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1. "Words like "freedom," "justice," "democracy" are not common concepts; on the contrary, they are rare. People are not born knowing what these are. It takes enormous and, above all, individual effort to arrive at the respect for other people that these words imply." ~ James Baldwin (1956)
"Most of us, no matter what we say, are walking in the dark, whistling in the dark. Nobody knows what is going to happen to him from one moment to the next, or how one will bear it. This is irreducible. And it's true of everybody. Now, it is true that the nature of society is to create, among its citizens, an illusion of safety; but it is also absolutely true that the safety is always necessarily an illusion. Artists are here to disturb the peace." ~ James Baldwin (1961)
"One must say Yes to life, and embrace it wherever it is found - and it is found in terrible places. … For nothing is fixed, forever and forever, it is not fixed; the earth is always shifting, the light is always changing, the sea does not cease to grind down rock. Generations do not cease to be born, and we are responsible to them because we are the only witnesses they have. The sea rises, the light fails, lovers cling to each other and children cling to us. The moment we cease to hold each other, the moment we break faith with one another, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out." ~ James Baldwin (1963)
2. "A culture's ability to understand the world and itself is critical to its survival. But today we are led into the arena of public debate by seers whose main gift is their ability to compel people to continue to watch them." ~ George Saunders (2007)
"I shall endeavour to discharge my duty to society, considering myself only as the citizen, moved by the melancholy necessity of taking up arms for the public safety." ~ Gen. Richard Montgomery (1775)
"This court acknowledges, as I suppose, the validity of the law of God. I see a book kissed here which I suppose to be the Bible, or at least the New Testament. That teaches me that all things whatsoever I would that men should do to me, I should do even so to them. It teaches me, further, to "remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them." I endeavored to act up to that instruction. I say I am yet too young to understand that God is any respecter of persons. I believe that to have interfered as I have done--as I have always freely admitted I have done--in behalf of His despised poor was not wrong, but right. Now, if it is deemed necessary that I should forfeit my life for the furtherance of the ends of justice, and mingle my blood further with the blood of my children and with the blood of millions in this slave country whose rights are disregarded by wicked, cruel, and unjust enactments--I submit; so let it be done!" ~ John Brown (hanged 2 Dec 1859)
3. "Each blade of grass has its spot on earth whence it draws its life, its strength; and so is man rooted to the land from which he draws his faith together with his life." ~ Joseph Conrad (1857-1924)
"As in political so in literary action a man wins friends for himself mostly by the passion of his prejudices and the consistent narrowness of his outlook." ~ Joseph Conrad (1857-1924)
"All ambitions are lawful except those which climb upward on the miseries or credulities of mankind." ~ Joseph Conrad (1857-1924)
4. "Anybody who has ever owned a dog who barked when strangers came near its owner's property has experienced the essential continuity between animal territoriality and human property. Our domesticated cousins of the wolf are instinctively smarter about this than a good many human political theorists." ~ Eric S. Raymond (1999)
"Politicians are like monkeys. The higher they climb, the more revolting are the parts they expose." ~ Gwilym Lloyd-George, 1st Viscount Tenby (1954)
"We have not tried to suppress true, legitimate liberty; on the contrary, we have tried to preserve it. We are for liberty, but liberty with order, the kind of liberty which will not threaten the basic principles of our nation, nor threaten its faith and unity." ~ Francisco Franco
5. "Our heritage and ideals, our code and standards - the things we live by and teach our children - are preserved or diminished by how freely we exchange ideas and feelings." ~ Walt Disney
"All the lessons of history and experience must be lost upon us if we are content to trust alone to the peculiar advantages we happen to possess." ~ Martin Van Buren
"In modern America, anyone who attempts to write satirically about the events of the day finds it difficult to concoct a situation so bizarre that it may not actually come to pass while the article is still on the presses. " ~ Calvin Trillin
6. "Adversity is like a strong wind. It tears away from us all but the things that cannot be torn, so that we see ourselves as we really are." ~ Arthur Golden, 'Memoirs of a Geisha' (1997)
