A quotation from Joseph Addison

Justice discards party, friendship, kindred, and is therefore always represented as blind, that we may suppose her thoughts are wholly intent on the equity of a cause, without being diverted or prejudiced by objects foreign to it.

Joseph Addison (1672-1719) English essayist, poet, statesman
Essay (1713-07-04), The Guardian, No. 99


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A quotation from Shakespeare

HORATIO: Now cracks a noble heart. Good night, sweet prince,
   And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Hamlet, Act 5, sc. 2, l. 396ff (5.2.396-397) (c. 1600)

Good night, sweet prince, And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest. - shakespeare


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A quotation from Abraham Lincoln

Although volume upon volume is written to prove slavery a very good thing, we never hear of the man who wishes to take the good of it, by being a slave himself.

Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) American lawyer, politician, US President (1861-65)
Speech (1854-04-01), “Fragment on Slavery”


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A quotation from Kelly Greenwood

The one requirement for a really satisfying fit of hysterics is a sympathetic audience.

Kerry Greenwood (b. 1954) Australian author and lawyer
Phryne Fisher No. 13, The Castlemaine Murders, ch. 2 (2003)


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A quotation from Arthur Conan Doyle

I had no idea that such individuals exist outside of stories.

Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930) British writer and physician
Story (1886-04), “A Study in Scarlet,” Part 1, ch. 2 [Watson], Beeton’s Christmas Annual, Vol. 28 (1887-11-21)


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A quotation from La Rochefoucauld

Self-interest will set all sorts of virtues and vices in motion.
 
[L’intérêt met en œuvre toutes sortes de vertus et de vices.]

François VI, duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680) French epigrammatist, memoirist, noble
Réflexions ou sentences et maximes morales [Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims], ¶253 (1665-1678) [tr. FitzGibbon (1957)]


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A quotation from Terry Pratchett

Ankh-Morpork had dallied with many forms of government and had ended up with that form of democracy known as One Man, One Vote. The Patrician was the Man; he had the Vote.

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


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A quotation from Samuel Johnson

He that applauds him who does not deserve praise, is endeavoring to deceive the public; he that hisses in malice or sport, is an oppressor and a robber.

Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) English writer, lexicographer, critic
Essay (1758-10-07), The Idler, No. 25


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A quotation from John Green

I’m not saying that everything is survivable. Just that everything except the last thing is.

John Green (b. 1977) American author
Paper Towns, Part 3 [Quentin] (2008)


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A quotation from Bertrand de Jouvenel

A society of sheep must in time beget a government of wolves.

Bertrand de Jouvenel (1903–1987) French philosopher, political economist, futurologist
(Attributed)


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A quotation from Adlai Stevenson

The United States has very large power in the world today. And the partner of power — the corollary — is responsibility. It is our high task to use our power with a sure hand and a steady touch — with the self-restraint that goes with confident strength. The purpose of our power must never be lost in the fact of our power — and the purpose, I take it, is the promotion of freedom, justice and peace in the world.

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 Rilke

The longer I live, the more urgent it seems to me to endure and transcribe the whole dictation of existence up to its end, for it might just be the case that only the very last sentence contains that small and possibly inconspicuous word through which everything we had struggled to learn and everything we had failed to understand will be transformed suddenly into magnificent sense.

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1963) German poet
Letter (1913-12-21) to Ilse Erdman [tr. Baer (2005)]


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in reply to WIST Quotations

IOW, endure the entire novel of existence just cuz at the very end, the final sentence will explain everything.

Charming.

But life doesn't read like a Russian novel. More like a bureaucratic memo left behind by the universe after 3 drinks. The last line just says "end of document"

It's quite likely that my life will end like a corrupted file.

Abruptly, w/o explanation

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A quotation from Mark Twain

You see, happiness ain’t a thing in itself — it’s only a contrast with something that ain’t pleasant. That’s all it is. There ain’t a thing you can mention that is happiness in its own self — it’s only so by contrast with the other thing. And so, as soon as the novelty is over and the force of the contrast dulled, it ain’t happiness any longer, and you have to get something fresh.

Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
Story (1868?), “Extract from Captain Stormfield’s Visit to Heaven,” Part 1, Harper’s Monthly Magazine, Vol. 116, No. 691 (1907-12)

Mark Twain on the concept of happiness


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A quotation from C. C. Colton

Of present fame think little, and of future less; the praises that we receive after we are buried, like the posies that are strewed over our grave, may be gratifying to the living, but they are nothing to the dead; the dead are gone, either to a place where they hear them not, or where, if they do, they will despise them.

Charles Caleb "C. C." Colton (1780-1832) English cleric, writer, aphorist
Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Vol. 2, § 277 (1822)


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reshared this

A quotation from Horace

Whene’er you lecture, be concise: the soul
Takes in short maxims, and retains them whole:
But pour in water when the vessel’s filled,
It simply dribbles over and is spilled.
 
