A quotation from Neal Stephenson

As a fantasy writer, he was not highly regarded (“one cannot call him profoundly mediocre without venturing so far out on the critical limb as to bend it to the ground,” “so derivative that the reader loses track of who he’s ripping off,” “to say he is tin-eared would render a disservice to a blameless citizen of the periodic table of the elements”).

Neal Stephenson (b. 1959) American novelist
Reamde, Part 1 “Nine Dragons – Thanksgiving,” prologue (2011)


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A quotation from Terry Pratchett

The gods gave people a sense of humor to make up for giving them sex.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 7, Pyramids [Ptraci] (1989)


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A quotation from Martha Gellhorn

The Founding Fathers cannot have intended a President and his small group of appointed advisors to perform like a monarch surrounded by his court. As if the people’s representatives and the people themselves were a general nuisance, and the job is to keep the whole tiresome bunch quiet: manipulate them.

Martha Gellhorn (1908–1998) American novelist, journalist war correspontent
Letter (1971) to Daniel Ellsberg


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A quotation from Robert Ingersoll

The dogmas of the past no longer reach the level of the highest thought, nor satisfy the hunger of the heart. While dusty faiths, embalmed and sepulchered in ancient texts, remain the same, the sympathies of men enlarge; the brain no longer kills its young; the happy lips give liberty to honest thoughts; the mental firmament expands and lifts; the broken clouds drift by; the hideous dreams, the foul, misshapen children of the monstrous night, dissolve and fade.

Robert Green Ingersoll (1833-1899) American lawyer, freethinker, orator
Essay (1881-08) “The Christian Religion,” “Is All of the Bible Inspired?” ch. 3, North American Review, Vol. 133, No. 297


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A quotation from Cesare Pavese

I’ve made a lot of stupid mistakes. Everyone does in this life. The real affliction of old age is remorse.
 
[Ho fatto molti stupidi errori, se ne fanno nella vita. I veri acciacchi dell’età sono i rimorsi.]

Cesare Pavese (1908–1950) Italian writer. essayist, literary critic
The Moon and the Bonfire [La Luna e i Falò], ch. 8 [The Cavaliere] (1950) [tr. Sinclair (1952)]


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A quotation from Robert Louis Stevenson

But solitude for its own sake should surely never be preferred. We are bound by the strongest obligations to busy ourselves amid the world of men, if it be only to crack jokes.

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894) Scottish essayist, novelist, poet
Essay (1880-01/02?), “Reflections and Remarks on Human Life,” § 4.3 “Solitude and Society”


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A quotation from Samuel Johnson

That every man would be rich if a wish could obtain riches, is a position which I believe few will contest, at least in a nation like ours, in which commerce has kindled a universal emulation of wealth, and in which money receives all the honours which are the proper right of knowledge and of virtue.

Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) English writer, lexicographer, critic
Essay (1759-09-08), The Idler, No. 73


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A quotation from Teddy Roosevelt

He had not learned that the majority in a democracy has no more right to tyrannize over a minority than, under a different system, the latter would have to oppress the former; and that, if there is a moral principle at stake, the saying that the voice of the people is the voice of God may be quite as untrue, and do quite as much mischief, as the old theory of the divine right of kings. The distinguishing feature of our American governmental system is the freedom of the individual; it is quite as important to prevent his being oppressed by many men as it is to save him from the tyranny of one.

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, statesman, conservationist, writer, US President (1901–1909)
Thomas Hart Benton, ch. 6 (1886)


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A quotation from L'Engle

So let us look for beauty and grace, for love and friendship, for that which is creative and birth-giving and soul-stretching. Let us dare to laugh at ourselves, healthy, affirmative laughter. Only when we take ourselves lightly can we take ourselves seriously, so that we are given the courage to say, “Yes! I dare disturb the universe.”

Madeleine L'Engle (1918-2007) American writer
Speech (1983-11-16), “Dare To Be Creative,” Lecture, Library of Congress, Washington, DC


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A quotation from Steinbeck

We have only one story. All novels, all poetry, are built on the never-ending contest in ourselves of good and evil. And it occurs to me that evil must constantly re-spawn, while good, while virtue, is immortal. Vice has always a new fresh young face, while virtue is venerable as nothing else in the world is.

