A quotation from Elizabeth Bear
We claim the dignity of age, but the truth is, age leaves us without any dignity at all.
Elizabeth Bear (b. 1971) American author [pseud. for Sarah Bear Elizabeth Wishnevsky]
Bone and Jewel Creatures, ch. 4 [Bijou] (2010)
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He was going for the Holy Grail. The boys all took a flier at the Holy Grail now and then. It was a several years' cruise.WIST Quotations
A quotation from Robert Louis Stevenson
The friendly cow all red and white,
I love with all my heart:
She gives me cream with all her might,
To eat with apple-tart.
Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894) Scottish essayist, novelist, poet
Poem (1884-07), “The Cow,” st. 1, The Magazine of Art, Vol. 7
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A quotation from La Rochefoucauld
Interest, upon which we commonly lay the Blame of all our ill Actions, oftentimes deserves the commendation due to our Good ones.
[L’intérêt, que l’on accuse de tous nos crimes, mérite souvent d’être loué de nos bonnes actions.]
François VI, duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680) French epigrammatist, memoirist, noble
Réflexions ou sentences et maximes morales [Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims], ¶305 (1665-1678) [tr. Stanhope (1694)]
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Interest, upon which we commonly lay the Blame of all our ill Actions, oftentimes deserves the commendation due to our Good ones. [L’intérêt, que l’on accuse de tous nos crimes, mérite souvent d’être loué de nos bonnes actions.WIST Quotations
A quotation from Terry Pratchett
“If a thing’s worth doing, it’s worth doing badly,” said Granny, fleeing into aphorisms, the last refuge of an adult under siege.
Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 3, Equal Rites (1987)
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"If a thing’s worth doing, it’s worth doing badly," said Granny, fleeing into aphorisms, the last refuge of an adult under siege.WIST Quotations
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When thy next neighbours house is all on fire,
’Tis thy concern to make his flames expire;
For fire will gather strength if let alone,
And with thy neighbours house burn down thine owne.
[Nam tua res agitur, paries cum proximus ardet.
Et neglecta solent incendia sumere vires.]
Horace (65–8 BC) Roman poet, satirist, soldier, politician [Quintus Horatius Flaccus]
Epistles [Epistularum, Letters], Book 1, ep. 18 “To Lollius,” l. 84ff (1.18.84-85) (20 BC) [tr. A. B.; ed. Brome (1666)]
More about (and translations of) this quote: wist.info/horace/1958/
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When thy next neighbours house is all on fire, ’Tis thy concern to make his flames expire; For fire will gather strength if let alone, And with thy neighbours house burn down thine owne. [Nam tua res agitur, paries cum proximus ardet.WIST Quotations
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DOCTOR: Ah! (shows her an odd device) Eureka! Do you know what that is?
LEELA: You ask me so that you can tell me.
DOCTOR: That’s right.
Doctor Who (1963-1989) British science fiction television series, original run (BBC)
14×06 “The Talons of Weng-Chiang,” Part 5 (1977-03-26) [w. Robert Holmes]
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DOCTOR: Ah! (shows her an odd device) Eureka! Do you know what that is? LEELA: You ask me so that you can tell me. DOCTOR: That's right. (Source (Video); dialogue confirmed)WIST Quotations
MARCUS: Death is no annihilation, carrying off and blotting out everything, but rather, if I may so describe it, a change of abode, and an alteration in our manner of life.
[Mortem non interitum esse omnia tollentem atque delentem, sed quandam quasi migrationem commutationemque vitae.]
Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BC) Roman orator, statesman, philosopher
Tusculan Disputations [Tusculanae Disputationes], Book 1, ch. 12 (1.12) / sec. 27 (1.27) (45 BC) [ed. Harbottle (1897)]
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‘Twas the saying of an ancient Sage, “That Humour was the only Test of Gravity, and Gravity of Humour. For a Subject which would not bear Raillery is suspicious; and a Jest which would not bear a serious Examination is certainly false Wit.”
Anthony Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury (1671-1713) English politician and philosopher
Characteristics, Treatise 2 “Freedom of Wit and Humour,” Part 1, sec. 5 (1709)
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'Twas the saying of an ancient Sage, "That Humour was the only Test of Gravity, and Gravity of Humour. For a Subject which would not bear Raillery is suspicious; and a Jest which would not bear a serious Examination is certainly false Wit.WIST Quotations
A quotation from Theodore Roosevelt
[… T]he individual virtues, and the necessity of character as the chief factor in any man’s success — a teaching in which I now believe as sincerely as ever, for all the laws that the wit of man can devise will never make a man a worthy citizen unless he has within himself the right stuff, unless he has self-reliance, energy, courage, the power of insisting on his own rights and the sympathy that makes him regardful of the rights of others.
Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, statesman, conservationist, writer, US President (1901–1909)
Autobiography, ch. 1 “Boyhood and Youth” (1913)
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[... T]he individual virtues, and the necessity of character as the chief factor in any man's success -- a teaching in which I now believe as sincerely as ever, for all the laws that the wit of man can devise will never make a man a worthy citizen un…WIST Quotations
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A quotation from Arthur Conan Doyle
I know, my dear Watson, that you share my love of all that is bizarre and outside the conventions and humdrum routine of everyday life. You have shown your relish for it by the enthusiasm which has prompted you to chronicle, and, if you will excuse my saying so, somewhat to embellish so many of my own little adventures.
Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930) British writer and physician
Story (1891-08), “The Red-Headed League,” [Holmes], The Strand Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 2
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A quotation from Kerry Greenwood
The upper classes lived well in the good old days. Except, of course, for the famines, the pirates, the bandits, the plagues, the shortness of life and the imminence of ever present death. And no medical treatment, no antiseptic childbirth, no hot baths, no coffee, no chocolate and no tobacco. The last four decided her on the advantages of the twentieth century.
Kerry Greenwood (b. 1954) Australian author and lawyer
Phryne Fisher, Book 16, Murder in the Dark, ch. 16 (2006)
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Robbers must exalted be,
Small ones on the Gallow-Tree,
While greater ones ascend to Thrones,
But what is that to thee or me?
Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) American statesman, scientist, philosopher, aphorist
Poor Richard Improved (1748 ed.)
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Robbers must exalted be, Small ones on the Gallow-Tree, While greater ones ascend to Thrones, But what is that to thee or me?WIST Quotations
And so, live as long as you please, you will strike nothing off the time you will have to spend dead.
[Aussi avez vous beau vivre, vous n’en rabattrez rien du temps que vous avez à estre mort.]
Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) French essayist
Essays, Book 1, ch. 19 (1.19), “That to Philosophize Is to Learn to Die [Que Philosopher, c’est apprendre à mourir]” (1572) [tr. Frame (1943), 1.20]
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And so, live as long as you please, you will strike nothing off the time you will have to spend dead. [Aussi avez vous beau vivre, vous n’en rabattrez rien du temps que vous avez à estre mort.WIST Quotations
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A quotation from Douglas Adams
Most of the other shops were in fact impossible to identify. When a shop appeared to sell a mixture of ghetto blasters, socks, soap and chickens, it didn’t seem unreasonable to go in and ask if they’d got any paper or toothpaste stuck away in one of their shelves as well, but they looked at me as if I was completely mad. Couldn’t I see that this was a ghetto blaster, socks, soap and chicken shop?
Douglas Adams (1952-2001) English author, humorist, screenwriter
Last Chance to See, ch. 3 (1990) [with Mark Carwardine]
More about this quote: wist.info/adams-douglas/30028/
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Most of the other shops were in fact impossible to identify. When a shop appeared to sell a mixture of ghetto blasters, socks, soap and chickens, it didn't seem unreasonable to go in and ask if they'd got any paper or toothpaste stuck away in one of …WIST Quotations
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A quotation from Salman Rushdie
Great art, or, let’s just say, more modestly, original art is never created in the safe middle ground, but always at the edge. Originality is dangerous. It challenges, questions, overturns assumptions, unsettles moral codes, disrespects sacred cows or other such entities. It can be shocking, or ugly, or, to use the catch-all term so beloved of the tabloid press, controversial. And if we believe in liberty, if we want the air we breathe to remain plentiful and breathable, this is the art whose right to exist we must not only defend, but celebrate. Art is not entertainment. At its very best, it’s a revolution.
Salman Rushdie (b. 1947) Indian novelist
Speech (2012-05-06), Arthur Miller Freedom to Write Lecture, PEN World Voices Festival, New York City
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Neither all bad nor all good. A certain sage reduced the whole of wisdom to the golden mean. Carry right too far and it becomes wrong. The orange squeezed completely dry gives only bitterness. Even in enjoyment you shouldn't go to extremes.WIST Quotations
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But, as we have seen, many people try to conceal their poverty of thought under a flood of verbiage.
[Aber freilich suchen viele Schriftsteller gerade unter dem Wortüberfluß ihre Gedankenarmuth zu verbergen.]
Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) German philosopher
Parerga and Paralipomena, Vol. 2, ch. 23 “On Authorship and Style [Über Schriftstellerei und Stil],” § 283 (1851) [tr. Saunders (1890)]
More about (and translations of) this quote: wist.info/schopenhauer-arthur/…
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But, as we have seen, many people try to conceal their poverty of thought under a flood of verbiage. [Aber freilich suchen viele Schriftsteller gerade unter dem Wortüberfluß ihre Gedankenarmuth zu verbergen.] (Source (German)).WIST Quotations
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A quotation from Bertrand Russell
Orthodoxy is the grave of intelligence, no matter what orthodoxy it may be.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Education and the Social Order [Education and the Modern World], ch. 1 “The Individual versus the Citizen” (1932)
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Things are not getting worse; things have always been this bad. Nothing is more consoling than the long perspective of history. It will perk you up no end to go back and read the works of progressives past. You will learn therein that things back then were also terrible, and what’s more, they were always getting worse. This is most inspiriting.