"No nation is truly defeated which retains its spiritual self-possession. No nation is truly victorious which does not emerge soul unstained." ~ Evelyn Underhill, 'Practical Mysticism' (1914)
"Wisdom is the fruit of communion; ignorance the inevitable portion of those who "keep themselves to themselves," and stand apart, judging, analysing the things which they have truly never known." ~ Evelyn Underhill, 'Practical Mysticism' (1914)
"History seems to teach that the whole human race required a gradual education before, in the fullness of time, it could be admitted to the truths of Christianity. All the fallacies of human reason had to be exhausted, before the light of a high truth could meet with ready acceptance." ~ Max Müller (1860)
"Take care lest perchance you fall into the mistake of thinking to gain more by being merciful than by being just; for to pardon him too easily that has transgressed is to wrong him that transgresses not." ~ Baldassare Castiglione, Count of Novilara, 'The Book of the Courtier' (1528)
7. "If you believe in freedom of speech, you believe in freedom of speech for views you don't like. Goebbels was in favor of freedom of speech for views he liked. So was Stalin. If you're in favor of freedom of speech, that means you're in favor of freedom of speech precisely for views you despise." ~ Noam Chomsky (1992)
"There's nothing so dangerous as sitting still. You've only got one life, one youth, and you can let it slip through your fingers if you want to; nothing easier. Most people do that." ~ Willa Cather, 'The Bohemian Girl' (1912)
"We come and go, but the land is always here. And the people who love it and understand it are the people who own it — for a little while." ~ Willa Cather, 'O Pioneers!' (1913)
"The world is always full of brilliant youth which fades into grey and embittered middle age: the first flowering takes everything. The great men are those who have developed slowly, or who have been able to survive the glamour of their early florescence and to go on learning from life." ~ Willa Cather, 'Joseph and His Brothers' (1936)
8. "If the gospel is to challenge the public life of our society, if Christians are to occupy the "high ground" which they vacated in the noon time of "modernity," it will not be by forming a Christian political party, or by aggressive propaganda campaigns.... It will only be by movements that begin with the local congregation in which the reality of the new creation is present, known, and experienced, and from which men and women will go into every sector of public life to claim it for Christ, to unmask the illusions which have remained hidden and to expose all areas of public life to the illumination of the gospel. But that will only happen as and when local congregations renounce an introverted concern for their own life, and recognize that they exist for the sake of those who are not members, as sign, instrument, and foretaste of God's redeeming grace for the whole life of society." ~ Bishop Lesslie Newbigin (1989)
"Clearly, some time ago makers and consumers of American junk food passed jointly through some kind of sensibility barrier in the endless quest for new taste sensations. Now they are a little like those desperate junkies who have tried every known drug and are finally reduced to mainlining toilet bowl cleanser in an effort to get still higher." ~ Bill Bryson (1989)
"If the classic image of dying with dignity must be modified or even discarded, what is to be salvaged of our hope for the final memories we leave to those who love us? The dignity we seek in dying must be found in the dignity with which we have lived our lives." ~ Sherwin B. Nuland (1993)
9. "When language in common use in any country becomes irregular and depraved, it is followed by their ruin and degradation. For what do terms used without skill or meaning, which are at once corrupt and misapplied, denote but a people listless, supine, and ripe for servitude?" ~ John Milton,
'letter to Benedetto Bonomatthal' (10 Sep 1638)
"Strangely enough, this is the past that somebody in the future is longing to go back to." ~ Ashleigh Brilliant
"Humor simultaneously wounds and heals, indicts and pardons, diminishes and enlarges; it constitutes inner growth at the expense of outer gain, and those who possess and honestly practice it make themselves more through a willingness to make themselves less." ~ Louis Kronenberger (1954)
"Laughter is part of the human survival kit, a sticking-plaster on the wounds of existence. It will not ward off a bee-sting, but it has helped people to endure wars, pestilence, persecutions, and politicians." ~ David Nathan, 'The Laughtermakers' (1971)
"You manage things, you lead people. We went overboard on management and forgot about leadership. It might help if we ran the MBAs out of Washington." ~ Rear Admiral Grace Hopper (1987)
" ... Here at least
we shall be free; the Almighty hath not built
Here for his envy, will not drive us hence:
Here we may reign secure, and in my choice
to reign is worth ambition though in Hell:
Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven."
