversion._—As men are not able to fight against death, misery, ignorance, they have taken it into their heads, in order to be happy, not to think of them at all.

—Blaise Pascal, _Pensées_, tr. W.F. Trotter, 1958, #168



The great and the humble have the same misfortunes, the same griefs, the same passions; but the one is at the top of the wheel, and the other near the centre, and so less disturbed by the same revolutions.

—Blaise Pascal, _Pensées_, tr. W.F. Trotter, 1958, #180



We are so unfortunate that we can only take pleasure in a thing on condition of being annoyed if it turn out ill, as a thousand things can do, and do every hour. He who should find the secret of rejoicing in the good, without troubling himself with its contrary evil, would have hit the mark. It is perpetual motion.

—Blaise Pascal, _Pensées_, tr. W.F. Trotter, 1958, #181



It is superstition to put one’s hope in formalities; but it is pride to be unwilling to submit to them.

—Blaise Pascal, _Pensées_, tr. W.F. Trotter, 1958, #249



Faith indeed tells what the senses do not tell, but not the contrary of what they see. It is above them and not contrary to them.

—Blaise Pascal, _Pensées_, tr. W.F. Trotter, 1958, #265



The strength of a man’s virtue must not be measured by his efforts, but by his ordinary life.

—Blaise Pascal, _Pensées_, tr. W.F. Trotter, 1958, #352



Man’s nature is not always to advance; it has its advances and retreats.

—Blaise Pascal, _Pensées_, tr. W.F. Trotter, 1958, #354



Continuous eloquence wearies.

Princes and kings sometimes play. They are not always on their thrones. They weary there. Grandeur must be abandoned to be appreciated. Continuity in everything is unpleasant. Cold is agreeable, that we may get warm.

Nature acts by progress, itus et reditus. It goes and returns, then advances further, then twice as much backwards, then more forward than ever, etc.

The tide of the sea behaves in the same manner; and so apparently does the sun in its course.

—Blaise Pascal, _Pensées_, tr. W.F. Trotter, 1958, #355



Scepticism.—Excess, like defect of intellect, is accused of madness. Nothing is good but mediocrity. The majority has settled that, and finds fault with him who escapes it at whichever end. I will not oppose it. I quite consent to put myself there, and refuse to be at the lower end, not because it is low, but because it is an end; for I would likewise refuse to be placed at the top. To leave the mean is to abandon humanity. The greatness of the human soul consists in knowing how to preserve the mean. So far from greatness consisting in leaving it, it consists in not leaving it.

—Blaise Pascal, _Pensées_, tr. W.F. Trotter, 1958, #378



It is not good to have too much liberty. It is not good to have all one wants.

—Blaise Pascal, _Pensées_, tr. W.F. Trotter, 1958, #379



When we are too young, we do not judge well; so, also, when we are too old. If we do not think enough, or if we think too much on any matter, we get obstinate and infatuated about it. If one considers one’s work immediately after having done it, one is entirely prepossessed in its favour; by delaying too long, one can no longer enter into the spirit of it. So with pictures seen from too far or too near; there is but one exact point which is the true place wherefrom to look at them: the rest are too near, too far, too high, or too low. Perspective determines that point in the art of painting. But who shall determine it in truth and morality?

—Blaise Pascal, _Pensées_, tr. W.F. Trotter, 1958, #381



Contradiction is a bad sign of truth; several things which are certain are contradicted; several things which are false pass without contradiction. Contradiction is not a sign of falsity, nor the want of contradiction a sign of truth.

—Blaise Pascal, _Pensées_, tr. W.F. Trotter, 1958, #384



It is dangerous to make man see too clearly his equality with the brutes without showing him his greatness. It is also dangerous to make him see his greatness too clearly, apart from his vileness. It is still more dangerous to leave him in ignorance of both. But it is very advantageous to show him both. Man must not think that he is on a level either with the brutes or with the angels, nor must he be ignorant of both sides of his nature; but he must know both.

—Blaise Pascal, _Pensées_, tr. W.F. Trotter, 1958, #418



There is enough light for those who only desire to see, and enough obscurity for those who have a contrary disposition.

—Blaise Pascal, _Pensées_, tr. W.F. Trotter, 1958, #430



To pity the unfortunate is not contrary to lust. On the contrary, we can quite well give such evidence of friendship, and acquire the reputation of kindly feeling, without giving anything.

