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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A quotation from C. C. Colton

Religion has treated knowledge sometimes as an enemy, sometimes as a hostage; often as a captive and more often as a child; but knowledge has become of age and religion must either renounce her acquaintance , or introduce her as a companion and respect her as a friend.

Charles Caleb "C. C." Colton (1780-1832) English cleric, writer, aphorist
Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Vol. 2, § 141 (1822)

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A quotation from Horace

Let the man who has acquired Enough not ask for MORE.
A house and acreage, a pile of bronze and gold coins,
Have never been able to lower the sick man’s fever
Or drive out his worries. The proprietor must be well
If he plans to enjoy the good things he’s gathered together.
 
[Quod satis est cui contingit, nihil amplius optet.
Non domus et fundus, non aeris acervus et auri
Aegroto doniini deduxit corpore febres,
on animo curas; valeat possessor oportet,
Si conpertatis rebus bene cogitat uti.]

Horace (65–8 BC) Roman poet, satirist, soldier, politician [Quintus Horatius Flaccus]
Epistles [Epistularum, Letters], Book 1, ep. 2 “To Lollius,” l. 46ff (1.2.46-50) (14 BC) [tr. Palmer Bovie (1959)]

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A quotation from Orwell

Those who “abjure” violence can only do so because others are committing violence on their behalf.

George Orwell (1903-1950) English journalist, essayist, writer [pseud. of Eric Arthur Blair]
Essay (1945-05), “Notes on Nationalism,” Polemic Magazine (1945-10)

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A quotation from Salman Rushdie

From the beginning men used God to justify the unjustifiable.

Salman Rushdie (b. 1947) Indian novelist
The Satanic Verses, Part 2 “Mahound” (1988)

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A quotation from Kerry Greenwood

She felt that the day should not be bounced in on with rude energy, but carefully and delicately seduced into being, and children and animals were sadly impervious to reason on this matter.

Kerry Greenwood (b. 1954) Australian author and lawyer
Phryne Fisher No. 11, Away with the Fairies, ch. 1 (2001)

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A quotation from Christopher Marlowe

   FAUSTUS. Come, I think hell’s a fable.
   MEPHISTOPHILES: Ay, think so still, till experience change thy mind.

Christopher "Kit" Marlowe (1564-1593) English dramatist and poet
The Tragicall History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus, Act 2, sc. 1 (sc. 5), l. 573ff (1594; 1604 “A” text)

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A quotation from Arthur Conan Doyle

I’m not going to tell you much more of the case, Doctor. You know a conjurer gets no credit once he has explained his trick; and if I show you too much of my method of working, you will come to the conclusion that I am a very ordinary individual after all.

Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930) British writer and physician
Story (1886-04), “A Study in Scarlet,” Part 1, ch. 4 [Holmes], Beeton’s Christmas Annual, Vol. 28 (1887-11-21)

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A quotation from Thomas Carlyle

Can the man say, Fiat lux, Let there be light; and out of chaos make a world? Precisely as there is light in himself, will he accomplish this.

Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) Scottish essayist and historian
Lecture (1840-05-12), “The Hero as Poet,” Home House, Portman Square, London

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A quotation from Eric Hoffer

Rudeness is the weak man’s imitation of strength.

Eric Hoffer (1902-1983) American writer, philosopher, longshoreman
Passionate State of Mind, Aphorism 241 (1955)

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A quotation from Cicero

What is the law? A thing that ought neither to be swayed by favor, nor be shattered by force, nor be corrupted by power.
 
[Quod enim est ius civile? Quod neque inflecti gratia neque perfringi potentia neque adulterari pecunia debeat.]

Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BC) Roman orator, statesman, philosopher
Pro Caecina [For Aulus Caecina], ch. 26 / sec. 73 (c. 69 BC) [tr. @sentantiq (2013)]

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A quotation from Josh Billings

I dont know ov enny thing more remorseless, on the face ov the earth, than 7 per cent interest.
 
[I don’t know of anything more remorseless on the face of the earth than 7 percent interest.]

Josh Billings (1818-1885) American humorist, aphorist [pseud. of Henry Wheeler Shaw]
Josh Billings’ Farmer’s Allminax, 1871-03 (1871 ed.)

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A quotation from Ben Franklin

A soft Tongue may strike hard.

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

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