~ John Milton, 'Paradise Lost', Book I, Lines 258-263
10. "God hides nothing. His very work from the beginning is revelation, — a casting aside of veil after veil, a showing unto men of truth after truth. On and on, from fact to fact divine he advances, until at length in his Son Jesus he unveils his very face. Then begins a fresh unveiling, for the very work of the Father is the work the Son himself has to do, — to reveal. His life was the unveiling of himself, and the unveiling of the Son is still going on, and is that for the sake of which the world exists. When he is unveiled, that is, when we know the Son, we shall know the Father also. The whole of creation, its growth, its history, the gathering total of human existence, is an unveiling of the Father." ~ George MacDonald (1879)
"My faith is the grand drama of my life. I'm a believer, so I sing words of God to those who have no faith. I give bird songs to those who dwell in cities and have never heard them, make rhythms for those who know only military marches or jazz, and paint colors for those who see none." ~ Olivier Messiaen
11. "Our All is at Stake, and the little Conveniencys and Comforts of Life, when set in Competition with our Liberty, ought to be rejected not with Reluctance but with Pleasure." ~ George Mason, Letter to George Washington
(5 Apr 1769)
"As nations can not be rewarded or punished in the next world they must be in this. By an inevitable chain of causes and effects providence punishes national sins, by national calamities." ~ George Mason, Debate in the Constitutional Convention (22 Aug 1787)
"Justice is conscience, not a personal conscience but the conscience of the whole of humanity. Those who clearly recognize the voice of their own conscience usually recognize also the voice of justice." ~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Letter to three students (Oct 1967)
"If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?"
~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, 'The Gulag Archipelago' (1973)
12. "Change in a democracy can be brought about quickly or slowly. The speed depends on its people's honesty of mind, their values, their humility and knowledge and insight; and, above all else, on the will to act, once they realize the need for action." ~ Lillian Smith, 'Now Is the Time' (1955)
"All the movements in the world, all the laws, the drives, the edicts will never do what personal relationships can do and must do." ~ Lillian Smith (1943)
"Loyalty is a verbal switch-blade used by little and big bosses to force us quickly to accept a questionable situation which our intelligence and conscience should reject." ~ Lillian Smith, 'The Journey' (1954)
"A very large amount of human suffering and frustration is caused by the fact that many men and women are not content to be the sort of beings that God has made them, but try to persuade themselves that they are really beings of some different kind." ~ Eric Mascall
"As the select assemblies for choosing the President, as well as the State legislatures who appoint the senators, will in general be composed of the most enlightened and respectable citizens, there is reason to presume that their attention and their votes will be directed to those men only who have become the most distinguished by their abilities and virtue, and in whom the people perceive just grounds for confidence." ~ John Jay, Federalist, no. 64 (1788)
13. "The earth has grown old with its burden of care
But at Christmas it always is young,
The heart of the jewel burns lustrous and fair
And its soul full of music breaks the air,
When the song of angels is sung." ~ Phillips Brooks
"No man or woman of the humblest sort can really be strong, gentle and good, without the world being better for it, without somebody being helped and comforted by the very existence of that goodness." ~ Phillips Brooks
"Consider how hard it is to change yourself and you'll understand what little chance you have of changing others." ~ Jacob Braude
"Human beings are perhaps never more frightening than when they are convinced beyond doubt that they are right." ~ Laurens van der Post
14. "Freedom unexercised may be freedom forfeited. The preservation of freedom is in the hands of the people themselves — not of the government." ~ Margaret Chase Smith (1952)
"Moral cowardice that keeps us from speaking our minds is as dangerous to this country as irresponsible talk. The right way is not always the popular and easy way. Standing for right when it is unpopular is a true test of moral character." ~ Margaret Chase Smith (1952)
"I believe that freedom of speech should not be so abused by some that it is not exercised by others because of fear and smear. But I do believe that we should not permit tolerance to degenerate into indifference. I believe that people should never get so indifferent, cynical and sophisticated that they don't get shocked into action. I believe that we should not forget how to disagree agreeably and how to criticize constructively. I believe with all my heart that we must not become a nation of mental mutes blindly following demagogues. I believe that in our constant search for security we can never gain any peace of mind until we secure our own soul." ~ Margaret Chase Smith, on Edward R. Murrow's "This I Believe" (1953)
15. "However confused the scene of our life appears, however torn we may be who now do face that scene, it can be faced, and we can go on to be whole." ~ Muriel Rukeyser (1949)