—Blaise Pascal, _Pensées_, tr. W.F. Trotter, 1958, #452



It is a perverted judgment that makes every one place himself above the rest of the world, and prefer his own good, and the continuance of his own good fortune and life, to that of the rest of the world!

—Blaise Pascal, _Pensées_, tr. W.F. Trotter, 1958, #456



We must not judge of nature by ourselves, but by it.

—Blaise Pascal, _Pensées_, tr. W.F. Trotter, 1958, #457


Happiness is neither without us nor within us. It is in God, both without us and within us.

—Blaise Pascal, _Pensées_, tr. W.F. Trotter, 1958, #465



It is unjust that men should attach themselves to me, even though they do it with pleasure and voluntarily. I should deceive those in whom I had created this desire; for I am not the end of any, and I have not the wherewithal to satisfy them. Am I not about to die? And thus the object of their attachment will die. Therefore, as I would be blamable in causing a falsehood to be believed, though I should employ gentle persuasion, though it should be believed with pleasure, and though it should give me pleasure; even so I am blamable in making myself loved, and if I attract persons to attach themselves to me. I ought to warn those who are ready to consent to a lie, that they ought not to believe it, whatever advantage comes to me from it; and likewise that they ought not to attach themselves to me; for they ought to spend their life and their care in pleasing God, or in seeking Him.

—Blaise Pascal, _Pensées_, tr. W.F. Trotter, 1958, #471



The true religion must teach greatness and misery; must lead to the esteem and contempt of self, to love and to hate.

—Blaise Pascal, _Pensées_, tr. W.F. Trotter, 1958, #494



Experience makes us see an enormous difference between piety and goodness.

—Blaise Pascal, _Pensées_, tr. W.F. Trotter, 1958, #496



The most cruel war which God can make with men in this life is to leave them without that war which He came to bring. “I came to send war,” He says, “and to teach them of this war. I came to bring fire and the sword.” Before Him the world lived in this false peace.

—Blaise Pascal, _Pensées_, tr. W.F. Trotter, 1958, #498



All things can be deadly to us, even the things made to serve us; as in nature walls can kill us, and stairs can kill us, if we do not walk circumspectly.

The least movement affects all nature; the entire sea changes because of a rock. Thus in grace, the least action affects everything by its consequences; therefore everything is important.

In each action we must look beyond the action at our past, present, and future state, and at others whom it affects, and see the relations of all those things. And then we shall be very cautious.

—Blaise Pascal, _Pensées_, tr. W.F. Trotter, 1958, #505



The philosophers did not prescribe feelings suitable to the two states.

They inspired feelings of pure greatness, and that is not man’s state.

They inspired feelings of pure littleness, and that is not man’s state.

There must be feelings of humility, not from nature, but from penitence, not to rest in them, but to go on to greatness. There must be feelings of greatness, not from merit, but from grace, and after having passed through humiliation.

—Blaise Pascal, _Pensées_, tr. W.F. Trotter, 1958, #524



Christianity is strange. It bids man recognise that he is vile, even abominable, and bids him desire to be like God. Without such a counterpoise, this dignity would make him horribly vain, or this humiliation would make him terribly abject.

—Blaise Pascal, _Pensées_, tr. W.F. Trotter, 1958, #536



We make an idol of truth itself; for truth apart from charity is not God, but His image and idol, which we must neither love nor worship; and still less must we love or worship its opposite, namely, falsehood.

—Blaise Pascal, _Pensées_, tr. W.F. Trotter, 1958, #581



The feeble-minded are people who know the truth, but only affirm it so far as consistent with their own interest. But, apart from that, they renounce it.

—Blaise Pascal, _Pensées_, tr. W.F. Trotter, 1958, #582



Two errors: 1. To take everything literally. 2. To take everything spiritually.

—Blaise Pascal, _Pensées_, tr. W.F. Trotter, 1958, #647



Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.

—Blaise Pascal, _Pensées_, tr. W.F. Trotter, 1958, #894



Regionales Bewusstsein ist nicht provinziell.

—Helmut Kohl



Mellowing out, therefore, is a risky proposition. If you learn not to feel spite or petty rage or shame, you may feel better, but you may find that you lack the motivation to pursue arduous projects. The demons will leave you alone – which might be a relief.

