A quotation from Hyman Rickover

Sit down before fact with an open mind. Be prepared to give up every preconceived notion. Follow humbly wherever and to whatever abyss Nature leads, or you learn nothing. Don’t push out figures when the facts are going in the opposite direction.

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

For, to make deserts, God, who rules mankind,
Begins with kings, and ends the work by wind.
 
[Car pour faire un désert, Dieu, maître des vivants,
Commence par les rois et finit par les vents.]

Victor Hugo (1802-1885) French writer
Poem (1876), “The Vanished City [La Ville Disparue],” Legend of the Ages: New Series [La Légende des siècles: La Nouvelle Série], No. 4 (1877) [tr. Carrington (1885)]


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A quotation from Jean Kerr

If you can keep your head when about you are losing theirs, it’s just possible you haven’t grasped the situation.

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 Wendell Berry

Violence breeds violence. Acts of violence committed in “justice” or in affirmation of “rights” or in defense of “peace” do not end violence. They prepare and justify its continuation.

Wendell Berry (b. 1934) American farmer, educator, poet, conservationist
Essay (1999), “The Failure of War,” Citizenship Papers (2003)


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A quotation from Joseph Addison

MARCUS: Oh Portius, is there not some chosen curse,
   Some hidden thunder in the stores of heav’n
   Red with uncommon wrath to blast the man,
   Who owes his greatness to his country’s ruin?

Joseph Addison (1672-1719) English essayist, poet, statesman
Cato, Act 1, sc. 1, l. 20ff (1713)


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A quotation from Nicholas Rowe

CALISTA: That I must die! it is my only Comfort;
   Death is the Privilege of human Nature,
   And Life without it were not worth our taking;
   Thither the Poor, the Pris’ner, and the Mourner,
   Fly for Relief, and lay their Burthens down.

Nicholas Rowe (1674-1718) English poet and dramatist
The Fair Penitent, Act 5, sc. 1, l. 137ff (1703)


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A quotation from Terry Pratchett

“I’ve never seen Death actually at work.”
“Not many have,” said Albert. “Not twice, at any rate.”

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 4, Mort (1987)


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A quotation from Adlai Stevenson

The anatomy of patriotism is complex. But surely intolerance and public irresponsibility cannot be cloaked in the shining armor of rectitude and righteousness. Nor can the denial of the right to hold ideas that are different — the freedom of man to think as he pleases. To strike freedom of the mind with the fist of patriotism is an old and ugly subtlety.

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

True eloquence consists in saying all that need be said and no more.
 
[La véritable éloquence consiste à dire tout ce qu’il faut, et à ne dire que ce qu’il faut.]

François VI, duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680) French epigrammatist, memoirist, noble
Réflexions ou sentences et maximes morales [Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims], ¶250 (1665-1678) [tr. FitzGibbon (1957)]


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A quotation from Samuel Johnson

But when thoughts and words are collected and adjusted, and the whole composition at last concluded, it seldom gratifies the author, when he comes coolly and deliberately to review it, with the hopes which had been excited in the fury of the performance: novelty always captivates the mind; as our thoughts rise fresh upon us, we readily believe them just and original, which, when the pleasure of production is over, we find to be mean and common, or borrowed from the works of others, and supplied by memory rather than invention.

Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) English writer, lexicographer, critic
Essay (1754-03-02), The Adventurer, No. 138


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A quotation from Thomas Bailey Aldrich

All the best sands of my life are somehow getting into the wrong end of the hourglass. If I could only reverse it! Were it in my power to do so, would I?

Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836-1907) American writer, poet, critic, editor
“Leaves from a Notebook,” Ponkapog Papers (1903)


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A quotation from P. G. Hamerton

If animals could speak as fabulists have feigned, the dog would be a blunt, blundering, outspoken, honest fellow, but the cat would have the rare talent of never saying a word too much.

Philip Gilbert Hamerton (1834-1894) British artist, art critic and author.
Chapters on Animals: Dogs, Cats, and Horses, ch. 4 “Cats” (1877)


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A quotation from Horace

We learn more quickly and bring back to mind more readily
The things we laugh at than those we respect and revere.
 
[Discit enim citius, meminitque libentius ilud
Quod quis deridet, quam quod probat et veneratur.]

Horace (65–8 BC) Roman poet, satirist, soldier, politician [Quintus Horatius Flaccus]
Epistles [Epistularum, Letters], Book 2, ep. 1 “To Augustus,” l. 262ff (2.1.262-263) (14 BC) [tr. Palmer Bovie (1959)]


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A quotation from C. C. Colton

Despotism can no more exist in a nation until the liberty of the press be destroyed, than night can happen before the sun is set.

Charles Caleb "C. C." Colton (1780-1832) English cleric, writer, aphorist
Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Vol. 1, § 468 (1820)


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A quotation from Robert Louis Stevenson

And how many loves have perished because, from pride, or spite, or diffidence, or that unmanly shame which withholds a man from daring to betray emotion, a lover, at the critical point of the relation, has but hung his head and held his tongue?

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) Scottish essayist, novelist, poet
Essay (1879-05), “The Truth of Intercourse,” Cornhill Magazine, Vol. 39


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A quotation from Joanna Maciejewska

I want AI to do my laundry and dishes so that I can do art and writing, not for AI to do my art and writing so that I can do my laundry and dishes.

