A quotation from John Adams

Public Virtue cannot exist in a Nation without private, and public Virtue is the only Foundation of Republics. There must be a possitive Passion for the public good, the public Interest, Honour, Power, and Glory, established in the Minds of the People, or there can be no Republican Government, nor any real Liberty. And this public Passion must be Superiour to all private Passions. Men must be ready, they must pride themselves, and be happy to sacrifice their private Pleasures, Passions, and Interests, nay their private Friendships and dearest Connections, when they Stand in Competition with the Rights of society.

John Adams (1735-1826) American lawyer, Founding Father, statesman, US President (1797-1801)
Letter (1776-04-16) to Mercy Otis Warren

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A quotation from Henry Commager

If government, or those in positions of power and authority, can silence criticism by the argument that such criticism might be misunderstood somewhere, there is an end to all criticism, and perhaps an end to our kind of political system. For men in authority will always think that criticism of their policies is dangerous. They will always equate their policies with patriotism, and find criticism subversive.

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

As useless laws weaken necessary laws, those that can be evaded weaken legislation.
 
[Comme les lois inutiles affaiblissent les lois nécessaires, celles qu’on peut éluder affaiblissent la législation.]

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 29, ch. 16 (1748) [tr. Cohler/Miller/Stone (1989)]

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A quotation from Hyman Rickover

Somehow, things just didn’t work out the way the books on administration and on leadership said they should, and I early became aware that I could never qualify as a leader, if it were really necessary that I possess the twenty or so qualities most books or articles on leadership claimed to be necessary. So far, I have found no one in the Navy or in industry who possesses more than a few of these qualities, and so I have regretfully come to the conclusion that the only person who ever possessed all of them died some 1900 years ago.

Hyman Rickover (1900-1986) American naval engineer, submariner, US Navy Admiral
Speech (1954-03-16), “Administering a Large Military Development Project,” US Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California

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A quotation from Victor Hugo

God manifests himself to us in the first degree through the life of the universe, and in the second degree through the thought of man. The second manifestation is not less holy than the first. The first is named Nature, the second is named Art.
 
[Dieu se manifeste à nous au premier degré à travers la vie de l’univers, et au deuxième degré à travers la pensée de l’homme. La deuxième manifestation n’est pas moins sacrée que la première. La première s’appelle la Nature, la deuxième s’appelle l’Art.]

Victor Hugo (1802-1885) French writer
William Shakespeare, Part 1, Book 2, ch. 1 (1864) [tr. Anderson (1886)]

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A quotation from Thomas De Quincey

For if once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think little of robbing; and from robbing he comes next to drinking and Sabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination. Once begin upon this downward path, you never know where to stop. Many a man has dated his ruin from some murder or other that perhaps he thought little of the time.

Thomas De Quincey (1785-1859) English writer, essayist, literary critic
Essay (1839-11), “Second Paper on Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts,” Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 46, No. 289

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A quotation from Wendell Berry

We Americans are not usually thought to be a submissive people, but of course we are. Why else would we allow our country to be destroyed? Why else would we be rewarding its destroyers? Why else would we all — by proxies we have given to greedy corporations and corrupt politicians — be participating in its destruction? Most of us are still too sane to piss in our own cistern, but we allow others to do so and we reward them for it. We reward them so well, in fact, that those who piss in our cistern are wealthier than the rest of us.

Wendell Berry (b. 1934) American farmer, educator, poet, conservationist
Essay (1970-01-01), “Compromise, Hell!” Orion Magazine

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A quotation from Joseph Addison

Though a man has all other perfections, and wants discretion, he will be of no great consequence in the world; but if he has this single talent in perfection, and but a common share of others, he may do what he pleases in his station of life.

Joseph Addison (1672-1719) English essayist, poet, statesman
Essay (1711-11-17), The Spectator, No. 225

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A quotation from Judith Martin

It is far more impressive when others discover your good qualities without your help.

Judith Martin (b. 1938) American author, journalist, etiquette expert [a.k.a. Miss Manners]
(Attributed)

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A quotation from Shakespeare

KING: Madness in great ones must not unwatched go.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Hamlet, Act 3, sc. 1, l. 203ff (3.1.203) (c. 1600)

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A quotation from Peter De Vries

One dreams of the goddess Fame and winds up with the bitch Publicity.

Peter De Vries (1910-1993) American editor, novelist, satirist
The Mackerel Plaza, ch. 12 (1958)

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A quotation from Terry Pratchett

You take a bunch of people who don’t seem any different from you and me, but when you add them all together you get this sort of huge raving maniac with national borders and an anthem.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 31, Monstrous Regiment [Vimes] (2003)

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A quotation from La Rochefoucauld

Nobody deserves to be praised for goodness unless he is strong enough to be bad, for any other goodness is usually merely inertia or lack of will-power.
 
[Nul ne mérite d’être loué de bonté, s’il n’a pas la force d’être méchant: toute autre bonté n’est le plus souvent qu’une paresse ou une impuissance de la volonté.]