Finally, curiosity accomplishes itself in the world through overconfidence. Within a zone of newly-discovered ignorance, there’s no way to know how much work will be required, and how much understanding will even be possible. Overconfidence motivates the exploration of territories about which there is very little information; curious people are more risk-seeking in terms of effort expended and ambition of projects. More of the territory is explored by overconfident explorers; coverage increases. Overconfidence (or grandiosity) is also more likely to leave a mark on the world. Overconfident, grandiose people want everyone to share their same beliefs. They spend more energy making sure their ideas filter out into the broader world. They make better, more understandable, more interesting compressions of their ideas that can be easily communicated. Meek people might have great ideas, but only a few people will ever hear them. 

—Sarah Perry, “The Power of Pettiness”, July 6, 2017, https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2017/07/06/the-power-of-pettiness/



Every society honors its live conformists and its dead troublemakers.

—Mignon McLaughlin



The aims of life are the best defense against death …

—Primo Levi, _The Drowned and the Saved_, 1989, p. 148



Evil is the force that believes its knowledge is complete.

—Jordan B. Peterson



Just about anybody can face a crisis. It’s that everyday living that’s rough.

—George Seaton in film “The Country Girl” (1954), based on a play by Clifford Odets (often wrongly attributed to Anton Chekhov), https://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/06/14/face-crisis/



1 – You don’t have to have an opinion on everything, much less voice your opinion on everything. I am learning to say less, react less, and think, pray and empathize more.

2 – Choose good, reliable and diverse sources that typically offer a fair assessment of things to feed your mind and inform your opinions.

3 – If you are going to express your thoughts, be a good source yourself. Don’t put out anything you think would be disingenuous coming from someone else. Don’t spread rumors or false information.

It is hard to find grace and peace in a world of reactivity and criticism. We can do better than that.

Matt Dabbs, _Our Religio-Socio-Political Climate Where Everything Is a Test_, September 25, 2017; http://mattdabbs.com/2017/09/25/our-religio-socio-political-climate-where-everything-is-a-test/



Doomsayers and declinists on the Right and Left need to acknowledge that the rapid and radical changes they seek, especially on a global level, are simply unfeasible. Expecting too much too soon while simultaneously ignoring the progress already made is a recipe for impatience, cynicism, and instability. This is not, however, a warrant for complacency. … The populist prophets of doom-and-gloom are currently experiencing a resurgence across the West and beyond, even though the pessimism on which they thrive has never been less justified. …

Factfulness beckons us to become more sceptical and less cynical and more open-minded and less ignorant about the current state of the world. … As he concludes: “Worry about the right things… ignore the noise, but keep an eye on the big global risks.”

—Lyle Broom, _‘Factfulness’—A Review_, June 19, 2018; https://quillette.com/2018/06/19/factfulness-a-review/



This was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy. They were haughty, and did abominable things before me; therefore I removed them when I saw it.

—Ezekiel 16:49–50 (NRSV)



Lubin gets a twinkle in his eye when he talks about what he sees as the first opportunity in human history to create systems without the traditional clerical class, the old priesthood of the record keepers, rune readers, and bean counters. Still, he acknowledges, “You’ll certainly need priests to build these systems.” These would be the top-end coders, the devs. William Shatner has called crypto “cyber-snob currency.” In some respects, we’d be replacing one priesthood with another.

“Governance” is a dismal word, but in the crypto realm it has profound implications. It concerns how decisions are made, and who gets to make them. Each blockchain—as a technology, a community, and a social experiment—is an exercise in achieving consensus. The quest is a human one, so the mechanisms that rule it reflect the priorities of the mechanics. Technology, as we learn time and again, is no cure for human nature. Power accrues, even when the goal is to eliminate it.

—Nick Paumgarten, “The Prophets of Cryptocurrency Survey the Boom and Bust: Inside the ongoing argument over whether Bitcoin, Ethereum, and the blockchain are transforming the world” in The New Yorker, October 22, 2018; https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/10/22/the-prophets-of-cryptocurrency-survey-the-boom-and-bust



The ability to understand a question from all sides meant that one was totally unfitted for action.

—Thucydides, _History of the Peloponnesian War_ book III, chapter 82, section 4 (431 B.C.), trans. R. Warner



Delight lies somewhere between boredom and confusion.

—E.H. Gombrich, The Sense of Order (1994), p. 9, in _10 PRINT_, Nick Montfort et al. (2012), p. 67.



