A quotation from Lincoln

We may congratulate ourselves that this cruel war, which has cost a vast treasure of blood and money, is almost over. But I see in the future a crisis approaching which fills me with anxiety. As a result of the war, corporations have become enthroned, and an era of corruption in high places will follow. The money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its rule by preying upon the prejudice of the people, until all wealth is concentrated in a few hands, and the Republic destroyed. I feel at this time more anxiety for the future of my country than at any time in the past, even in the midst of war.

Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) American lawyer, politician, US President (1861-65)
(Spurious)

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A quotation from Emerson

Cause and Effect, the chancellors of God.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
Essay (1841), “Self-Reliance,” Essays: First Series, No. 2

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A quotation from Bill Watterson

CALVIN: Dad, are you vicariously living through me in the hope that my accomplishments will validate your mediocre life, and in some way compensate for all the opportunities you botched?

Bill Watterson (b. 1958) American cartoonist
Calvin and Hobbes (1992-12-04)

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A quotation from Ambrose Bierce

BALLOT, n. A simple device by which a majority proves to a minority the folly of resistance. Many worthy persons of imperfect thinking apparatus believe that majorities govern through some inherent right; and minorities submit, not because they must, but because they ought.

Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914?) American writer and journalist
“Ballot,” “Devil’s Dictionary” column, San Francisco Wasp (1881-04-23)

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A quotation from Nietzsche

Blessed are the forgetful: for they “get the better” even of their blunders.
 
[Selig sind die Vergesslichen: denn sie werden auch mit ihren Dummheiten “fertig”.]

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) German philosopher and poet
Jenseits von Gut und Böse [Beyond Good and Evil], Aphorism 217 (1886) [tr. Zimmern (1906)]

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A quotation from Bertrand Russell

If you tell children that they ought to be affectionate, you run the risk of producing cant and humbug. But if you make them happy and free, if you surround them with kindness, you will find that they become spontaneously friendly with everybody, and that almost everybody responds by being friendly with them. A trustful affectionate disposition justifies itself, because it gives irresistible charm, and creates the response which it expects. This is one of the most important results to be expected from the right education of character.

Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Education and the Good Life, Part 2, ch. 11 “Affection and Sympathy” (1926)

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A quotation from James Thurber

The laughter of man is more terrible than his tears, and takes more forms — hollow, heartless, mirthless, maniacal.

James Thurber (1894-1961) American cartoonist and writer
Essay (1958-12-07), “State of the Nation’s Humor: ‘On the Brink of Was,'” New York Times Magazine

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A quotation from James Howell

To have gold brings fear, to have none brings grief.
 
[L’haver oro è un timore, il non haver un dolore.]

James Howell (c. 1594–1666) Welsh historian and writer
Paroimiographia [Παροιμιογραφία]: Proverbs, or, Old Sayed Sawes & Adages, “Proverbs in Italian” (1659)
[compiler]

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A quotation from The Bible

If your enemies are starving, feed them some bread;
   if they are thirsty, give them water to drink.
By doing this, you will heap burning coals on their heads,
   and the Lord will reward you.

The Bible (The Old Testament) (14th - 2nd C BC) Judeo-Christian sacred scripture [Tanakh, Hebrew Bible], incl. the Apocrypha (Deuterocanonicals)
Book 20. Proverbs 25:21ff (Prov 25:21-22) [CEB (2011)]

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A quotation from Propertius

Yet loneliness shall weary thee, and still
Love torture thee with longings nought can fill.
Absence makes passion’s tide have double sway,
Possession cloys the love of every day.
 
[Nulla tamen lecto recipit se sola libenter:
Est quiddam, quod vos quaerere cogat Amor.
Semper in absentes felicior aestus amantes:
Elevat assiduos copia longa viros.]

Propertius (50-16 BC) Roman elegiac poet [Sextus Propertius]
Elegies, Book 2, No. 33C, “To Cynthia,” ll. 41-44 [tr. Moore (1870); 3.25]

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A quotation from John Adams

Our Passions, Ambition, Avarice, Love, Resentment &c possess so much metaphysical Subtilty and so much overpowering Eloquence, that they insinuate themselves into the Understanding and the Conscience and convert both to their Party. And I may be deceived as much as any of them, when I Say, that Power must never be trusted without a Check.