John Steinbeck (1902-1968) American writer
East of Eden, ch. 34 (1952)


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A quotation from La Rochefoucauld

The reason we are not often wholly possessed by a single vice, is that we are distracted by several.
 
[Ce qui nous empêche souvent de nous abandonner à un seul vice est que nous en avons plusieurs.]

François VI, duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680) French epigrammatist, memoirist, noble
Réflexions ou sentences et maximes morales [Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims], ¶195 (1665-1678) [pub. Donaldson (1783), ¶442]


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A quotation from Jane Fonda

When a child enters the world through you, it alters everything on a psychic, psychological and purely practical level. You’re just not free anymore to do what you want to do. And it’s not the same again. Ever.

Jane Fonda (b. 1937) American actress and activist
Interview (1980-11-28) by Danae Brook, “At Home with Tom and Jane,” Los Angeles Weekly


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A quotation from Molly Ivins

It’s all very well to dismiss the dismal sight of our Legislature in action by saying, “I’m just not interested in politics,” but the qualifications of the people who prescribe your eyeglasses, how deep you will be buried, what books your kids read in school, whether your beautician knows how to give a perm, the size of the cells in Stripe City, and a thousand and one other matters that touch your lives daily are decided by the dweebs, dorks, geeks, crooks, and bozos we’ve put into public office.

Molly Ivins (1944-2007) American writer, political columnist [Mary Tyler Ivins]
Essay (1992-03-01), “Good morning, Fort Worth! Glad to be here,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram


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A quotation from James Howell

Better half a loaf then no bread.

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


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A quotation from Rilke

For one human being to love another: that is perhaps the hardest of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation.
 
[Liebhaben von Mensch zu Mensch: das ist vielleicht das Schwerste, was uns aufgegeben ist, das Äußerste, die letzte Probe und Prüfung, die Arbeit, für die alle andere Arbeit nur Vorbereitung ist.]

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1963) German poet
Letter (1904-05-14) to Franz Xaver Kappus, Letters to a Young Poet [Briefe an einen jungen Dichter], No. 7 [tr. Norton (1934)]


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A quotation from Alain De Botton

Booksellers are the most valuable destination for the lonely, given the number of books that were written because authors couldn’t find anyone to talk to.

Alain de Botton (b. 1969) Swiss-British author
The Consolations of Philosophy, ch. 4 “Consolation for Inadequacy” (2000)


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A quotation from Ellis Peters

You do what you must do, and pay for it. So in the end all things are simple.

Ellis Peters (1913-1995) English writer, translator [pseud. of Edith Mary Pargeter]
Brother Cadfael’s Penance, ch. 16 (1994)


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A quotation from Betty Comden

New York, New York — a helluva town,
The Bronx is up, but the Battery’s down,
The people ride in a hole in the ground:
New York, New York — it’s a helluva town.

Betty Comden (1917-2006) Actress, comedian, screenwriter, lyricist
“New York, New York” (song) [with Adolph Green] (1944)


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A quotation from Primo Levi

The ascent of the privileged, not only in the Lager [prison camp] but in all human coexistence, is an anguishing but unfailing phenomenon: only in utopias is it absent. It is the duty of righteous men to make war on all undeserved privilege, but one must not forget that this is a war without end. Where there exists power exercised by the few or by only one against the many, privilege is born and proliferates, even against the will of the power itself; but on the other hand it is normal for power to tolerate and encourage it.

Primo Levi (1919-1987) Italian Jewish chemist and writer
The Drowned and the Saved, ch. 2 “The Grey Zone” (1986) [tr. Rosenthal (1888)]


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A quotation from Arthur Conan Doyle

You know my methods. Apply them.

Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930) British writer and physician
Story (1890-02), “The Sign of the Four,” ch. 6 [Holmes], Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine, Vol. 45 (US) / 1 (UK)


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A quotation from Heinlein

There is a latent deep strain of religious fanaticism in this, our culture; it is rooted in our history and it has broken out many times in the past. It is with us now; there has been a sharp rise in strongly evangelical sects in this country in recent years, some of which hold beliefs theocratic in the extreme, anti-intellectual, anti-scientific, and anti-libertarian.

