A quotation from William Pitt

It is true, the bill is said to be founded on necessity; but what is this? Is it not necessity, which has always been the plea of every illegal exertion of power, or exercise of oppression? Is not necessity the pretence of every usurpation? Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.

William Pitt (1759–1806) British Prime Minister (1804–06) [William Pitt the Younger]
Speech (1793-11-18), House of Commons, London

William Pitt quote


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USA TODAY

helpless people are being dragged out of their homes. They’re allowed to take only a knapsack and a little cash with them, and even then, they’re robbed of these possessions on the way. Families are torn apart; men, women and children are separated. Children come home from school to find that their parents have disappeared. Women return from shopping to find their houses sealed, their families gone.

A quotation from La Rochefoucauld

‘Tis a small misfortune to oblige an ungrateful man; but it is unbearable to be obliged by a scoundrel.
 
[Ce n’est pas un grand malheur d’obliger des ingrats, mais c’en est un insupportable d’être obligé à un malhonnête homme.]

François VI, duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680) French epigrammatist, memoirist, noble
Réflexions ou sentences et maximes morales [Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims], ¶317 (1665-1678) [tr. Bund/Friswell (1871)]


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A quotation from Terry Pratchett

   What have I always believed?
   That on the whole, and by and large, if a man lived properly, not according to what any priests said, but according to what seemed decent and honest inside, then it would, at the end, more or less, turn out all right.

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author
Discworld No. 13, Small Gods [Fri’it] (1992)


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A quotation from Samuel Johnson

It may be said that disease generally begins that equality which death completes; the distinctions which set one man so much above another are very little perceived in the gloom of a sick chamber.

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer, lexicographer, critic
Essay (1750-09-01), The Rambler, No. 48


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A quotation from Robert Ingersoll

The man who does not do his own thinking is a slave, and is a traitor to himself and to his fellow-men.

Robert Green Ingersoll (1833–1899) American lawyer, freethinker, orator
Lecture (1877-01-31) “The Liberty of Man, Woman, and Child,” Case Hall, Boston


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A quotation from Adlai Stevenson

And then there are the unscrupulous for whom anything goes if it is within the letter of the law, or at least not too far outside; the numerous kind for whom legality and morality are synonyms. “The Fix” has become endemic in our political life.

Adlai Stevenson II (1900–1965) American politician, diplomat, statesman
Speech (1954-03-22), “The Educated Citizen,” Senior Class Banquet, Dillon Gymnasium, Princeton University


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A quotation from Twain

Any established church is an established crime, an established slave pen.

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
Novel (1889), A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, Part 3 “The Tale of the Lost Land,” ch. 16 “Morgan Le Fay”


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A quotation from Robert Louis Stevenson

Call up your vermin to your back, sir, and fall on! The sooner the clash begins, the sooner ye’ll taste this steel throughout your vitals.

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894) Scottish essayist, novelist, poet
Novel (1886), Kidnapped, ch. 10 “The Siege of the Round-House” (Alan)


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A quotation from Horace

You may drive out Nature with a pitchfork, yet she will ever hurry back, and, ere you know it, will burst through your foolish contempt in triumph.
 
[Naturam expellas furca, tamen usque recurret,
Et mala perrumpet furtim fastidia victrix.]

Horace (65–8 BC) Roman poet, satirist, soldier, politician [Quintus Horatius Flaccus]
Epistles [Epistularum, Letters], Book 1, ep. 10 “To Aristius Fuscus,” l. 24ff (1.10.24-25) (20 BC) [tr. Fairclough (Loeb) (1926)]


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A quotation from Kerry Greenwood

   “I always found faith a great comfort. Otherwise it is too much, Phryne. Too cruel. To think that all the lads, all those boys, were just gone, blown out like candles. Don’t you agree?”
   “I do,” said Phryne. “I like to think of them sitting down with all their mates to a serious drinking session, washed clean of mud and stench, all shiny and jolly. And if that doesn’t constitute heaven, I’m not going; though, of course, I might not have the option.”

