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A quotation from Twain

Custom is custom; it is built of brass, boiler iron, granite; facts, reasonings, arguments have no more effect upon it than the idle winds have upon Gibraltar.

Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
Essay (1906), “The Gorky Incident,” Letters from the Earth (c. 1909; pub. 1962) [ed. DeVoto (1939)]

Mark Twain quote about custom


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A quotation from Robert Louis Stevenson

No considerate man can approach marriage without deep concern. I, he will think, who have made hitherto so poor a business of my own life, am now about to embrace the responsibility of another’s. Henceforth, there shall be two to suffer from my faults; and that other is the one whom I most desire to shield from suffering.

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894) Scottish essayist, novelist, poet
Essay (1880-01/02?), “Reflections and Remarks on Human Life,” § 10.1 “Marriage”


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A quotation from Horace

But like a general, a host displays
his genius best under disaster.
 
[Sed convivatoris uti ducis ingenium res
Adversae nudare solent, celare secundae.]

Horace (65–8 BC) Roman poet, satirist, soldier, politician [Quintus Horatius Flaccus]
Satires [Saturae, Sermones], Book 2, # 8 “Ut Nasidieni,” l. 73ff (2.8.73-74) (30 BC) [tr. Matthews (2002)]

But like a general, a host displays his genius best under disaster. - Horace


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A quotation from Teddy Roosevelt

Indeed, the doctrine that “To the victor belong the spoils,” the cynical battle-cry of the spoils politician in America for the sixty years preceding my own entrance into public life, is so nakedly vicious that few right-thinking men of trained mind defend it. To appoint, promote, reduce, and expel from the public service, letter-carriers, stenographers, women typewriters, clerks, because of the politics of themselves or their friends, without regard to their own service, is, from the standpoint of the people at large, as foolish and degrading as it is wicked.

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, statesman, conservationist, writer, US President (1901–1909)
Autobiography, ch. 5 “Applied Idealism” (1913)


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A quotation from Thomas Carlyle

Everywhere in life, the true question is not what we gain, but what we do.

Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) Scottish essayist and historian
Essay (1828-05), “Goethe’s Helena,” Foreign Review, Vol. 1, No. 2, Article 5


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A quotation from Josh Billings

I aint no disgrace for a man to fall, but to lay thare, and grunt, iz.
 
[It ain’t no disgrace for a man to fall, but to lay there, and grunt, is.]

Josh Billings (1818-1885) American humorist, aphorist [pseud. of Henry Wheeler Shaw]
Josh Billings’ Farmer’s Allminax, 1876-06 (1876 ed.)


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A quotation from Cicero

MARCUS: How few philosophers are to be found who are such in character, so ordered in soul and in life, as reason demands; who regard their teaching not as a display of knowledge, but as the rule of life; who obey themselves, and submit to their own decrees!
 
[Quotus enim quisque philosophorum invenitur, qui sit ita moratus, ita animo ac vita constitutus, ut ratio postulat? qui disciplinam suam non ostentationem scientiae, sed legem vitae putet? qui obtemperet ipse sibi et decretis suis pareat?]

Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BC) Roman orator, statesman, philosopher
Tusculan Disputations [Tusculanae Disputationes], Book 2, ch. 4 (2.4) / sec. 11 (2.11) [Marcus] (45 BC) [tr. Peabody (1886)]


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A quotation from Bill Watterson

   CALVIN: Bugs fly in such crazy loops and zigzags. I wonder why they don’t get dizzy and barf.
   HOBBES: Maybe they do!
   CALVIN: Eww, gross! Ha ha ha! But then why would they keep flying that way?
   HOBBES: Maybe bugs like to barf!
   CALVIN: Ewwww! They would!! Ha ha ha ha! Blaugh!
   CALVIN: I tell you, Hobbes, it’s great to have a friend who appreciates an earnest discussion of ideas.

Bill Watterson (b. 1958) American cartoonist
Calvin and Hobbes (1992-07-14)

Calvin and Hobbes (1992-07-14)


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A quotation from Ambrose Bierce

DESERVE, n. The quality of being entitled to what somebody else obtains.

Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914?) American writer and journalist
“Deserve,” “Devil’s Dictionary” column, San Francisco Wasp (1882-03-03)


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A quotation from Thoreau

Age is no better, hardly so well, qualified for an instructor as youth, for it has not profited so much as it has lost.

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 Montaigne

No wind serves him who has no port of destination.
 
[Nul vent fait pour celuy qui n’a point de port destiné.]

Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) French essayist
Essays, Book 2, ch. 1 (2.1), “Of the Inconsistency of Our Actions [De l’inconstance de nos actions]” (1572) [tr. Zeitlin (1934)]


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A quotation from Baltasar Gracian

The way to quiet the turbulence of a mob is to withdraw your hand, and let it quiet itself; to concede today, may be the best way to succeed tomorrow.
 
[Sea modo de sosegar vulgares torbellinos el alzar mano y dejar sosegar; ceder al tiempo ahora será vencer después.]

Baltasar Gracián y Morales (1601-1658) Spanish Jesuit priest, writer, philosopher
The Art of Worldly Wisdom [Oráculo Manual y Arte de Prudencia], § 138 (1647) [tr. Fischer (1937)]


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A quotation from Anaïs Nin

The important task of literature is to free man, not to censor him, and that is why Puritanism was the most destructive and evil force which ever oppressed people and their literature: it created hypocrisy, perversion, fears, sterility.

