A quotation from Shaw

HIGGINS: Would the world ever have been made if its maker had been afraid of making trouble? Making life means making trouble. There’s only one way of escaping trouble; and that’s killing things. Cowards, you notice, are always shrieking to have troublesome people killed.

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) Irish playwright and critic
Pygmalion, Act 5 (1913)

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A quotation from La Rochefoucauld

Few men are sufficiently discerning to appreciate all the evil they do.
 
[Il n’y a guère d’homme assez habile pour connoître tout le mal qu’il fait.]

François VI, duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680) French epigrammatist, memoirist, noble
Réflexions ou sentences et maximes morales [Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims], ¶269 (1665-1678) [tr. Tancock (1959), ¶269]

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A quotation from Samuel Johnson

Prudence operates on life in the same manner as rules on composition: it produces vigilance rather than elevation, rather prevents loss than procures advantage; and often escapes miscarriages but seldom reaches either power or honor. It quenches that ardor of enterprise by which every thing is done that can claim praise or admiration; and represses that generous temerity which often fails and often succeeds. Rules may obviate faults, but can never confer beauties; and prudence keeps life safe, but does not often make it happy.

Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) English writer, lexicographer, critic
Essay (1759-05-19), The Idler, No. 57

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A quotation from Robert Ingersoll

Men are not superior by reason of the accidents of race or color. They are superior who have the best heart — the best brain. Superiority is born of honesty, of virtue, of charity, and above all, of the love of liberty. The superior man is the providence of the inferior. He is eyes for the blind, strength for the weak, and a shield for the defenseless. He stands erect by bending above the fallen. He rises by lifting others.

Robert Green Ingersoll (1833-1899) American lawyer, freethinker, orator
Speech (1883-10-22), “Liberty,” Address on the Civil Rights Act, Lincoln Hall, Washington, D. C.

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A quotation from Adlai Stevenson

You can tell the size of a man by the size of the thing that makes him mad.

Adlai Stevenson (1900-1965) American diplomat, statesman
Speech (1952-08-28), “Faith in Liberalism,” State Committee of the Liberal Party, New York City

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A quotation from Mark Twain

For your race, in its poverty, has unquestionably one really effective weapon — laughter. Power, money, persuasion, supplication, persecution — these can lift at a colossal humbug — push it a little — weaken it a little, century by century; but only laughter can blow it to rags and atoms at a blast. Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand. You are always fussing and fighting with your other weapons. Do you ever use that one? No; you leave it lying rusting. As a race, do you ever use it at all? No; you lack sense and the courage.

Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
Story (1916), The Mysterious Stranger, ch. 10

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A quotation from Lyman Beecher

No great advance has been made in science, religion, or politics, without controversy.

Lyman Beecher (1775-1863) American minister, preacher, abolitionist
Sermon (1823-10-15), “The Faith Once Delivered to the Saints,” Worcester, Massachusetts

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A quotation from Horace

It isn’t enough for poems to be things of beauty:
Let them STUN the hearer and lead his heart where they will.
 
[Non satis est pulchra esse poemata; dulcia sunto
Et, quocumque uolent, animum auditoris agunto.]

Horace (65–8 BC) Roman poet, satirist, soldier, politician [Quintus Horatius Flaccus]
Epistles [Epistularum, Letters], Book 2, ep. 3 “Art of Poetry [Ars Poetica; To the Pisos],” l. 99ff (2.3.99-100) (19 BC) [tr. Palmer Bovie (1959)]

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A quotation from Robert Louis Stevenson

Books were the proper remedy: books of vivid human import, forcing upon their minds the issues, pleasures, busyness, importance and immediacy of that life in which they stand; books of smiling or heroic temper, to excite or to console; books of a large design, shadowing the complexity of that game of consequences to which we all sit down, the hanger-back not least.

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) Scottish essayist, novelist, poet
Essay (1884-05), “Old Mortality,” ch. 1, Longman’s Magazine, Vol. 4, No. 19

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A quotation from Orwell

A nationalist is one who thinks solely, or mainly, in terms of competitive prestige. He may be a positive or a negative nationalist — that is, he may use his mental energy either in boosting or in denigrating — but at any rate his thoughts always turn on victories, defeats, triumphs and humiliations. He sees history, especially contemporary history, as the endless rise and decline of great power units, and every event that happens seems to him a demonstration that his own side is on the upgrade and some hated rival is on the downgrade.

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 Kerry Greenwood

Enough of this … I am not cut out to be a guide to youth. I think youth can get itself into enough trouble without my help, don’t you, Youth?

Kerry Greenwood (b. 1954) Australian author and lawyer
Phryne Fisher No. 13, The Castlemaine Murders, ch. 4 (2003)

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A quotation from Arthur Conan Doyle

   “Which is it to-day,” I asked, “morphine or cocaine?”
   He raised his eyes languidly from the old black-letter volume which he had opened. “It is cocaine,” he said, “a seven-per-cent solution. Would you care to try it?”

Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930) British writer and physician
Story (1890-02), “The Sign of the Four,” ch. 1, Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine, Vol. 45 (US) / 1 (UK)

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A quotation from Thomas Carlyle

If you find many people who are hard and indifferent to you in a world that you consider to be unhospitable and cruel — as often, indeed, happens to a tender-hearted, stirring young creature — you will also find there are noble hearts who will look kindly on you, and their help will be precious to you beyond price.

Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) Scottish essayist and historian
Speech (1866-04-02), “On the Choice of Books,” Inaugural Address as Lord Rector, University of Edinburgh

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A quotation from Josh Billings

Q. — What is pity?
A. — Cheap charity.

Josh Billings (1818-1885) American humorist, aphorist [pseud. of Henry Wheeler Shaw]
Josh Billings’ Farmer’s Allminax, 1871-12 (1871 ed.)

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A quotation from Eric Hoffer

The less justified a man is in claiming excellence for his own self, the more ready he is to claim all excellence for his nation, his religion, his race or his holy cause.

Eric Hoffer (1902-1983) American writer, philosopher, longshoreman
True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements, Part 1, ch. 2, § 9 (1951)

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A quotation from Cicero

The people were certain that their freedom was at risk. Their leaders did not agree.
 
[Populus libertatem agi putabat suam. Dissentiebant principes.]

Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BC) Roman orator, statesman, philosopher
Pro Sestio [For Publius Sestius], ch. 48 / sec. 103 (56-02 BC) [tr. @sentantiq (2020)]

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A quotation from Franklin

Good Sense is a Thing all need, few have, and none think they want.

Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) American statesman, scientist, philosopher, aphorist
Poor Richard (1746 ed.)

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A quotation from Thoreau

It is remarkable, that notwithstanding the universal favor with which the New Testament is outwardly received, and even the bigotry with which it is defended, there is no hospitality shown to, there is no appreciation of, the order of truth with which it deals. I know of no book that has so few readers. There is none so truly strange, and heretical, and unpopular.

Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) American philosopher and writer
A Week on the Concord and Marrimack Rivers, “Sunday” (1849)

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A quotation from Franklin Roosevelt

We understand the philosophy of those who offer resistance, of those who conduct a counter offensive against the American people’s march of social progress. It is not an opposition which comes necessarily from wickedness — it is an opposition that comes from subconscious resistance to any measure that disturbs the position of privilege.
   It is an unfortunate human failing that a full pocketbook often groans more loudly than an empty stomach.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882–1945) American lawyer, politician, statesman, US President (1933–1945)
Speech (1940-11-01), Campaign Address, Brooklyn Academy of Music, New York

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A quotation from Christopher Marlowe

   FAUSTUS: Lucifer and Mephistophilis. Ah, gentlemen! I gave them my soul for my cunning!
   ALL: God forbid!
   FAUSTUS: God forbade it, indeed; but Faustus hath done it.

Christopher "Kit" Marlowe (1564-1593) English dramatist and poet
The Tragicall History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus, Act 5, sc. 2 (sc. 14), l. 32ff (1594; 1604 “A” text)

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A quotation from Madeleine L'Engle

I am very wary of those individuals who are neither writers nor editors nor even, in some cases, readers, who feel that they have the right to apply their own moral criteria to the books in public and school libraries. I have enormous respect and admiration and love for the librarians who are rising up to protest this, because they are putting their very jobs on the line.

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

   “So what’s the point of showing me something I can’t see?”
   “So that you understand that just because you see something, it doesn’t mean to say it’s there. And if you don’t see something, it doesn’t mean to say it’s not there. It’s only what your senses bring to your attention.”

Douglas Adams (1952-2001) English author, humorist, screenwriter
Hitchhiker’s Guide No. 5, Mostly Harmless, ch. 17 (1992)

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A quotation from Barbara Kingsolver

The most assiduous task of parenting is to divine the difference between boundaries and bondage.

Barbara Kingsolver (b. 1955) American novelist, essayist, poet
Essay (1995), “Civil Disobedience at Breakfast,” High Tide in Tucson: Essays from Now or Never

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A quotation from Bertrand Russell

And it is only through imagination that men become aware of what the world might be; without it, “progress” would become mechanical and trivial.

Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Education and the Good Life, Part 1, ch. 1 “Postulates of Modern Educational Theory” (1926)

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A quotation from James Howell

Look high and fall into a Cow-turd.

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 Bill Watterson

CALVIN: Hobbes, do you think our morality is defined by our actions, or by what’s in our hearts?
HOBBES: I think our actions show what’s in our hearts.
CALVIN: (after consideration) I resent that!

Bill Watterson (b. 1958) American cartoonist
Calvin and Hobbes (1990-10-18)

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A quotation from Ambrose Bierce

COMPETITOR, n. A scoundrel who desires that which we desire.

Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914?) American writer and journalist
“Competitor,” “Devil’s Dictionary” column, San Francisco Wasp (1881-08-05)

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A quotation from Hannah Arendt

The sad truth of the matter is that most evil is done by people who never made up their minds to be or do either evil or good.

Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) German-American philosopher, political theorist
Life of the Mind, Vol. 1 “Thinking,” Part 3, ch. 18 “The two-in-one” (1977)

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A quotation from John Adams

We have now, it seems a National Bible Society, to propagate King James Bible, through all Nations. Would it not be better, to apply these pious Subscriptions, to purify Christendom from the corruptions of Christianity; than to propagate those Corruptions in Europe, Asia, Africa and America!

John Adams (1735–1826) American lawyer, Founding Father, statesman, US President (1797–1801)
Letter (1816-11-04) to Thomas Jefferson

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