The essential thing is contingency. I mean that one cannot define existence as necessity. To exist is _simply to be there_; those who exist let themselves be encountered, but you can never deduce anything from them. I believe there are people who have understood this. Only they tried to overcome this contingency by inventing a necessary, causal being. But no necessary being can explain existence: contingency is not a delusion, a probability which can be dissipated; it is the absolute, consequently, the perfect free gift. … Existence is not something which lets itself be thought of from a distance: it must invade you suddenly, master you, weigh heavily on your heart like a great motionless beast—​or else there is nothing more at all.

—Jean-Paul Sartre, _Nausea [La Nausée]_ (1938), tr. Lloyd Alexander (1964), pp. 131–132



Work begins when the fear of doing nothing at all finally trumps the terror of doing it badly.

—Alain de Botton



Some claim that the world is gradually becoming united, that it will grow into a brotherly community as distances shrink and ideas are transmitted through the air. Alas, you must not believe that men can be united in this way. To consider freedom as directly dependent on the number of man’s requirements and the extent of their immediate satisfaction shows a twisted understanding of human nature, for such an interpretation only breeds in men a multitude of senseless, stupid desires and habits and endless preposterous inventions. People are more and more moved by envy now, by the desire to satisfy their material greed and by vanity.

—Fyodor Dostoevsky, _The Brothers Karamazov_ (1880), in _Antisocial Media: How Facebook Disconnects Us and Undermines Democracy_ by Siva Vaidhyanathan (2018)



Among the great struggles of man—​good/evil, reason/​unreason, etc.—​there is also this mighty conflict between the fantasy of Home and the fantasy of Away, the dream of roots and the mirage of the journey. 

—Salman Rushdie, The Ground Beneath Her Feet (2000)



I have observed that not the man who hopes when others despair, but the man who despairs when others hope, is admired by a large class of persons as a sage.

—John Stuart Mill



… there are in fact no masses, but only ways of seeing people as masses.

—Raymond Williams, _Resources of Hope: Culture, Democracy, Socialism_, 1988




But to tear down a factory or to revolt against a government or to avoid repair of a motorcycle because it is a system is to attack effects rather than causes; and as long as the attack is upon effects only, no change is possible. The true system, the real system, is our present construction of systematic thought itself, rationality itself, and if a factory is torn down but the rationality which produced it is left standing, then that rationality will simply produce another factory. If a revolution destroys a systematic government, but the systematic patterns of thought that produced that government are left intact, then those patterns will repeat themselves in the succeeding government. There’s so much talk about the system. And so little understanding.

—Robert M. Pirsig, _Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance_, 1974 & 1984, p. 88



An experiment is never a failure solely because it fails to achieve predicted results. An experiment is a failure only when it also fails adequately to test the hypothesis in question, when the data it produces don’t prove anything one way or another.

—Robert M. Pirsig, _Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance_, 1974 & 1984, p. 95



It’s sometimes argued that there’s no real progress; that a civilization that kills multitudes in mass warfare, that pollutes the land and oceans with ever larger quantities of debris, that destroys the dignity of individuals by subjecting them to a forced mechanized existence can hardly be called an advance over the simpler hunting and gathering and agricultural existence of prehistoric times. But this argument, though romantically appealing, doesn’t hold up. The primitive tribes permitted far less individual freedom than does modern society. Ancient wars were committed with far less moral justification than modern ones. A technology that produces debris can find, and is finding, ways of disposing of it without ecological upset. And the schoolbook pictures of primitive man sometimes omit some of the detractions of his primitive life—​the pain, the disease, famine, the hard labor needed just to stay alive. From that agony of bare existence to modern life can be soberly described only as upward progress, and the sole agent for this progress is quite clearly reason itself.

—Robert M. Pirsig, _Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance_, 1974 & 1984, p. 112



You are never dedicated to something you have complete confidence in. No one is frantically shouting that the sun is going to rise tomorrow. They _know_ it’s going to rise tomorrow. When people are fanatically dedicated to political or religious faiths or any other kinds of dogmas or goals, it’s always because these dogmas or goals are in doubt.

—Robert M. Pirsig, _Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance_, 1974 & 1984, p. 134



What guarantees the objectivity of the world in which we live is that this world is common to us with other thinking beings. Through the communications that we have with other men we receive from them ready-made harmonious reasonings. We know that these reasonings do not come from us and at the same time we recognize in them, _because of their harmony_, the work of reasonable beings like ourselves. And as these reasonings appear to fit the world of our sensations, we think we may infer that these reasonable beings have seen the same thing as we; thus it is that we know we haven’t been dreaming. It is this harmony, this _quality_ if you will, that is the sole basis for the only reality we can ever know.