Molly Ivins (1944-2007) American writer, political columnist [Mary Tyler Ivins]
Essay (1986-03), “How to Survive Reagan,” The Progressive, Vol. 50, No. 3
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Too much spoiles, too little doth not satisfie.
[Il troppo guasta, il poco non basta.]
James Howell (c. 1594–1666) Welsh historian, writer, aphorist
Paroimiographia [Παροιμιογραφία]: Proverbs, or, Old Sayed Sawes & Adages, “Proverbs in Italian” (1659)
[compiler]
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Man usually avoids attributing cleverness to somebody else — unless it is an enemy.
[Der Mensch vermeidet es gewöhnlich, einem andern Klugheit zuzuschreiben — wenn es sich nicht etwa um einen Feind handelt.]
Albert Einstein (1879-1955) German-American physicist
Essay (1953-05-23), “Aphorisms for Leo Baeck [Neun Aphorismen], No. 3, Essays Presented to Leo Baeck on the Occasion of His Eightieth Birthday (1954) [Einstein Archives 28-962]
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Man usually avoids attributing cleverness to somebody else -- unless it is an enemy. [Der Mensch vermeidet es gewöhnlich, einem andern Klugheit zuzuschreiben -- wenn es sich nicht etwa um einen Feind handelt.] (Source (German)).WIST Quotations
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How hard, oh, how hard it is to die and leave one’s country no better than if one had never lived for it.
Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) American lawyer, politician, US President (1861-65)
Remark (1850-09?) to William H. Herndon
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How hard, oh, how hard it is to die and leave one's country no better than if one had never lived for it. Recounted in a letter (1870-03-06) from Herndon (Lincoln's law partner) to Ward H.WIST Quotations
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I know of one gifted crackpot who used to be employed gainfully in the fields of humor and satire, who has taken a solemn pledge not to write anything funny or lighthearted or “insignificant” again till things get straightened around in the world. This seems to me distinctly deleterious and a little silly. A literature composed of nothing but liberty-loving thoughts is little better than the propaganda which it seeks to defeat.
E. B. White (1899-1985) American author, critic, humorist [Elwyn Brooks White]
Essay (1939-01), “One Man’s Meat,” Harper’s Magazine, Vol. 178
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I know of one gifted crackpot who used to be employed gainfully in the fields of humor and satire, who has taken a solemn pledge not to write anything funny or lighthearted or "insignificant" again till things get straightened around in the world.WIST Quotations
It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who, in the midst of the crowd, keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
Essay (1841), “Self-Reliance,” Essays: First Series, No. 2
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It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who, in the midst of the crowd, keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.WIST Quotations
A quotation from Bill Watterson
CALVIN: I have a hammer!
CALVIN: I can put things together! I can knock things apart! I can alter my environment at will and make an incredible din all the while!
CALVIN: Ah, it’s great to be male!
Bill Watterson (b. 1958) American cartoonist
Calvin and Hobbes (1995-08-03)
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CALVIN: I have a hammer! CALVIN: I can put things together! I can knock things apart! I can alter my environment at will and make an incredible din all the while! CALVIN: Ah, it’s great to be male!WIST Quotations
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A quotation from Ambrose Bierce
EQUAL, adj. As bad as something else.
Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914?) American writer and journalist
“Equal,” “Devil’s Dictionary” column, San Francisco Wasp (1884-05-24)
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EQUAL, adj. As bad as something else. Not collected in later books.WIST Quotations
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The concentration camps, by making death itself anonymous (making it impossible to find out whether a prisoner is dead or alive), robbed death of its meaning as the end of a fulfilled life. In a sense they took away the individual’s own death, proving that henceforth nothing belonged to him and he belonged to no one. His death merely set a seal on the fact that he had never existed.
Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) German-American philosopher, political theorist
Origins of Totalitarianism, Part 3, ch. 12 “Totalitarianism in Power,” sec. 3 (1951)
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JASON: The curse of children's blood be on you! Avenging Justice, blast your being! MEDEA: What god will hear your imprecation, Oath-breaker, guest-deceiver, liar? [ἸΆΣΩΝ: ἀλλά σ᾽ Ἐρινὺς ὀλέσειε τέκνων φονία τε Δίκη.WIST Quotations
A quotation from Eleanor Roosevelt
Will we ever learn to use reason instead of force in the world, and will people ever be wise enough to refuse to follow bad leaders or to take away the freedom of other people?
Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) First Lady of the US (1933–1945), politician, diplomat, activist
Column (1939-10-16), “My Day”
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When a sieve is shaken, the refuse appears; so does a person’s waste when he speaks. The kiln tests the potter’s vessels, and the test of a person is in his conversation.WIST Quotations
People talk about the middle of the road as though it were unacceptable. Actually, all human problems, excepting morals, come into the gray areas. Things are not all black and white. There have to be compromises. The middle of the road is all of the usable surface. The extremes, right and left, are in the gutters.
Dwight David Eisenhower (1890-1969) American general, US President (1953-61)
Interview (1963-11-05) by William Stringer, “Midroad View at Gettysburg,” Christian Science Monitor
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The gods […] have attached to liberty almost as many misfortunes as to servitude.
[Les dieux […] ont attaché à la liberté presque autant de malheurs qu’à la servitude.]
Charles-Lewis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu (1689-1755) French political philosopher
Essay (1724-02), “Dialogue of Sulla and Eucrates [Dialogue de Sylla et d’Eucrate] [Sulla], Mercure de France [tr. Carrithers / Stewart (2020)]
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The gods [...] have attached to liberty almost as many misfortunes as to servitude. [Les dieux [...] ont attaché à la liberté presque autant de malheurs qu'à la servitude.] Discussing the costs of liberty/freedom, versus living under tyranny.WIST Quotations
A quotation from Henry Commager
It is easier to say what loyalty is not than to say what it is. It is not conformity. It is not passive acquiescence in the status quo. It is not preference for everything American over everything foreign. It is not an ostrich-like ignorance of other countries and other institutions. It is not the indulgence in ceremony — a flag salute, an oath of allegiance, a fervid verbal declaration. It is not a particular creed, a particular version of history, a particular body of economic practices, a particular philosophy.
Henry Steele Commager (1902-1998) American historian, writer, activist
Essay (1947-07), “Who Is Loyal to America?” sec. 4, Harper’s Magazine, Vol. 195, No. 1168
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He did not smile, as we have already said, but he used to laugh; sometimes, indeed frequently, a bitter laugh. There is consent in a smile, while a laugh is often a refusal.
[Il ne souriait pas, nous l’avons dit, mais il riait; parfois, fréquemment même; d’un rire amer. Il y a du consentement dans le sourire, tandis que le rire est souvent un refus.]
Victor Hugo (1802–1885) French writer, journalist, human rights activist, politician
The Man Who Laughs [L’Homme qui rit; The Laughing Man; By Order of the King], Part 1, Book 0, ch. 1, sec. 4 (1.0.1.4) (1869) [tr. Unknown, Authorized (1871)]
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The recklessness of their ways destroyed them all.
[Αὐτῶν γὰρ σφετέρῃσιν ἀτασθαλίῃσιν ὄλοντο.]
Homer (fl. 7th-8th C. BC) Greek author
The Odyssey [Ὀδύσσεια], Book 1, l. 7ff (1.7) (c. 700 BC) [tr. Fagles (1996)]
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The recklessness of their ways destroyed them all. [Αὐτῶν γὰρ σφετέρῃσιν ἀτασθαλίῃσιν ὄλοντο.] Original Greek. Alternate translations: "O men unwise, / They perish’d by their own impieties!" [tr.WIST Quotations
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BOB: I think success has no rules, but you can learn a great deal from failure.
Jean Kerr (1922-2003) American author and playwright [b. Bridget Jean Collins]
Mary, Mary, Act 1 (1961)
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Doc Edward Morbius ⭕
in reply to WIST Quotations • • •Great quote. The bit that power is sought over economic returns strikes me as accurate (though of course, Orwell isn't an economist, but rather a close observer).
I've noted too that power is ordinal, where wealth is cardinal. That is, power is (largely) based on ranking, and in a power game, an actor might be willing to sacrifice a great deal of wealth to retain or gain ranking. That's almost definitionally what war is.
Economics ... tends to dismiss this possibility entirely.
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in reply to Doc Edward Morbius ⭕ • •Doc Edward Morbius ⭕
in reply to WIST Quotations • • •Oh, I know what Economics assumes (studied the blasted stuff at uni).
But it limits consideration of what is rational to wealth accumulation (or more typically: profit maximisation.
It would be just as possible (and a somewhat better fit with observed evidence and behaviour) to consider power-ranking maximisation as the rational goal. Which would explain much of what profit-maximisation fails.
(This without even tying yourself in knots over whether or not individuals behave rationally at all, imperfect information, etc., etc.)
My main point in commenting though was just to note that Mr. Blair had come accross this realisation somewhat prior to me 😺
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in reply to Doc Edward Morbius ⭕ • •