Joanna Maciejewska (contemp.) Polish-Irish-American author
Twitter (2024-03-29)


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A quotation from Christopher Marlowe

FAUSTUS: Stay, Mephistopheles, and tell me,
   What good will my soul do thy lord?
MEPHISTOPHILES: Enlarge his kingdom.
FAUSTUS: Is that the reason he tempts us thus?
MEPHISTOPHILES: Solamen miseris socios habuisse doloris.
   [Misery loves company.]

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. 477ff (1594; 1604 “A” text)


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A quotation from Arthur Conan Doyle

“They say that genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains,” he [Holmes] remarked with a smile. “It’s a very bad definition, but it does apply to detective work.”

Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930) British writer and physician
Story (1886-04), “A Study in Scarlet,” Part 1, ch. 3, Beeton’s Christmas Annual, Vol. 28 (1887-11-21)


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A quotation from Teddy Roosevelt

Far better it is to dare mighty things, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those who neither enjoy much or suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, statesman, conservationist, writer, US President (1901–1909)
Speech (1899-04-10), “The Strenuous Life,” Hamilton Club, Chicago


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A quotation from Thomas Carlyle

Enjoying things which are pleasant; that is not the evil: it is the reducing of our moral self to slavery by them that is.

Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) Scottish essayist and historian
Lecture (1840-05-08), “The Hero as Prophet,” Home House, Portman Square, London


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A quotation from Josh Billings

To bring up a child in the way he should go, travel that way yourself once in a while.

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


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A quotation from Cicero

But there is in fact nobody who is so hostile to the Muses that he would not readily allow his own deeds to be immortalized in verse.
 
[Neque enim quisquam est tam aversus a Musis, qui non mandari versibus aeternum suorum laborum facile praeconium patiatur. ]

Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BC) Roman orator, statesman, philosopher
Pro Archia Poeta [For Archia the Poet], ch. 9 / sec. 20 (62 BC) [tr. Guinach (1962)]


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A quotation from Eric Hoffer

We usually see only the things we are looking for — so much so that we sometimes see them where they are not.

Eric Hoffer (1902-1983) American writer, philosopher, longshoreman
Passionate State of Mind, Aphorism 238 (1955)


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A quotation from Thoreau

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.

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

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. - Thoreau


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A quotation from Franklin Roosevelt

I have seen war. I have seen war on land and sea. I have seen blood running from the wounded. I have seen men coughing out their gassed lungs. I have seen the dead in the mud. I have seen cities destroyed. I have seen two hundred limping, exhausted men come out of line — the survivors of a regiment of one thousand that went forward forty-eight hours before. I have seen children starving. I have seen the agony of mothers and wives. I hate war.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882–1945) American lawyer, politician, statesman, US President (1933–1945)
Speech (1936-08-14), Chautauqua, New York


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A quotation from Ian Stuart Black

PILOT: Stop! Stop! You’re breaking the law!
THE DOCTOR: Bad laws were made to be broken.

Ian Stuart Black (1915–1997) British novelist, playwright, screenwriter
Doctor Who (1963), 04×07 “The Macra Terror,” Part 4 (1967-04-01)


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A quotation from Madeleine L'Engle

We think because we have words, not the other way around, and the greater our vocabulary, the greater our ability to think conceptually. The first people a dictator puts in jail are the writers, the teachers, the librarians — because these people are dangerous. They have enough vocabulary to recognize injustice and to speak out loudly about it. Let us have the courage to go on being dangerous people.

Madeleine L'Engle (1918-2007) American writer
Speech (1983-11-16), “Dare To Be Creative,” Lecture, Library of Congress, Washington, DC


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A quotation from Douglas Adams

NARRATOR: In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.

Douglas Adams (1952-2001) English author, humorist, screenwriter
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Phase 1, “Fit the 5th” (BBC radio) (1978-04-05)


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A quotation from Mark Twain

Always obey your parents, when they are present. This is the best policy in the long run, because if you don’t, they will make you. Most parents think they know better than you do, and you can generally make more by humoring that superstition than you can by acting on your own better judgment.

Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
Essay (1882), “Advice to Youth”


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A quotation from Bertrand Russell

The happy life is to an extraordinary extent the same as the good life. Professional moralists have made too much of self-denial, and in so doing have put the emphasis in the wrong place. Conscious self-denial leaves a man self-absorbed and vividly aware of what he has sacrificed; in consequence it fails often of its immediate object and almost always of its ultimate purpose. What is needed is not self-denial, but that kind of direction of interest outward which will lead spontaneously and naturally to the same acts that a person absorbed in the pursuit of his own virtue could only perform by means of conscious self-denial.

Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Conquest of Happiness, Part 2, ch. 17 “The Happy Man” (1930)


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A quotation from James Howell

A hungry man [is] an angry man.

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 Oscar Wilde

Sometimes the poor are praised for being thrifty. But to recommend thrift to the poor is both grotesque and insulting. It is like advising a man who is starving to eat less.

Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) Irish poet, wit, dramatist
Essay (1891-02), “The Soul of Man Under Socialism,” Fortnightly Review, Vol. 49 (ns)


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