"No one can possibly achieve any real and lasting success or get rich in business by being a conformist." ~ J. Paul Getty
"When a government takes over a people's economic life it becomes absolute, and when it has become absolute it destroys the arts, the minds, the liberties and the meaning of the people it governs." ~ Maxwell Anderson
"Two forms of government are favorable to the prevalence of falsehood and deceit. Under a Despotism, men are false, treacherous, and deceitful through fear, like slaves dreading the lash. Under a Democracy they are so as a means of attaining popularity and office, and because of the greed for wealth." ~ Albert Pike (1871)
16. "A faith that cannot survive collision with the truth is not worth many regrets." ~ Arthur C. Clarke
"Behind every man now alive stand 30 ghosts, for that is the ratio by which the dead outnumber the living." ~ Arthur C. Clarke
"The greatest tragedy in mankind's entire history may be the hijacking of morality by religion. ~ Arthur C. Clarke, "Credo" (1991)
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." ~ Philip K. Dick (1985)
"The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words." ~ Philip K. Dick
"Because today we live in a society in which spurious realities are manufactured by the media, by governments, by big corporations, by religious groups, political groups.... So I ask, in my writing, What is real? Because unceasingly we are bombarded with pseudo-realities manufactured by very sophisticated people using very sophisticated electronic mechanisms. I do not distrust their motives; I distrust their power. They have a lot of it. And it is an astonishing power: that of creating whole universes, universes of the mind. I ought to know. I do the same thing." ~ Philip K. Dick
17. "Nothing is so fatal to the progress of the human mind as to suppose that our views of science are ultimate; that there are no mysteries in nature; that our triumphs are complete, and that there are no new worlds to conquer." ~ Humphry Davy
"A true man does not only stand up for himself, he stands up for those that do not have the ability to." ~ Mackenzie King
"Our problem has been, and is most acutely now, the tyrannical tendency of ideas and the suicidal emptiness of politics without ideas." ~ Alexander M. Bickel, 'The Morality of Consent' (1975)
"In a world where various forms of modern tyranny seek to suppress religious freedom, or try to reduce it to a subculture without right to a voice in the public square, or to use religion as a pretext for hatred and brutality. It is imperative that the followers of the various religions join their voices in calling for peace, tolerance and respect for the dignity and rights of others." ~ Pope Francis, address at Independence Mall, Philadelphia (26 Sep 2015)
18. "An ordinary human being, with a personal conscience, personally answering for something to somebody and personally and directly taking responsibility, seems to be receding farther and farther from the realm of politics. Politicians seem to turn into puppets that only look human and move in a giant, rather inhuman theatre; they appear to become merely cogs in a huge machine, objects of a major civilizational automatism which has gotten out of control and for which nobody is responsible." ~ Václav Havel (1993)
"The tragedy of modern man is not that he knows less and less about the meaning of his own life, but that it bothers him less and less." ~ Václav Havel, 'Letters to Olga' (1988)
"Anyone who takes himself too seriously always runs the risk of looking ridiculous; anyone who can consistently laugh at himself does not." ~ Václav Havel, 'Disturbing the Peace' (1986)
"If every day a man takes orders in silence from an incompetent superior, if every day he solemnly performs ritual acts which he privately finds ridiculous, if he unhesitatingly gives answers to questionnaires which are contrary to his real opinions and is prepared to deny his own self in public, if he sees no difficulty in feigning sympathy or even affection where, in fact, he feels only indifference or aversion, it still does not mean that he has entirely lost the use of one of the basic human senses, namely, the sense of humiliation." ~ Václav Havel, Open letter to Dr. Gustáv Husák, Communist President (8 Apr 1975)
19. "While bringing about reforms and improving institutions, we have to be cautious that while shaking the tree to remove the bad fruit, we do not bring down the tree itself." ~ Pratibha Patil (2012)
"When you control a man's thinking you do not have to worry about his actions. You do not have to tell him not to stand here or go yonder. He will find his "proper place" and will stay in it. You do not need to send him to the back door. He will go without being told. In fact, if there is no back door, he will cut one for his special benefit. His education makes it necessary." ~ Carter G. Woodson (1933)
"He was more than willing to instruct me, and in my notebook he actually wrote in his own hand the three commandments he considered sufficient to make any firm prosper: 1. There’s no need for a man to know how to work, but if he doesn't know how to make others work, he is doomed. (2) There is only one great regret: not having acted in one's own best interest. (3) In business, theory is useful, but it can be utilized only after the deal has been made." ~ Ettore Schmitz (aka Italo Svevo), 'La coscienza di Zeno' (1923)
20. "Corruption is a tree, whose branches are
Of an immeasurable length: they spread
Ev'rywhere; and the dew that drops from thence
Hath infected some chairs and stools of authority."
