A quotation from Douglas Adams

Grown men, he told himself, in flat contradiction of centuries of accumulated evidence about the way grown men behave, do not behave like this.

Douglas Adams (1952-2001) English author, humorist, screenwriter
Hitchhiker’s Guide No. 4, So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish, ch. 11 [Arthur] (1984)

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A quotation from Simone de Beauvoir

It’s frightening to think that you mark your children merely by being yourself.
 
[C’est effrayant de penser qu’on marque ses enfants rien que par ce qu’on est.]

Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986) French author, existentialist philosopher, feminist theorist
Les Belles Images, ch. 3 (1966) [tr. O’Brian (1968)]

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A quotation from James Howell

Do thou thy best, and leave to God the rest.

James Howell (c. 1594–1666) Welsh historian and writer
Paroimiographia [Παροιμιογραφία]: Proverbs, or, Old Sayed Sawes & Adages, “New Sayings,” 2nd Century (1659)

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A quotation from A. A. Milne

One of the advantages of being disorderly is that one is constantly making exciting discoveries.

A. A. Milne (1882-1956) English poet and playwright [Alan Alexander Milne]
Year In, Year Out, “July” (1952)

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A quotation from Eleanor Roosevelt

As long as we are not actually destroyed, we can work to gain greater understanding of other peoples and to try to present to the peoples of the world the values of our own beliefs. We can do this by demonstrating our conviction that human life is worth preserving and that we are willing to help others to enjoy benefits of our civilization just as we have enjoyed it.

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) First Lady of the US (1933–1945), politician, diplomat, activist
Column (1951-12-20), “My Day”

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A quotation (probably not) from Oscar Wilde

Some men improve the world only by leaving it.

Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) Irish poet, wit, dramatist
(Spurious)

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A quotation from John Adams

Power always Sincerely, conscientiously, de très bon Foi, believes itself Right. Power always thinks it has a great Soul and vast Views, beyond the Comprehension of the Weak; and that it is doing God Service when it is violating all his Laws.

John Adams (1735–1826) American lawyer, Founding Father, statesman, US President (1797–1801)
Letter (1816-02-02) to Thomas Jefferson

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A quotation from Henry Commager

And as for the argument that criticism [of government foreign policy] may give aid and comfort to some enemy, that is a form of blackmail unworthy of those who profess it. If it is to be accepted, we will have an end to genuine discussion of foreign policies, for it will inevitably be invoked to stop debate and criticism whenever that debate gets acrimonious or the criticism cuts too close to the bone. And to the fevered mind of the FBI, the CIA, and some Senators, criticism always gives aid and comfort to the enemy or cuts too close to the bone.

Henry Steele Commager (1902-1998) American historian, writer, activist
Essay (1965-12-18), “The Problem of Dissent,” Saturday Review

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A quotation from Montesquieu

When the savages of Louisiana want some fruit, they cut down the tree at the base and gather the fruit. That is how a despotic government works.
 
[Quand les sauvages de la Louisiane veulent avoir du fruit, ils coupent l’arbre au pied, & cueillent le fruit. Voilà le gouvernement despotique.]

Charles-Lewis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu (1689-1755) French political philosopher
Spirit of Laws [The Spirit of the Laws; De l’esprit des lois], Book 5, ch. 13 (5.13) (1748) [tr. Stewart (2018)]

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A quotation from Victor Hugo

When dictatorship is a fact, revolution becomes a right.
 
[Quand la dictature est un fait, la révolution devient un droit.]

Victor Hugo (1802-1885) French writer
(Attributed)

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A quotation from Jean Kerr

You can’t sleep until noon with the proper élan unless you have some legitimate reason for staying up until three (parties don’t count).

Jean Kerr (1922-2003) American author and playwright [b. Bridget Jean Collins]
Essay (1957), “Introduction,” Please Don’t Eat the Daisies

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A quotation from Kipling

It is always a temptation to a rich and lazy nation,
To puff and look important and to say: —
“Though we know we should defeat you, we have not the time to meet you.
We will therefore pay you cash to go away.”
 
And that is called paying the Dane-geld;
But we’ve proved it again and again,
That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld
You never get rid of the Dane.

Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) English writer
School History, “Dane-Geld (A.D. 980-1016),” st. 3-4 (1911) [with C.R.L. Fletcher]

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A quotation from Wendell Berry

The folly at the root of this foolish economy began with the idea that a corporation should be regarded, legally, as “a person.” But the limitless destructiveness of this economy comes about precisely because a corporation is not a person. A corporation, essentially, is a pile of money to which a number of persons have sold their moral allegiance. Unlike a person, a corporation does not age. It does not arrive, as most persons finally do, at a realization of the shortness and smallness of human lives; it does not come to see the future as the lifetime of the children and grandchildren of anybody in particular.