John Adams (1735–1826) American lawyer, Founding Father, statesman, US President (1797–1801)
Letter (1816-02-02) to Thomas Jefferson

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A quotation from Henry Commager

We do not need to fear ideas, but the censorship of ideas. We do not need to fear criticism, but the silencing of criticism. We do not need to fear excitement or agitation in the academic community, but timidity and apathy. We do not need to fear resistance to political leaders, but unquestioning acquiescence in whatever policies those leaders adopt.

Henry Steele Commager (1902-1998) American historian, writer, activist
Essay (1965-12-18), “The Problem of Dissent,” Saturday Review

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A quotation from Eugene McCarthy

The only thing that saves us from the bureaucracy is inefficiency. An efficient bureaucracy is the greatest threat to liberty.

Eugene McCarthy (1916-2005) American politician, poet, activist
Quoted (1979-02-12), “People: On the Record” section, Time Magazine

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A quotation from Jean Kerr

We are being very careful with our children. They’ll never have to pay a psychiatrist twenty-five dollars an hour to find out why we rejected them. We’ll tell them why we rejected them. Because they’re impossible, that’s why.

Jean Kerr (1922-2003) American author and playwright [b. Bridget Jean Collins]
Essay (1957), “Please Don’t Eat the Daisies,” Please Don’t Eat the Daisies

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A quotation from Wendell Berry

The most alarming sign of the state of our society now is that our leaders have the courage to sacrifice the lives of young people in war, but have not the courage to tell us that we must be less greedy and less wasteful.

Wendell Berry (b. 1934) American farmer, educator, poet, conservationist
Essay (1991), “Peaceableness Toward Enemies,” sec. 53, Sex, Economy, Freedom & Community, ch. 6 (1993)

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A quotation from Addison

When a nation once loses its regard to justice; when they do not look up it as something venerable, holy and inviolable; when any of them dare presume to lessen, affront or terrify those who have the distribution of it in their hands; when a judge is capable of being influenced by any thing that is foreign to its own merits, we may venture to pronounce that such a nation is hastening to its ruin.

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

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A quotation from Shelley

First our pleasures die — and then
Our hopes, and then our fears — and when
These are dead, the debt is due,
Dust claims dust — and we die too.

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) English poet
Poem (1820), “Death,” st. 3, Posthumous Poems (1824)

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A quotation from James Randi

The first thing a cult does is tell you everyone else is lying.

James Randi (1928-2020) Canadian-American stage magician ("The Amazing Randi") and scientific skeptic. [b. Randall James Hamilton Zwinge]
(Attributed)

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A quotation from Robert Heinlein

The capacity of the human mind for swallowing nonsense and spewing it forth in violent and repressive action has never yet been plumbed.

Robert A. Heinlein (1907-1988) American writer
Essay (1952-10), “Concerning Stories Never Written,” Revolt in 2100, Postscript (1953)

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A quotation from C. S. Lewis

But in reading great literature I become a thousand men and yet remain myself. Like the night sky in the Greek poem, I see with a myriad eyes, but it is still I who see. Here, as in worship, in love, in moral action, and in knowing, I transcend myself; and am never more myself than when I do.

C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) English writer, literary scholar, lay theologian [Clive Staples Lewis]
An Experiment in Criticism, Epilogue (1961)

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A quotation from Carl Sagan

History is full of people who out of fear, or ignorance, or lust for power have destroyed treasures of immeasurable value which truly belong to us all. We must not let that happen again.

Carl Sagan (1934-1996) American scientist and writer
Cosmos, ep. 13 “Who Speaks for Earth?” PBS TV (1980)

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A quotation from William O. Douglas

Big Brother in the form of an increasingly powerful government and in an increasingly powerful private sector will pile the records high with reasons why privacy should give way to national security, to law and order, to efficiency of operations, to scientific advancement, and the like.

