I am long on ideas, but short on time.
I expect to live to be only about a hundred.
Thomas Alva Edison
quoted in Golden Book magazine, April, 1931
(Note: Edison lived to age 84.)
People seem not to see
that their opinion of the world
is also a confession of character.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The Conduct of Life, 1860
Rather let the crime of the guilty
go unpunished
than condemn the innocent.
Justinian I
Law Code, 535 A. D.
Power is so apt to be insolent
and Liberty to be saucy,
that they are very seldom
upon good Terms.
George Savile, Marquis of Halifax
Political, Moral, and Miscellaneous Thoughts and Reflections, 1750
It is familiarity with life
that makes time speed quickly.
When every day is a step in the unknown,
as for children,
the days are long with the gathering of experience.
George Gissing
The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft, 1903
The less government we have, the better--
the fewer laws, and the less confided power.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Essays, 1844
The Bill of Rights is a born rebel.
It reeks with sedition.
In every clause it shakes its fist in the face of constituted authority.
Frank I. Cobb
LaFollette's Magazine, January, 1920
There is in all of us a strong disposition
to believe that anything lawful
is also legitimate.
This belief is so widespread that many persons
have erroneously held
that things are "just" because law makes them so.
Claude-Frederic Bastiat
The Law, 1850
If we would only become
when well,
the men we promised to become
when we were sick.
Pliny the Younger
Letters, circa 100 A.D.
It's better to profit by a horrible example
than to be one.
Plautus
Persa, 540, circa 184 B.C.
Curiosity is,
in great and generous minds,
the first passion
and the last.
Samuel Johnson
The Rambler, 1751
To be feared is to fear;
no one has been able to strike terror into others
and at the same time enjoy
peace of mind himself.
Seneca
Epistles, circa 1st Century
Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake
of dreaming that I am persecuted
whenever I am contradicted.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Journals, 1838
A horse never runs so fast
as when he has other horses
to catch up and outpace.
Ovid
The Art of Love, circa 8 A.D.
To think justly
we must understand what others mean;
to know the value of our thoughts,
we must try their effect on other minds.
William Hazlitt
The Plain Speaker, 1826
Wherever they burn books
they will also, in the end,
burn human beings.
Heinrich Heine
Almansor, 1823
You will always find those
who think they know what your duty is
better than you know it.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Self Reliance," Essays: First Series, 1841
The most certain test by which we judge
whether a country is really free
is the amount of security
enjoyed by minorities.
Lord Acton,
The History of Freedom in Antiquity, 1877
Luck never made a man wise.
Seneca
Letters to Lucilius, circa, 63-65 A.D.
Those who realize their folly
are not true fools.
Chuang Tse
Works, Fourth century, B.C.
The despotism of custom is everywhere
the standing hindrance
to human advancement.
John Stuart Mill
On Liberty, 1859
In great affairs men show themselves
as they wish to be seen,
in small things they show themselves
as they are.
Chamfort
Maximes et pensees, 1805
To the man who is afraid
everything rustles.
Sophocles
Fragment 58, Acrisius, 5th Century, B.C.
To turn events into ideas
is the function of literature.
George Santayana
Little Essays, 1920
The Golden Age
never was the present Age.
Benjamin Franklin
Poor Richard's Almanac, 1750
I went to the store the other day
to buy a bolt for our front door,
for, as I told the storekeeper,
the Governor was coming here.
"Aye," said he, "and the Legislature too."
"Then I will take two bolts," said I.
Henry David Thoreau
Journal, September 8, 1859
Thomas Jefferson still survives.
John Adams
On his deathbed, July 4, 1826
If a little knowledge is dangerous,
where is the man who has so much
as to be out of danger?
T.H. Huxley
"On Elemental Instruction in Physiology," 1877
The main part of intellectual education
is not the acquisition of facts
but learning how to make facts live.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
Speech, Harvard Law School Association, November 5, 1886
Virtue is the roughest way,
But proves at night
a bed of down.
Sir Henry Wotton
"Upon the Sudden Restraint of the Earl of Somerset," in Poems, 1842
A man surprised
is half beaten.