~ John Fletcher, 'The Honest Man's Fortune' (1613)
"Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made into a victim. Accept no one's definition of your life, but define yourself." ~ Harvey Samuel Firestone
"American capitalism has been both overpraised and overindicted. It is neither the Plumed Knight nor the monstrous Robber Baron." ~ Max Lerner
"A harsh reality of newspaper editing is that the deadlines don't allow for the polish that you expect in books or even magazines." ~ Bill Walsh
21. "The best thing to give to your enemy is forgiveness; to an opponent, tolerance; to a friend, your heart; to your child, a good example; to a father, deference; to your mother, conduct that will make her proud of you; to yourself, respect; to all men, charity." ~ Clara Lucas Balfour (1917)
"One of the hardest things in this world is to admit you are wrong. And nothing is more helpful in resolving a situation than its frank admission." ~ Benjamin Disraeli
"Demagogues and agitators are very unpleasant, they are incidental to a free and constitutional country, and you must put up with these inconveniences or do without many important advantages." ~ Benjamin Disraeli
"I am a Conservative to preserve all that is good in our constitution, a Radical to remove all that is bad. I seek to preserve property and to respect order, and I equally decry the appeal to the passions of the many or the prejudices of the few." ~ Benjamin Disraeli (1832)
"We do many things at the federal level that would be considered dishonest and illegal if done in the private sector." ~ Donald Regan
22. "What is more wonderful than the delight which the mind feels when it knows? This delight is not for anything beyond the knowing, but is in the act of knowing. It is the satisfaction of a primary instinct." ~ Mark Rutherford, journal (1915)
"The world is not a prison house, but a kind of spiritual kindergarten where millions of of bewildered infants are trying to spell God with the wrong blocks." ~ Edwin Arlington Robinson
"Sousa was no Beethoven. Nevertheless he was Sousa. The Stars and Stripes Forever, it is safe to say, is better liked in many lands than the Stars and Stripes themselves. Wherever men march, they march, sooner or later, to the music of John Philip Sousa." ~ Deems Taylor
"It's the questions we ask, the journey we take to get to where we are going that is more important than the actual answer. It's good to have mysteries. It reminds us that there's more to the world than just making do and having a bit of fun." ~ Charles de Lint (2003)
23. "Heaven helps those who help themselves is a well-tried maxim, embodying in a small compass the results of vast human experience. The spirit of self-help is the root of all genuine growth in the individual; and, exhibited in the lives of many, it constitutes the true source of national vigour and strength. Help from without is often enfeebling in its effects, but help from within invariably invigorates. Whatever is done for men or classes, to a certain extent takes away the stimulus and necessity of doing for themselves; and where men are subjected to over-guidance and over-government, the inevitable tendency is to render them comparatively helpless." ~ Samuel Smiles (1859)
"Bubbles of false opinion will last whole ages, and deceive whole generations, till they are broken by some powerful breath, and even then how often they reunite, and again shine in the eyes of men, who hold them solid as cannon-balls!" ~ Sara Coleridge (1847)
"Much waste of words and of thought too would be avoided if disputants would always begin with a clear statement of the question, and not proceed to argue till they had agreed upon what it was that they were arguing about." ~ Sara Coleridge (1848)
"If public officers will infringe men's rights, they ought to pay greater damages than other men, to deter and hinder other officers from the like offences." ~ Sir John Holt, Lord Chief Justice of England: Ashby v. White (1703), 2 Raym. 956.