François VI, duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680) French epigrammatist, memoirist, noble
Réflexions ou sentences et maximes morales [Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims], ¶237 (1665-1678) [tr. Tancock (1959)]

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A quotation from Henri Estienne

If youth knew; if age could.
 
[O si jeunesse scavoit,
O si vieillesse pouvoit.]

Henri Estienne (1528 or 1531-1598) French printer and classical scholar [a.k.a. Henricus Stephanus]
Les Prémices, ou Le I livre Des Proverbes epigrammatizez [The First Fruits, or the First Book of Epigrammatized Proverbs], ch. 4, ep. 4 (1594)

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A quotation from Mark Twain

The trouble ain’t that there is too many fools, but that the lightning ain’t distributed right.

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 C. C.; Colton

Some read to think, these are rare; some to write, these are common; and some read to talk, and these form the great majority.

Charles Caleb "C. C." Colton (1780-1832) English cleric, writer, aphorist
Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Vol. 1, § 554 (1820)

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A quotation from Herb Stein

If something cannot go on forever, it will stop.

Herb Stein (1916-1999) American economist
Stein’s Law (1980s)

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A quotation from Robert Louis Stevenson

A happy man or woman is a better thing to find than a five-pound note. He or she is a radiating focus of goodwill; and their entrance into a room is as though another candle had been lighted. We need not care whether they could prove the forty-seventh proposition; they do a better thing than that, they practically demonstrate the great Theorem of the Liveableness of Life.

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) Scottish essayist, novelist, poet
Essay (1877-07), “An Apology for Idlers,” Cornhill Magazine, Vol. 36

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A quotation from Eric Hoffer

When cowardice is made respectable, its followers are without number both from among the weak and the strong; it easily becomes a fashion.

Eric Hoffer (1902-1983) American writer, philosopher, longshoreman
Passionate State of Mind, Aphorism 203 (1955)

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A quotation from Josh Billings

Tew learn yure offspring to steal, make them beg hard for all that yu giv them.
 
[To learn your offspring to steal, make them beg hard for all that you give them.]

Josh Billings (1818-1885) American humorist, aphorist [pseud. of Henry Wheeler Shaw]
Josh Billings’ Farmer’s Allminax, 1870-06 “Words Tew Housewifes” (1870 ed.)

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A quotation from Cicero

The life given us by nature is short; but the memory of a well-spent life is eternal.
 
[Brevis a natura nobis vita data est; at memoria bene reditae vitae sepiterna.]

Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BC) Roman orator, statesman, philosopher
Philippics [Philippicae; Antonian Orations], No. 14, ch. 12 / sec. 32 (14.12/14.32) (43-04-21 BC) [ed. Hoyt (1896)]

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A quotation from Ben Franklin

Tart Words make no Friends: a spoonful of honey will catch more flies than Gallon of Vinegar.

Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) American statesman, scientist, philosopher, aphorist
Poor Richard (1744 ed.)

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A quotation from John Heywood (and a Happy New Year to all!)

Let the world slide, let the world go:
A fig for care, and a fig for woe!
If I can’t pay, why, I can owe;
And death makes equal the high and low.
                              Be merry, friends!

John Heywood (1497?-1580?) English playwright and epigrammist
Ballad (1576), “Be Merry Friends,” st. 17

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A quotation from Ogden Nash

Oh, what a tangled web do parents weave
When they think that their children are naive.

Ogden Nash (1902-1971) American poet
“Baby, What Makes the Sky Blue?” ll. 1-2, New Yorker (1940-01-20)

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A quotation from Bertrand Russell

The habit of viewing life as a whole is an essential part both of wisdom and of true morality, and is one of the things which ought to be encouraged in education. Consistent purpose is not enough to make life happy, but it is an almost indispensable condition of a happy life. And consistent purpose embodies itself mainly in work.

Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Conquest of Happiness, Part 2, ch. 14 “Work” (1930)

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A quotation from John Heywood

A cat may looke on a King.

John Heywood (1497?-1580?) English playwright and epigrammist
Proverbs, Part 2, ch. 5 (1546)

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A quotation from Fran Lebowitz

The best fame is a writer’s fame. It’s enough to get a table at a good restaurant, but not enough that you get interrupted when you eat.

Fran Lebowitz (b. 1950) American journalist, essayist
Panel Discussion (1993-05-24), “Fame in the 20th Century,” Clive James (moderator), Joseph Papp Public Theater, New York City

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A quotation from Abraham Lincoln

Let us diligently apply the means, never doubting that a just God, in his own good time, will give us the rightful result.

Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) American lawyer, politician, US President (1861-65)
Letter (1863-08-26) to James C. Conkling

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A quotation from Emerson

If the hive be disturbed by rash and stupid hands, instead of honey, it will yield us bees.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
Essay (1841), “Prudence,” Essays: First Series, No. 7

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A quotation from Bill Watterson

CALVIN: As you can see, I have memorized this utterly useless piece of information long enough to pass a test question. I now intend to forget it forever. You’ve taught me nothing except how to cynically manipulate the system. Congratulations.

Bill Watterson (b. 1958) American cartoonist
Calvin and Hobbes (1994-01-27)

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