Robert A. Heinlein (1907-1988) American writer
Essay (1952-10), “Concerning Stories Never Written,” Revolt in 2100, Postscript (1953)


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A quotation from Ambrose Bierce

CULPRIT, n. The other fellow.

Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914?) American writer and journalist
“Culprit,” “Devil’s Dictionary” column, San Francisco Wasp (1881-10-28)


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A quotation from Richard Feynman

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

Richard Feynman (1918-1988) American physicist
Rogers Commission Report into the Challenger Crash, Appendix F “Personal Observations on Reliability of Shuttle,” sec. F5 (1986-06)


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A quotation from Octavia Butler

I mean there’s no single answer that will solve all our future problems. There’s no magic bullet. Instead there are thousands of answers — at least. You can be one of them if you choose to be.

Octavia Butler (1947-2006) American writer
Essay (2000-05), “A Few Rules for Predicting the Future,” Essence Magazine


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A quotation from La Rochefoucauld

When our vices desert us, we flatter ourselves that we are deserting our vices.
 
[Quand les vices nous quittent, nous nous flattons de la créance que c’est nous qui les quittons.]

François VI, duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680) French epigrammatist, memoirist, noble
Réflexions ou sentences et maximes morales [Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims], ¶192 (1665-1678) [tr. Kronenberger (1959)]


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A quotation from Brennan Manning

When we wallow in guilt, remorse, and shame over real or imagined sins of the past, we are disdaining God’s gift of grace.

Brennan Manning (1934-2013) American author, laicized priest, theologian, speaker [Richard Francis Xavier Manning]
The Ragamuffin Gospel, ch. 6 “Grazie, Signore” (1990)


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A quotation from Tolstoy

If you are able to see all the consequences of what you are doing, then what you are doing is not very important.

Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) Russian novelist and moral philosopher
Path of Life [Calendar of Wisdom; Круг чтения], ch. 21 “Living in the Present,” sec. 6.2 (1903-1911) [(tr. Cote (2002)]


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A quotation from Shakespeare

MARCUS: Sorrow concealèd, like an oven stopped,
   Doth burn the heart to cinders where it is.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Titus Andronicus, Act 2, sc. 4, l. 36ff (2.4.26-37) (c. 1590)


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A quotation from Kerry Greenwood

[…] the bitterness to which all viola players are prone, while there are violins in the world.

Kerry Greenwood (b. 1954) Australian author and lawyer
Phryne Fisher, Book 15, Death by Water, ch. 10 (2005)


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A quotation from Robert Louis Stevenson

Never allow your mind to dwell on your own misconduct: that is ruin. The conscience has morbid sensibilities; it must be employed but not indulged, like the imagination or the stomach.

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894) Scottish essayist, novelist, poet
Essay (1880-01/02?), “Reflections and Remarks on Human Life,” § 7.1 “Discipline of Conscience”


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A quotation from Thoreau

It is characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.

Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) American philosopher and writer
Walden; or, Life in the Woods, ch. 1 “Economy” (1854)


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A quotation from Shaw

When you see a rich man’s wife (or anyone else’s wife) shaking her head over the thriftlessness of the poor because they do not all save, pity the lady’s ignorance; but do not irritate the poor by repeating her nonsense to them.

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) Irish playwright and critic
The Intelligent Woman’s Guide to Socialism and Capitalism, ch. 2 (1928)


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A quotation from Theodore Bikel

To conquer hate seems a nigh impossible task. But I prefer to make common cause with those whose weapons are guitars, banjos, fiddles and words.

Theodore Bikel (1924–2015) Austrian-American actor, singer, political activist.
Essay (2010) in Judea and Ruth Pearl (ed.), I Am Jewish: Personal Reflections Inspired by the Last Words of Daniel Pearl, Part 4


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A quotation from Carlyle

Beware of speaking. Speech is human, Silence is divine: yet also brutish and dead; therefore we must learn both arts, they are both difficult.

Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) Scottish essayist and historian
Notebook (1830-10)


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