—Robert M. Pirsig, _Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance_, 1974 & 1984, p. 241



The leading edge is where absolutely all the action is. The leading edge contains all the infinite possibilities of the future. It contains all the history of the past. Where else could they be contained?
    The past cannot remember the past. The future can’t generate the future. The cutting edge of this instant right here and now is always nothing less than the totality of everything there is.
    Value, the leading edge of reality, is no longer an irrelevant offshoot of structure. Value is the predecessor of structure. It’s the preintellectual awareness that gives rise to it. Our structured reality is preselected on the basis of value, and really to understand structured reality requires an understanding of the value source from which it’s derived.

—Robert M. Pirsig, _Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance_, 1974 & 1984, p. 255



If you want to build a factory, or fix a motorcycle, or set a nation right without getting stuck, then classical, structured dualistic subject-​object knowledge, although necessary, isn’t enough. You have to have some feeling for the quality of the work. You have to have a sense of what’s good. _That_ is what carries you forward. This sense isn’t just something you’re born with, although you _are_ born with it. It’s also something you can develop. It’s not just “intuition,” not just unexplainable “skill” or “talent.” It’s the direct result of contact with basic _reality_, Quality, which dualistic reason has in the past tended to conceal.

—Robert M. Pirsig, _Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance_, 1974 & 1984, p. 255



Stuckness shouldn’t be avoided. It’s the psychic predecessor of all real understanding. An egoless acceptance of stuckness is a key to an understanding of all Quality, in mechanical work as in other endeavors. It’s this understanding of Quality as revealed by stuckness which so often makes self-​taught mechanics so superior to institute-​trained men who have learned how to handle everything except a new situation.

—Robert M. Pirsig, _Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance_, 1974 & 1984, p. 257



[If a person] takes whatever dull job he’s stuck with—​and they are all, sooner or later, dull—​and, just to keep himself amused, starts to look for options of Quality, and secretly pursues these options, just for their own sake, thus making an art out of what he is doing, he’s likely to discover that he becomes a much more interesting person and much less of an object to the people around him because his Quality decisions change _him_ too. And not only the job and him, but others too because the Quality tends to fan out like waves. The Quality job he didn’t think anyone was going to see _is_ seen, and the person who sees it feels a little better because of it, and is likely to pass that feeling on to others, and in that way the Quality tends to keep on going.

—Robert M. Pirsig, _Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance_, 1974 & 1984, p. 322–323



The essence of Agile approaches is simply this: we should inspect and adapt frequently rather than slavishly following a plan.

—Mark Schwartz, _A Seat at the Table_, 2017, p. 45



[D]oes the team trust the map or the territory that they actually encounter?

—Mark Schwartz, _A Seat at the Table_, 2017, p. 48



Although attempting to bring about world peace through the internal transformation of individuals is difficult, it is the only way.

—Dalai Lama [Tenzin Gyatso], in Thich Nhat Hanh, _Peace Is Every Step_, 1991, p. vii



When you expose yourself to [social media and news], especially in the constant way that people do now—older people as well as younger people—you are continuously bombarding yourself with a stream of other people’s thoughts. You are marinating yourself in the conventional wisdom. In other people’s reality: for others, not for yourself. You are creating a cacophony in which it is impossible to hear your own voice, whether it’s yourself you’re thinking about or anything else. …
    Introspection means talking to yourself, and one of the best ways of talking to yourself is by talking to another person. One other person you can trust, one other person to whom you can unfold your soul. One other person you feel safe enough with to allow you to acknowledge things—to acknowledge things to yourself—that you otherwise can’t. Doubts you aren’t supposed to have, questions you aren’t supposed to ask. Feelings or opinions that would get you laughed at by the group or reprimanded by the authorities.

—William Deresiewicz, “Solitude and Leadership”, March 1, 2010, https://theamericanscholar.org/solitude-and-leadership/



Ich schwatze da Unsinn, aber ich will lieber ein bißchen faseln und dabei etwas Schwieriges halbwegs ausdrücken, als immer nur tadellose Hergebrachtheiten von mir geben …

—Thomas Mann, »Der Zauberberg«, 1991 [1924], p. 801



Für seine Aphorismensammlung mochte er sich notieren, daß man ein Mysterium mit allereinfachsten Worten ausspricht — oder es unausgesprochen läßt.