Kerry Greenwood (b. 1954) Australian author and lawyer
Phryne Fisher Book 20, Murder and Mendelssohn, ch. 7 (2013)


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A quotation from Arthur Conan Doyle

'Pon my word, Watson, you are coming along wonderfully. You have really done very well indeed. It is true that you have missed everything of importance, but you have hit upon the method, and you have a quick eye for colour. Never trust to general impressions, my boy, but concentrate yourself upon details.

Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930) British writer and physician
Story (1891-09), “A Case of Identity,” [Holmes], The Strand Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 3


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A quotation from Teddy Roosevelt

Any man who has met with success, if he will be frank with himself, must admit that there has been a big element of fortune in the success.

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, statesman, conservationist, writer; US President (1901–09)
Autobiography, ch. 3 “Practical Politics” (1913)

Teddy Roosevelt quote


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A quotation from Carlyle

The Book had in a high degree excited us to self-activity, which is the best effect of any book.

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish essayist and historian
Sartor Resartus, Book 1, ch. 4 (1834)


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A quotation from Josh Billings

Experience teaches us mutch, but learns us little.
 
[Experience teaches us much, but learns us little.]

Josh Billings (1818–1885) American humorist, aphorist [pseud. of Henry Wheeler Shaw]
Josh Billings’ Farmer’s Allminax, 1879-02 “Slung Shot” (1879 ed.)


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A quotation from Hemingway

The “glory” of war is a lie sold by cowards in suits. You don’t die a hero; you die screaming in your own filth while a politician cashes a check.

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American writer
(Spurious)


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A quotation from Cicero

MARCUS: As our birth brings to us the beginning, so may death bring the end of all things. As nothing belonged to us before we were born, so nothing will belong to us after we are dead.
 
[Ut, quo modo initium nobis rerum omnium ortus noster adferat, sic exitum mors, ut nihil pertinuit ad nos ante ortum, sic nihil post mortem pertinebit.]

Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 BC) Roman orator, statesman, philosopher
Tusculan Disputations [Tusculanae Disputationes], Book 1, ch. 38 (1.38) / sec. 91 (1.91) (45 BC) [tr. Peabody (1886)]


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A quotation from Franklin

If Passion drives, let Reason hold the Reins.

Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) American statesman, scientist, philosopher, aphorist
Poor Richard Improved (1749 ed.)


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A quotation from Richard Armour

Good sportsmanship we hail, we sing,
   It’s always pleasant when you spot it,
There’s only one unhappy thing:
   You have to lose to prove you’ve got it.

Richard Armour (1906–1989) American poet and author
Poem (1956-01), "Good Sportsmanship," American Legion Magazine, Vol. 60, No. 1


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A quotation from Thoreau

No face which we can give to a matter will stead us so well at last as the truth. This alone wears well.

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) American philosopher and writer
Walden; or, Life in the Woods, ch. 18 “Conclusion” (1854)


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A quotation from Montaigne

The honor we receive from those who fear us is not honor.
 
[L’honneur que nous recevons de ceux qui nous craignent, ce n’est pas honneur.]

Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592) French essayist
Essays, Book 1, ch. 42 (1.42), “Of the Inequality among Us [De l’inequalité qui est entre nous]” (1572) [tr. Frame (1943)]


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A quotation from Galileo

But I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with senses, reason and intellect has intended us to forego their use and by some other means to give us knowledge which we can attain by them. He would not require us to deny sense and reason in physical matters which are set before our eyes and minds by direct experience or necessary demonstrations.

Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) Italian astronomer, physicist, engineer, polymath
Letter (1651) to Christina of Lorraine, Grand Duchess of Tuscany [tr. Drake (1957)]


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A quotation from Gracian

The first step in rising to anger, is to note that you are angry, for that is to enter master of the situation, having determined the need of it, and its height, and going no further; with this considered judgment let your wrath wax, and wane.
 
[El primer paso del apasionarse es advertir que se apasiona, que es entrar con señorío del afecto, tanteando la necesidad hasta tal punto de enojo, y no más. Con esta superior refleja entre y salga en una ira.]

Baltasar Gracián y Morales (1601–1658) Spanish Jesuit priest, writer, philosopher
The Art of Worldly Wisdom [Oráculo Manual y Arte de Prudencia], § 155 (1647) [tr. Fischer (1937)]


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A quotation from Felix Frankfurter

The history of liberty is the history of the observances of procedural safeguards.