Thomas Fuller
Gnomologia, 1732
A teacher affects eternity;
he can never tell where
his influence stops.
Henry Adams
The Education of Henry Adams, 1907
A thief believes
everybody steals.
Edgar Watson Howe
Country Town Sayings, 1911
Every man has his own vocation.
The talent is the call.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Essays: First Series, 1841
That which costs little
is less valued.
Miguel de Cervantes
Don Quixote de la Mancha, 1605-1615
More people are flattered into virtue
than bullied out of vice.
Robert Smith SurteesD
The Analysis of the Hunting Field, 1846
The unknown always passes
for the marvellous.
Tacitus
Agricola, circa 98 A.D.
It is easier to know (and understand)
men in general
than one man in particular.
La Rochefoucauld
Maxims, 1665
Laws are silent
in time of war.
Cicero
Pro Milone, 52 B.C.
April 1. This is the day upon which we are reminded
of what we are
on the other three hundred and sixty-four.
Mark Twain
Pudd'nhead Wilson, 1984
'Tis better to suffer wrong
than do it.
Thomas Fuller
Gnomologia, 1732
No one lies as much
as the indignant do.
Nietzsche
Beyond Good and Evil, 1886
The contest,
for ages,
has been to rescue Liberty
from the grasp of executive power.
Daniel Webster
Speech in U.S. Senate, May 27, 1834
Half-heartedness
never won a battle.
William McKinley
Speech, January 27, 1898
How much easier it is
to be critical
than to be correct.
Benjamin Disraeli
Speech, January 24, 1860
If a nation expects
to be ignorant and free,
in a state of civilization,
it expects what never was
and never will be.
Thomas Jefferson
Letter to Col. Charles Yancey, January 6, 1816
Did you ever
notice that when
a politician
does get an idea
he usually
gets it all wrong.
Don Marquis
Archy's Life of Mehitabel, 1933
There are scarcely any men more sour
than those who are forced to be nice
out of interest.
Marquis de Vauvenargues
Reflexions et maximes, 1746
The virtue of books
is to be readable.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Society and Solitude, 1870
Attack another's rights
and you destroy your own.
John Jay Chapman
Letter, 1897
The man with a new idea is a Crank
until the idea succeeds.
Mark Twain
Following the Equator, 1897
The boisterous sea of liberty
is never without a wave.
Thomas Jefferson
Letter to Richard Rush, October 20, 1820
Books are the quietest and most constant
of friends . . .
and the most patient of teachers.
Charles W. Eliot
The Happy Life, 1896
A door is what a dog
is perpetually on the wrong side of.
Odgen Nash
The Private Dining Room, 1953
The Press, my Lords,
is one of our great out-sentries;
if we remove it, if we hoodwink it,
if we throw it in fetters,
the enemy may surprise us.
Thomas Erskine
Defense of Thomas Paine, December 20, 1792
The limits of tyrants
are prescribed by the endurance
of those whom they suppress.
Frederick Douglass
Letter to Gerrit Smith, March 30, 1849
Let us dare
to read, think, speak and write.
John Adams
Dissertation on the Canon and the Feudal Law, 1765
Philosophy is the best medicine
for the mind.
Marcus Tullius Cicero
Tusculanes Disputationes 47-44 B.C.
Of all the tyrannies on human kind
The worst is that which persecutes the mind.
John Dryden
The Hind and the Panther 1687
Goodness does not more certainly
make men happy
than happiness
makes them good.
Walter Savage Landor
Imaginary Conversations, 1824
Whatever sentence will bear
to be read twice,
we may be sure
was thought twice.
Henry David Thoreau
Journal, 1842
A man begins to die,
that quits his desires.
George Herbert
Outlandish Proverbs, 1640.
It is unfortunate,
considering that enthusiasm moves the world,
that so few enthusiasts
can be trusted
to speak the truth.
Arthur James Balfour
Letter to Mrs. Drew, May 19, 1891
If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation,
it is that no official,
high or petty,
can prescribe what shall be orthodox
in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion
or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.
If there are any circumstances which permit an exception,
they do not now occur to us.
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson
West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624, 642 (1943).
An evil life
is a kind of death.