—Thomas Mann, »Der Zauberberg«, 1991 [1924], p. 807



Human felicity is produc’d not so much by great Pieces of good Fortune that seldom happen, as by little Advantages that occur every day.

—Benjamin Franklin



The most dangerous untruths are truths slightly distorted.

—G.C. Lichtenberg



All software is haunted; a house that runs on software becomes a haunted house.

—Jack Kelly, “Free Software’s Relevance in 2021”, 9 July 2021, http://jackkelly.name/blog/archives/2021/07/09/free_softwares_relevance_in_2021/index.html



Fundamentalists are not always the type who seize you by the throat with one fist while thumping the table with the other. There are plenty of soft-spoken, self-effacing examples of the species. It isn’t a question of style. Nor is the opposite of fundamentalism lukewarmness, or the tiresome liberal prejudice that the truth always lies somewhere in the middle. Tolerance and partisanship are not incompatible. Anti-fundamentalists are not people without passionate beliefs; they are people who number among their passionate beliefs the conviction that you have as much right to your opinion as they have. And for this, some of them are certainly prepared to die. The historian AJP Taylor was once asked at an interview for an Oxford fellowship whether it was true that he held extreme political beliefs, to which he replied that it was, but that he held them moderately. He may have been hinting that he was a secret sceptic, but he probably just meant that he did not agree with forcing his beliefs on others.

The word “fundamentalism” was first used in the early years of the last century by anti-liberal US Christians, who singled out seven supposed fundamentals of their faith. The word, then, is not one of those derogatory terms that only other people use about you, like “fatso”. It began life as a proud self-description. The first of the seven fundamentals was a belief in the literal truth of the Bible; and this is probably the best definition of fundamentalism there is. It is basically a textual affair. Fundamentalists are those who believe that our linguistic currency is trustworthy only if it is backed by the gold standard of the Word of Words. They see God as copperfastening human meaning. Fundamentalism means sticking strictly to the script, which in turn means being deeply fearful of the improvised, ambiguous or indeterminate.

Fundamentalists, however, fail to realise that the phrase “sacred text” is self-contradictory. Since writing is meaning that can be handled by anybody, any time, it is always profane and promiscuous. Meaning that has been written down is bound to be unhygienic. Words that could only ever mean one thing would not be words. Fundamentalism is the paranoid condition of those who do not see that roughness is not a defect of human existence, but what makes it work. For them, it is as though we have to measure Everest down to the last millimetre if we are not to be completely stumped about how high it is. It is not surprising that fundamentalism abhors sexuality and the body, since in one sense all flesh is rough, and all sex is rough trade.

[…]

Fundamentalists are really necrophiliacs, in love with a dead letter. The letter of the sacred text must be rigidly embalmed if it is to imbue life with the certitude and finality of death. Matthew’s gospel, in a moment of carelessness, presents Jesus as riding into Jerusalem on both a colt and an ass — in which case, for the fundamentalist, the Son of God must indeed have had one leg thrown over each.

The fundamentalist is a more diseased version of the argument-from-the-floodgates type of conservative. Once you allow one motorist to throw up out of the car window without imposing a lengthy prison sentence, then before you know where you are, every motorist will be throwing up out of the window all the time, and the roads will become impassable. It is this kind of pathological anxiety, pressed to an extreme, which drove the religious police in Mecca early last year to send fleeing schoolgirls back into their burning school because they were not wearing their robes and head dresses, and which inspires family-loving US pro-lifers eager to incinerate Iraq to gun down doctors who terminate pregnancies. To read the world literally is a kind of insanity.

—Terry Eagleton, “Pedants and partisans”, in The Guardian, 22 February 2003, https://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/feb/22/featuresreviews.guardianreview31



In general, anti-capitalist beliefs and anti-science beliefs are my two favorite categories of luxury beliefs, because they both quite often represent the kind of fun reality-denial that can only be possible in a society made rich by science and capitalism.

—Noah Smith, 23 December 2021, https://twitter.com/Noahpinion/status/1474413184891113478



There’s a thread you follow. It goes among
things that change. But it doesn’t change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can’t get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt
or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.
You don’t ever let go of the thread.

—William Stafford, “The Way It Is”, in _Ask Me: 100 Essential Poems_, Graywolf Press, January 7, 2014