Wendell Berry (b. 1934) American farmer, educator, poet, conservationist
Essay (2000), “The Total Economy,” Citizenship Papers (2003)

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A quotation from Joseph Addison

CATO: Forbear, Sempronius! — see they suffer death,
   But in their deaths remember they are men.
   Strain not the laws to make their tortures grievous.

Joseph Addison (1672-1719) English essayist, poet, statesman
Cato, Act 3, sc. 5, l. 60ff (1713)

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A quotation from Santayana

There is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval.

George Santayana (1863-1952) Spanish-American poet and philosopher [Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruíz de Santayana y Borrás]
Essay (1916 ca.), “War Shrines,” Soliloquies in England, ch. 24 (1922)

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A quotation from Steinbeck

No one wants advice — only corroboration.

John Steinbeck (1902-1968) American writer
The Winter of Our Discontent, Part I, ch. 6 (1961)

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A quotation from John Green

The pleasure of remembering had been taken from me, because there was no longer anyone to remember with. It felt like losing your co-rememberer meant losing the memory itself, as if the things we’d done were less real and important than they had been hours before.

John Green (b. 1977) American author
The Fault in Our Stars, ch. 21 (2012)

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A quotation from Goethe

And I have again observed, my dear friend, in this trifling affair, that misunderstandings and neglect occasion more mischief in the world than even malice and wickedness. At all events, the two latter are of less frequent occurrence.
 
[Und ich habe, mein Lieber, wieder bei diesem kleinen Geschäft gefunden, dass Missverständnisse und Trägheit vielleicht mehr Irrungen in der Welt machen als List und Bosheit. Wenigstens sind die beiden letzteren gewiss seltener.]

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) German poet, statesman, scientist
Die Leiden des jungen Werthers [The Sorrows of Young Werther], “Letter from May 4th” (1774) [tr. Taylor]

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A quotation from Charles Darwin

It has often and confidently been asserted, that man’s origin can never be known: but ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science.

Charles Darwin (1809-1882) English naturalist
The Descent of Man, Introduction (1871)

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A quotation from Robert Penn Warren

You live through time, that little piece of time that is yours, but that piece of time is not only your own life, it is the summing-up of all the other lives that are simultaneous with yours. It is, in other words, History, and what you are is an expression of History, and you do not live your life, but somehow, your life lives you, and you are, therefore, only what History does to you.

Robert Penn Warren (1905-1989) American poet, novelist, literary critic
Band of Angels, ch. 6 (1955)

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A quotation from Terry Pratchett

There were times that called for mindless, terror-filled panic, and times that called for measured, considered, thoughtful panic.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 22, The Last Continent (1998)

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A quotation from Adlai Stevenson

And the freedom of the mind, my friends, has served America well. The vigor of our political life, our capacity for change, our cultural, scientific, and industrial achievements, all derive from free inquiry, from the free mind — from the imagination, resourcefulness, and daring of men who are not afraid of new ideas. Most all of us favor free enterprise for business. Let us also favor free enterprise for the mind. For, in the last analysis, we would fight to the death to protect it.

Adlai Stevenson (1900-1965) American diplomat, statesman
Speech (1952-08-27), “The Nature of Patriotism,” American Legion Convention, Madison Square Garden, New York City

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A quotation from La Rochefoucauld

We try to make virtues of the faults we do not wish to correct.
 
[Nous essayons de nous faire honneur des défauts que nous ne voulons pas corriger.]

François VI, duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680) French epigrammatist, memoirist, noble
Réflexions ou sentences et maximes morales [Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims], ¶442 (1665-1678) [tr. Kronenberger (1959)]

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A quotation from Samuel Johnson

It is commonly observed, that when two Englishmen meet, their first talk is of the weather; they are in haste to tell each other, what each must already know, that it is hot or cold, bright or cloudy, windy or calm.

Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) English writer, lexicographer, critic
Essay (1758-06-24), The Idler, No. 11

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A quotation from W. H. Auden

Those who will not reason
Perish in the act:
Those who will not act
Perish for that reason.

W. H. Auden (1907-1973) Anglo-American poet [Wystan Hugh Auden]
“Shorts,” No. 7 (c. 1930), Collected Poems, Part 2 “1927-1932” (1976 ed.) [ed. Mendelson]

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A quotation from Mark Twain

Nothing incites to money-crimes like great poverty or great wealth.

Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
Quoted in Merle Johnson, ed., More Maxims of Mark (1927)

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A quotation from William Drummond

He, who will not reason, is a bigot; he, who cannot, is a fool; and he, who dares not, is a slave.

William Drummond of Logie-Almond (1770-1828) Scottish classical scholar, philosopher, diplomat, politician
Academical Questions, Preface (1805)

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