Ovid
Epistulae ex Ponto, III, circa 5 A.D.
Folks never understand
the folks they hate.
James Russell Lowell
The Biglow Papers, 1867
No passion
so effectually robs the mind
of all its powers of acting and reasoning
as fear.
Edmund Burke
A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, 1756
We praise a man who is angry on the right grounds,
against the right persons,
in the right manner,
at the right moment,
and for the right length of time.
Aristotle
Nicomachean Ethics, 340 B.C.
It takes a great deal of history
to produce a little literature.
Henry James
Hawthorne, 1879
I hear much of people's calling out
to punish the guilty,
but very few are concerned
to clear the innocent.
Daniel Defoe
An Appeal to Honor and Justice, 1715.
Nature,
to be commanded,
must be obeyed.
Francis Bacon
Novum Organum, 1620
The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised
over any member of a civilised community, against his will,
is to prevent harm to others.
His own good, either physical or moral,
is not a sufficient warrant.
John Stuart Mill
On Liberty, 1859
No one gossips
about other people's secret virtues.
Bertrand Russell
On Education, 1926
It is not enough to do good;
one must do it in the right way.
John Morley
Rousseau, 1876
A wise man's question
contains half the answer.
Solomon Ibn Gabirol
The Choice of Pearls, circa 1050
There are things which don't deserve
to be said briefly.
Jean Ronstand
De la Vanite, 1925
Everything has been said before,
but since nobody listens
we have to keep going back
and beginning all over again.
Andre Gide
Le Traite du Narcisse, 1891
Books, the children of the brain.
Johathan Swift
A Tale of a Tub, 1704
Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted
with the government of himself.
Can he, then, be trusted
with the government of others?
Or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him?
Let history answer this question.
Thomas Jefferson
First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1801.
[W]ine is only sweet
to happy men.
John Keats
"What Can I Do to Drive Away," 1819
The eye of the master
will do more work
than both his hands.
Benjamin Franklin
Poor Richard's Almanac, 1758
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 he hears,
however measured or far away.
Henry David Thoreaau
Walden, 1854
Ignorance is the womb
of monsters.
Henry Ward Beecher
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit, 1870.
This time,
like all times,
is a very good one,
if we but know
what to do with it.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The American Scholar, 1837
It is error alone
which needs the support of government.
Truth can stand by itself.
Thomas Jefferson
Notes on the State of Virginia, 1787
Thunder is good,
thunder is impressive;
but it is lightning
that does the work.
Mark Twain
Letter, 1908
Laziness travels so slowly,
that Poverty soon overtakes him.
Benjamin Franklin
Poor Richard's Almanac, 1756
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
Notes, July 1, 1854
Fear of serious injury cannot alone justify suppression
of free speech and assembly.
Men feared witches and burnt women.
It is the function of speech to free men
from the bondage of irrational fears.
Justice Louis D. Brandeis
Concurring opinion in Whitney v. California, 274 U.S. 357, 376 (1927)
The years teach much
which the days never know.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Experience" in Essays (Second Series) 1844
Wear the old coat
and buy the new book.
Austin Phelps
The Theory of Preaching; Lectures on Homiletics, 1881
If decisions were a choice between alternatives,
decisions would come easy.
Decision is the selection and formulation
of alternatives.
Kenneth Burke
Towards a Better Life, 1932.
New Orleans, in spring-time,
just when the orchards were flushing over with peach-blossoms,
and the sweet herbs came to flavor the juleps--
seemed to me the city of the world
where you can eat and drink the most
and suffer the least.
William Makepeace Thackeray
Roundabout Papers, 1862
Try not to become a man of success
but rather
try to become a man of value.
Albert Einstein
Life Magazine, May 2, 1955
It is only in sorrow
bad weather masters us;
in joy we face the storm and defy it.
Amelia Barr
Jan Vedder's Wife, 1885
The love of learning,
the sequestered nooks,
And all the sweet serenity of books.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The Masque of Pandora, 1875
When a dog bites a man
that is not news,
but when a man bites a dog,
that is news.
Charles A. Dana
New York Sun, 1882
Books are the bees which carry the quickening pollen
from one to another mind.