[Quidquid praecipies, esto brevis, ut cito dicta
percipiant animi dociles teneantque fideles:
omne supervacuum pleno de pectore manat.]

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. 335ff (2.3.335-337) (19 BC) [tr. Conington (1874)]


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A quotation from Thomas Carlyle

For the Scepticism, as I said, is not intellectual only; it is moral also; a chronic atrophy and disease of the whole soul. A man lives by believing something; not by debating and arguing about many things.

Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) Scottish essayist and historian
Lecture (1840-05-19), “The Hero as Man of Letters,” Home House, Portman Square, London


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Administrivia


It looks like the Notifier backlog on friendica.world has cleared up, with about a week's worth of postings from here being released to other parts of the Fediverse overnight. Yay for that problem being (I hope) solved. Apologies if your inbox got flooded.

Depending on how you are reading all this, the posts might have come out in a huge clump during the last 12 hours -- or may have slipstreamed into your timeline, only visible if you scroll back.

Regardless, here's hoping that and related issues are resolved for the time being. Thanks for your patience.

A quotation from Doctor Who

THE DOCTOR: Logic, my dear Zoë, merely enables one to be wrong with authority.

Doctor Who (1963-1989) British science fiction television series (BBC)
05×07 “The Wheel In Space,” Part 3 (1968-05-11) [w. David Whitacker, Kit Pedlar]


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A quotation from Eric Hoffer

A man by himself is in bad company.

Eric Hoffer (1902-1983) American writer, philosopher, longshoreman
Passionate State of Mind, Aphorism 262 (1955)


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A quotation from Josh Billings

Every time a man laffs he takes a kink out ov the chain ov life, and thus lengthens it.
 
[Every time a man laughs he takes a kink out of the chain of life, and thus lengthens it.]

Josh Billings (1818-1885) American humorist, aphorist [pseud. of Henry Wheeler Shaw]
Josh Billings’ Farmer’s Allminax, 1871-07 (1871 ed.)


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A quotation from Franklin Roosevelt

The noblest monument to peace and to neighborly economic and social friendship in all the world is not a monument in bronze or stone, but the boundary which unites the United States and Canada — 3,000 miles of friendship with no barbed wire, no gun or soldier, and no passport on the whole frontier. Mutual trust made that frontier.

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 Montaigne

I only quote others the better to quote myself.
 
[Je ne dis les autres, sinon pour d’autant plus me dire.]

Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) French essayist
Essays, Book 1, ch. 25 (1.25), “Of the Education of Children [De l’institution des enfans]” (1579) [tr. Screech (1987), 1.26]

I only quote others the better to quote myself. - Montaigne


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A quotation from Madeleine L'Engle

We all practice some form of censorship. I practiced it simply by the books I had in the house when my children were little. If I am given a budget of $500 I will be practicing a form of censorship by the books I choose to buy with that limited amount of money, and the books I choose not to buy. But nobody said we were not allowed to have points of view. The exercise of personal taste is not the same thing as imposing personal opinion.

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

SLARTIBARTFAST: I’d far rather be happy than right any day.
ARTHUR: And are you?
SLARTIBARTFAST: No, that’s where it all falls down, of course.
ARTHUR: Pity, It sounded like quite a good lifestyle otherwise.

Douglas Adams (1952-2001) English author, humorist, screenwriter
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Phase 1, “Fit the 4th” (BBC Radio) (1979-03-29)


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A quotation from Bob Dylan

Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don’t criticize
What you can’t understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is rapidly agin’
Please get out of the new one if you can’t lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin’

Bob Dylan (b. 1941) American singer, songwriter
Song (1964), “The Times They Are A-Changin', v. 4”


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A quotation from Hannah Arendt

As citizens, we must prevent wrongdoing because the world in which we all live, wrong-doer, wrong sufferer and spectator, is at stake.

Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) German-American philosopher, political theorist
The Life of the Mind, Part 1, sec. 3, ch. 18 (1977)


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A quotation from A. A. Milne

Tell the innocent visitor from another world that two people were killed at Serajevo, and that the best that Europe could do about it was to kill eleven million more.

A. A. Milne (1882-1956) English poet and playwright [Alan Alexander Milne]
Peace with Honour, ch. 16 “Patriotism and Pledges,” sec. 5 (1934)


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A quotation from Eleanor Roosevelt

Perhaps that’s what we all had to do — think out for ourselves what we could believe and how we could live by it. And so I came to the conclusion that you had to use this life to develop the very best that you could develop.

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) First Lady of the US (1933–1945), politician, diplomat, activist
Essay (1951-12), “This I Believe: Growth that Starts from Thinking,” on Edward R. Murrow, This I Believe, CBS Radio


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A quotation from Richard Feynman

If we want to solve a problem that we have never solved before, we must leave the door to the unknown ajar.

Richard Feynman (1918-1988) American physicist
Speech (1955-11), “The Value of Science,” National Academy of Sciences Autumn Meeting, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena


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