William O. Douglas (1898–1980) American jurist, US Supreme Court justice (1939–75)
Points of Rebellion, ch. 1 “How America Views Dissent” (1969)

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A quotation from Bastiat

At least let no one argue that, because an abuse cannot be suppressed without injuring those who profit from it, the fact that it has existed for a time gives it the right to last forever.
 
[À moins qu’on ne prétende que, parce qu’un abus ne peut être détruit sans froisser ceux qui en profitent, il suffit qu’il existe un moment pour qu’il doive durer toujours.]

Frédéric Bastiat (1801-1850) French philosopher, economist, politician
Economic Sophisms [Sophismes Économiques], 1st Series, ch. 20 “Human Labor, National Labor [Travail Humain, Travail National]” (1845) [tr. Goddard (1964)]

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A quotation from Terry Pratchett

The shortest unit of time in the multiverse is the New York Second, defined as the period of time between the traffic lights turning green and the cab behind you honking.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 14, Lords and Ladies (1992)

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A quotation from La Rochefoucauld

If we did not flatter ourselves, the flattery of others could do us no harm.
 
[Si nous ne nous flattions point nous-mêmes, la flatterie des autres ne nous pourroit nuire.]

François VI, duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680) French epigrammatist, memoirist, noble
Réflexions ou sentences et maximes morales [Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims], ¶152 (1665-1678) [tr. Kronenberger (1959)]

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A quotation from Samuel Johnson

Friendship, like love, is destroyed by long absence, though it may be increased by short intermissions.

Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) English writer, lexicographer, critic
Essay (1758-09-23), The Idler, No. 23

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A quotation from Adlai Stevenson

We have made great advances in understanding the problem of national security in the modern world. We no longer think in terms of American resources alone. For the most part we now understand the need for a great international system of security, and we have taken the lead in building it.

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 Robert Ingersoll

I believe in the religion of humanity. It is far better to love our fellow-men than to love God. We can help them. We cannot help him. We had better do what we can than to be always pretending to do what we cannot.

Robert Green Ingersoll (1833-1899) American lawyer, freethinker, orator
Lecture (1884-01-20), “Orthodoxy,” Tabor Opera House, Denver, Colorado

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A quotation from Mark Twain

Clothes make the man, but they do not improve the woman.

Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
Inscription (1908-02), Eve’s Diary (1906-06)

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A quotation from C. C. Colton

It is almost as difficult to make a man unlearn his errors as his knowledge. Mal-information is more hopeless than non-information; for error is always more busy than ignorance. Ignorance is a blank sheet, on which we may write; but error is a scribbled one, on which we must first erase. Ignorance is contented to stand still with her back to the truth; but error is more presumptuous, and proceeds in the same direction. Ignorance has no light, but error follows a false one. The consequence is, that error, when she retraces her footsteps, has further to go, before she can arrive at the truth, than ignorance.

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

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A quotation from George Orwell

Although endlessly brooding on power, victory, defeat, revenge, the nationalist is often somewhat uninterested in what happens in the real world. What he wants is to feel that his own unit is getting the better of some other unit, and he can more easily do this by scoring off an adversary than by examining the facts to see whether they support him.

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 Lincoln

I desire to conduct the affairs of this administration that if at the end, when I come to lay down the reins of power, I have lost every other friend on earth, I shall at least have one friend left, and that friend shall be down inside of me.

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) American lawyer, politician, US President (1861–65)
Speech (1863-09-30) to the Missouri Committee of Seventy

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A quotation from Kerry Greenwood

The solemn ritual continued. The pastor gave his final blessing. The coffin was lowered into the grave and earth cast on it; the most final sound in the world, Phryne thought, clods thudding hollowly on the lid.

Kerry Greenwood (b. 1954) Australian author and lawyer
Phryne Fisher No. 11, Away with the Fairies, ch. 18 (2001)

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A quotation from Hilaire Belloc

When I am dead, I hope it may be said:
“His sins were scarlet, but his books were read.”

Hilaire Belloc (1870-1953) Franco-British writer, historian [Joseph Hilaire Pierre René Belloc]
Poem (1923), “Epigram 1: On His Books,” Sonnets and Verse

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