Felix Frankfurter (1882–1965) American jurist, teacher; US Supreme Court Justice (1939–62)
McNabb v. United States, 318 U.S. 332, 347 (1943) [majority opinion]


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A quotation from Douglas Adams

There are some oddities in the perspective with which we see the world. The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well, on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be.

Douglas Adams (1952–2001) English author, humorist, screenwriter
Speech (1998-09), “Is There an Artificial God?”, Digital Biota 2 conference, Cambridge, UK


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A quotation from Bertrand Russell

Hostility to the status quo may be derived from either of two sources: it may spring from sympathy with the unfortunate or from hatred of the fortunate. If it springs from the latter, it involves just as much limitation of sympathy as is involved in conservatism. Many revolutionaries in their day-dreams are not so much concerned with the happiness that is to come to the common people as with the vengeance that they will be able to wreak upon the insolent holders of power from whom they are suffering in the present.

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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A quotation from Molly Ivins

   It’s tacky to start playing the blame game before the dead are even counted. It is not too soon, however, to make a point that needs to be hammered home again and again, and that is that government policies have real consequences in people’s lives.
   This is not “just politics” or blaming for political advantage. This is about the real consequences of what governments do and do not do. And about who winds up paying the price.

Molly Ivins (1944–2007) American writer, political columnist [Mary Tyler Ivins]
Essay (2005-09-09), “Katrina and You,” Texas Observer


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A quotation from Bill Watterson

   CALVIN: I’m not going to do my math homework. Look at these unsolved problems. Here’s a number in mortal combat with another. One of them is going to get subtracted. But why? How? What will be left of him? If I answered these, it would kill the suspense. It would resolve the conflict and turn intriguing possibilities into boring ol’ facts.
   HOBBES: I never really thought about the literary qualities of math.
   CALVIN: I prefer to savor the mystery.

Bill Watterson (b. 1958) American cartoonist
Calvin and Hobbes (1992-10-13)

Calvin and Hobbes (1992-10-13)


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A quotation from Ambrose Bierce

FOREIGN, adj. Belonging to another and inferior country.

Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914?) American writer and journalist
“Foreign,” “Devil’s Dictionary” column, San Francisco Wasp (1884-12-13)


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A quotation from Euripides

ADMETUS: For they loved me in words, not deeds.
 
[ἌΔΜΗΤΟΣ: λόγῳ γὰρ ἦσαν οὐκ ἔργῳ φίλοι.]

Euripides (485?-406? BC) Greek tragic dramatist
Alcestis [Ἄλκηστις ], l. 339ff (438 BC) [tr. Aldington (1930)]


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A quotation from Eleanor Roosevelt

Occasionally he took us on a picnic or a camping trip and taught us many valuable lessons. The chief one was to remember that camping was a good way to find out people’s characters. Those who were selfish showed it very soon, in that they wanted the best bed or the best food and did not want to do their share of the work.

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, activist; First Lady of the US (1933–45)
Memoir (1937), This Is My Story, ch. 2 “Adolescence”


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A quotation from Jean Kerr

To me having a party is something like having a baby. The fact that you got through the last one alive is not somehow sufficiently reassuring now.

Jean Kerr (1922–2003) American author and playwright [b. Bridget Jean Collins]
Essay (1970 ca.), “Partying Is Such Sweet Sorrow,” Penny Candy


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A quotation from Auden

Only animals who are below civilization and the angels who are beyond it can be sincere. Human beings are, necessarily, actors who cannot become something before they have first pretended to be it; and they can be divided, not into the hypocritical and the sincere, but into the sane who know they are acting and the mad who do not.

W. H. Auden (1907–1973) Anglo-American poet [Wystan Hugh Auden]
The Age of Anxiety: A Baroque Eclogue, Part 5 “The Masque” (1947)


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A quotation from Richard Steele

Whenever you commend, add your reasons for doing so; it is this which distinguishes the approbation of a man of sense from the flattery of sycophants and admiration of fools.

Richard Steele (1672–1729) Anglo-Irish writer, journalist, playwright, politician
Essay (1713-04-08), The Guardian, No. 24


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