24. "Although we may not succeed in changing the world's ways, let us teach it to not feel comfortable when sinning, so that its conscience may arise and change its ways." ~ Valeriu Gafencu (1921-1952)
"True happiness can only exist in Jesus Christ. Try to accomplish it. Don't be fooled by how the world understands and lives life, for you have your guidance, the Christian path: Let it guide your steps." ~ Valeriu Gafencu (1921-1952)
"Preserve the truth unchanged, but avoid fanaticism. Madness in faith is a holy power, and that's exactly why you must be balanced, lucid, and thoroughly human." ~ Valeriu Gafencu (1921-1952)
"What is the defining difference between passive and active citizens? Curiously, it isn't income, geography, or even education. It depends on whether or not they read for pleasure and participate in the arts. These cultural activities seem to awaken a heightened sense of individual awareness and social responsibility." ~ Dana Gioia (2007)
25. "It is wise statesmanship which suggests that in time of peace we must prepare for war, and it is no less a wise benevolence that makes preparation in the hour of peace for assuaging the ills that are sure to accompany war." ~ Clara Barton
"I believe that faith is a precursor of all our ideas. Without faith, there never could have evolved hypothesis, theory, science or mathematics. I believe that faith is an extension of the mind. It is the key that negates the impossible. To deny faith is to refute oneself and the spirit that generates all our creative forces. My faith is in the unknown, in all that we do not understand by reason; I believe that what is beyond our comprehension is a simple fact in other dimensions, and that in the realm of the unknown there is an infinite power for good." ~ Charlie Chaplin, 'My Autobiography' (1964)
"I remain just one thing, and one thing only — and that is a clown. It places me on a far higher plane than any politician." ~ Charlie Chaplin
"Euphemisms are not, as many young people think, useless verbiage for that which can and should be said bluntly; they are like secret agents on a delicate mission, they must airily pass by a stinking mess with barely so much as a nod of the head, make their point of constructive criticism and continue on in calm forbearance. Euphemisms are unpleasant truths wearing diplomatic cologne." ~ Quentin Crisp
26. "Where ignorance is bliss
Tis folly to be wise."
~ Thomas Gray (1742)
"On two occasions I have been asked [by members of Parliament!], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage, (1864)
"Life has no other discipline to impose, if we would but realize it, than to accept life unquestioningly. Everything we shut our eyes to, everything we run away from, everything we deny, denigrate or despise, serves to defeat us in the end. What seems nasty, painful, evil, can become a source of beauty, joy, and strength, if faced with an open mind." ~ Henry Miller
"Without laughter, life on our planet would be intolerable. So important is laughter that societies highly reward those who make a living by inducing laughter in others." ~ Steve Allen, 'Funny People' (1981)
"Men will take almost any kind of criticism except the observation that they have no sense of humor." ~ Steve Allen
27. "There is a wonderful mythical law of nature that the three things we crave most in life — happiness, freedom, and peace of mind — are always attained by giving them to someone else." ~ Gen. Peyton C. March (1953)
"Posterity will one day laugh at the foolishness of modern materialistic philosophers. The more I study nature, the more I stand amazed at the work of the Creator. I pray while I am engaged at my work in the laboratory." ~ Louis Pasteur
"He who will please the crowd and for the sake of the most ephemeral renown will either proclaim those things which nature does not display or even will publish genuine miracles of nature without regard to deeper causes is a spiritually corrupt person." ~ Johannes Kepler, 'De Fundamentis' (1601)
28. "The history of liberty is a history of resistance. The history of liberty is a history of limitations of governmental power, not the increase of it." ~ Woodrow Wilson
"I can imagine no greater disservice to the country than to establish a system of censorship that would deny to the people of a free republic like our own their indisputable right to criticise their own public officials. While exercising the great powers of the office I hold, I would regret in a crisis like the one through which we are now passing to lose the benefit of patriotic and intelligent criticism." ~ Woodrow Wilson, letter to Arthur Brisbane (25 April 1917)
"I suspect that most of the individuals who have religious faith are content with blind faith. They feel no obligation to understand what they believe. They may even wish not to have their beliefs disturbed by thought. But if God in whom they believe created them with intellectual and rational powers, that imposes upon them the duty to try to understand the creed of their religion. Not to do so is to verge on superstition." ~ Mortimer J. Adler
"Is it too much to expect from the schools that they train their students not only to interpret but to criticize; that is, to discriminate what is sound from error and falsehood, to suspend judgement if they are not convinced, or to judge with reason if they agree or disagree?" ~ Mortimer J. Adler, 'How to Read a Book' (1940)