Anaïs Nin (1903-1977) Catalan-Cuban-French author, diarist


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A quotation from Douglas Adams

It’s important to remember that the relationship between different media tends to be complementary. When new media arrive they don’t necessarily replace or eradicate previous types. Though we should perhaps observe a half second silence for the eight-track — there that’s done. What usually happens is that older media have to shuffle about a bit to make space for the new one and its particular advantages. Radio did not kill books and television did not kill radio or movies — what television did kill was the cinema newsreel.

Douglas Adams (1952-2001) English author, humorist, screenwriter
Broadcast (2010-10-11), Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Future, ep. 2, “Publishing,” BBC Radio 4


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A quotation from Molly Ivins

Nice is a pallid virtue. Not like honesty or courage or perseverance. On the other hand, in a nation frequently lacking in civility, there is much to be said for nice.

Molly Ivins (1944-2007) American writer, political columnist [Mary Tyler Ivins]
Essay (1994-05-15), “My, Oh, My, It’s the Ninth Wonder of the World,” Creators Syndicate column, Fort Worth Star-Telegram


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A quotation from James Howell

He who will thrive, must rise at five;
He who hath thriven, may sleep till seven;
Who will not thrive at all, may sleep till eleven.

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 C S Lewis

There are inquiries in which scanty evidence is worth using. We may not be able to get certainty, but we can get probability, and half a loaf is better than no bread.

C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) English writer, literary scholar, lay theologian [Clive Staples Lewis]
Essay (1950-10), “Historicism,” The Month, Vol. 4, No. 4 New Series (Vol. 190, No. 998 Old Series)


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A quotation from Hannah Arendt

Totalitarianism is never content to rule by external means, namely, through the state and a machinery of violence; thanks to its peculiar ideology and the role assigned to it in this apparatus of coercion, totalitarianism has discovered a means of dominating and terrorizing human beings from within.

Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) German-American philosopher, political theorist
The Origins of Totalitarianism, Part 3, ch. 10 “A Classless Society,” sec. 1 (1951)


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A quotation from Brennan Manning

Grace is sufficient even though we huff and puff with all our might to try to find something or someone it cannot cover.

Brennan Manning (1934-2013) American author, laicized priest, theologian, speaker [Richard Francis Xavier Manning]
All Is Grace: A Ragamuffin Memoir, ch. 19 (2011)


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A quotation from Henry Commager

We are shocked when we see educators, timid before criticism and confused about first principles, betray their trust. And we wonder what can be that "philosophy of education" which believes that young people can be trained to the duties of citizenship by wrapping their minds in cotton wool.

Henry Steele Commager (1902-1998) American historian, writer, activist
Essay (1947-09), “Who Is Loyal to America?” sec. 1, Harper’s Magazine, Vol. 195, No. 1168


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A quotation from Terry Pratchett

It was said that life was cheap in Ankh-Morpork. This was, of course, completely wrong. Life was often very expensive; you could get death for free.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld, Book 7, Pyramids (1989)


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A quotation from Samuel Johnson

Of many writers who filled their age with wonder, and whose names we find celebrated in the books of their contemporaries, the works are now no longer to be seen, or are seen only amidst the lumber of libraries which are seldom visited, where they lie only to show the deceitfulness of hope, and the uncertainty of honour.

Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) English writer, lexicographer, critic
Essay (1759-06-02), The Idler, No. 59


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A quotation from Shakespeare

For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds;
Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Sonnet 94, ll. 13-14 (pub. 1609)


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A quotation from John Quincy Adams

I have, and must have, confidence in the possible virtue of human nature; and although in entertaining this idea, a man must, and will sometimes, be disappointed, yet if it is coupled with a sound judgment and close observations, I believe he could make fewer great mistakes, than one whose principle is the universal rascality of the species.

John Quincy Adams (1767-1848) US President (1825-29)
Letter (1809-06-22) to William Eustis


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A quotation from Francis Bacon

There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.

Francis Bacon (1561-1626) English philosopher, scientist, author, statesman
Essay (1612), “Of Beauty,” Essays, No. 43 (1625)


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A quotation from Alfred Hitchcock

Making a film means, first of all, to tell a story. That story can be an improbable one, but it should never be banal. It must be dramatic and human. What is drama, after all, but life with the dull bits cut out.

Alfred Hitchcock (1899-1980) English film director
Interview (1962-08) by François Truffaut


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A quotation from Robert Ingersoll

Life is a shadowy, strange, and winding road on which we travel for a little way — a few short steps — just from the cradle, with its lullaby of love, to the low and quiet way-side inn, where all at last must sleep, and where the only salutation is — Good-night.

Robert Green Ingersoll (1833-1899) American lawyer, freethinker, orator
Essay (1881-11) “The Christian Religion,” “Part 2” North American Review, Vol. 133, No. 300


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A quotation from Adlai Stevenson

Behind the politics of big talk and little action lies the simple fact that most of the big men who run this show want little government.

Adlai Stevenson (1900–1965) American diplomat, statesman
Speech (1955-10-29), “The Crisis in Agriculture,” Democratic Rally, Duluth, Minnesota


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A quotation from Twain

Customs do not concern themselves with right or wrong or reason. But they have to be obeyed; one may reason all around them until he is tired, but he must not transgress them, it is sternly forbidden.

Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
Essay (1906), “The Gorky Incident,” Letters from the Earth (c. 1909; pub. 1962) [ed. DeVoto (1939)]


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A quotation from Kerry Greenwood

When pursued by a satyr, always make sure you are caught near the softest available moss.

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


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