29. "Each second we live is a new and unique moment of the universe, a moment that will never be again And what do we teach our children? We teach them that two and two make four, and that Paris is the capital of France. When will we also teach them what they are? We should say to each of them: Do you know what you are? You are a marvel. You are unique. In all the years that have passed, there has never been another child like you." ~ Pablo Casals
"I used to think that eighty was a very old age. Now I am ninety. I do not think this any more. As long as you are able to admire and to love, you are young." ~ Pablo Casals
"Our Government springs from and was made for the people — not the people for the Government. To them it owes allegiance; from them it must derive its courage, strength, and wisdom. But while the Government is thus bound to defer to the people, from whom it derives its existence, it should, from the very consideration of its origin, be strong in its power of resistance to the establishment of inequalities. Monopolies, perpetuities, and class legislation are contrary to the genius of free government, and ought not to be allowed. Here there is no room for favored classes or monopolies; the principle of our Government is that of equal laws and freedom of industry. Wherever monopoly attains a foothold, it is sure to be a source of danger, discord, and trouble. We shall but fulfill our duties as legislators by according "equal and exact justice to all men," special privileges to none." ~ Andrew Johnson, First State of the Union Address (4 Dec 1865)
30. "Have you ever been out for a late autumn walk in the closing part of the afternoon, and suddenly looked up to realize that the leaves have practically all gone? You hadn't realized it. And you notice that the sun has set already, the day gone before you knew it — and with that a cold wind blows across the landscape. That's retirement." ~ Stephen Leacock (1939)
"I keep six honest serving men
(They taught me all I knew)
Their names are What and Why and When
and How and Where and Who."
~ Rudyard Kipling (1902)
"Many religious people are deeply suspicious. They seem, for purely religious purposes, of course, to know more about iniquity than the unregenerate." ~ Rudyard Kipling (1888)
"If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you, If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, .... The world will be yours and everything in it, what's more, you'll be a man, my son." ~ Rudyard Kipling
31. "Just when you think it can't get any worse, it can. And just when you think it can't get any better, it can." ~ Nicholas Sparks, 'At First Sight' (2006)
"When you're struggling with something, look at all the people around you and realize that every single person you see is struggling with something, and to them, it's just as hard as what you're going through." ~ Nicholas Sparks, 'Dear John' (2006)
"We must present democracy as a force holding within itself the seeds of unlimited progress by the human race. By our actions we should make it clear that such a democracy is a means to a better way of life, together with a better understanding among nations. Tyranny inevitably must retire before the tremendous moral strength of the gospel of freedom and self-respect for the individual, but we have to recognize that these democratic principles do not flourish on empty stomachs, and that people turn to false promises of dictators because they are hopeless and anything promises something better than the miserable existence that they endure. However, material assistance alone is not sufficient. The most important thing for the world today in my opinion is a spiritual regeneration which would reestablish a feeling of good faith among men generally. Discouraged people are in sore need of the inspiration of great principles. Such leadership can be the rallying point against intolerance, against distrust, against that fatal insecurity that leads to war. It is to be hoped that the democratic nations can provide the necessary leadership." ~ George C. Marshall, Nobel acceptance (10 Dec 1953)
"When you're struggling with something, look at all the people around you and realize that every single person you see is struggling with something, and to them, it's just as hard as what you're going through." ~ Nicholas Sparks, 'Dear John' (2006)
"We must present democracy as a force holding within itself the seeds of unlimited progress by the human race. By our actions we should make it clear that such a democracy is a means to a better way of life, together with a better understanding among nations. Tyranny inevitably must retire before the tremendous moral strength of the gospel of freedom and self-respect for the individual, but we have to recognize that these democratic principles do not flourish on empty stomachs, and that people turn to false promises of dictators because they are hopeless and anything promises something better than the miserable existence that they endure. However, material assistance alone is not sufficient. The most important thing for the world today in my opinion is a spiritual regeneration which would reestablish a feeling of good faith among men generally. Discouraged people are in sore need of the inspiration of great principles. Such leadership can be the rallying point against intolerance, against distrust, against that fatal insecurity that leads to war. It is to be hoped that the democratic nations can provide the necessary leadership." ~ George C. Marshall, Nobel acceptance (10 Dec 1953)
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