James Russell Lowell
North American Review, July, 1849
Everybody talks about the weather,
but noboby does anything about it.
Charles Dudley Warner
Editorial in the Hartford Courant, August 24, 1897
I am the inferior
of any man
whose rights
I trample under foot.
Robert G. Ingersoll
Prose-Poems and Selections, 1884
No man can put a chain
about the ankle of his fellow man
without at last finding the other end
fastened about his own neck.
Frederick Douglass
Speech, October 22, 1883
A picture has been said to be
something between a thing
and a thought.
Samuel Palmer
Life of Blake, 1850
They know enough
who know how to learn.
Henry Brooks Adams
The Education of Henry Adams, 1906
There is no such thing on earth
as an uninteresting subject;
the only thing that can exist
is an uninterested person.
G.K. Chesterton
Heretics, 1905
The buck stops here.
Harry S. Truman
Speech, December 19, 1952
Liberty of thought
is the life of the soul.
Voltaire
Essay on Epic Poetry, 1727
Cold is the source of more suffering to all animal nature
than hunger, thirst, sickness,
and all the other pains of life and of death itself put together.
Thomas Jefferson
Letter to William Dunbar, January, 1801.
What is this life if,
full of care,
we have no time
to stand and stare.
W.H. Davies
Leisure, 1920.
I don't care for war,
there's far too much luck in it
for my liking.
Napoleon III
Statement after narrow victory at Battle at Solferino, June 24, 1859.
In every age
the vilest specimens of human nature
are to be found
among demagogues.
Lord Macaulay
History of England, 1849.
Progress, far from consisting in change,
depends on retentiveness.
Those who cannot remember the past
are condemned to repeat it.
George Santayana
The Life of Reason, 1905
The first casualty when war comes
is truth.
Hiram Warren Johnson
Speech, US Senate, 1917
Farming looks mighty easy
when your plow is a pencil,
and you're a thousand miles from the cornfield.
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Speech in Peoria, Illinois, September 25, 1956.
Everyone is in favour of free speech.
Hardly a day passes without its being extolled,
but some people's idea of it
is that they are free to say what they like,
but if anyone says anything back,
that is an outrage.
Winston Churchill
Speech in House of Commons, October 13, 1943.
As scarce as truth is,
the supply has always been in excess of the demand.
Josh Billings (Henry Wheeler Shaw)
Affurisms from Josh Billings: His Sayings, 1865
Nothing will ever be attempted,
if all possible objections
must be first overcome.
Samuel Johnson
Rasselas, 1759
Our first mistake is the belief that circumstance
gives the joy
which we give to the circumstance.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Illusions," The Conduct of Life, 1860
Do not hit at all
if it can be avoided,
but never hit softly.
Theodore Roosevelt
Autobiography, 1913
I haven't got time
to be tired.
Wilhelm I
Complaint during his final illness, 1888
I order you to hold a free election,
but forbid you to elect anyone but Richard my clerk.
Henry II
Writ to electors of the See of Winchester
regarding the election of a new bishop. 1173
To like and dislike the same things,
that is indeed true friendship.
Gaius Sallustius Crispus
Bellum Catilinae, 43 BC
History is philosophy
teaching by examples.
Dionysius of Halicarnassus
Ars rhetorica, XI:2, 1st Century, BC
Give me a firm place to stand,
and I will move the earth.
Archimedes
On the Lever, 3rd Century, BC
Beware that you do not lose the substance
by grasping at the shadow.
Aesop
Fables, "The Dog and the Shadow," 6th century, BC
Nature is often hidden,
sometimes overcome
seldom extinguished.
Francis Bacon
Essays, "Of Nature in Men," 1610
Where is human nature so weak
as in the bookstore!
Henry Ward Beecher
"Subtleties of Book Buyers," Star Papers, 1855
In order that knowledge
be properly digested
it must have been swallowed
with a good appetite.
Anatole France
The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard, 1881
Each day provides
its own gifts.
Martial
Epigrams, 86 A.D.
Men are never so likely
to settle a question rightly
as when they discuss it freely.
Lord Macaulay
"Southey's Coloquies on Society," 1830.
A man cannot be too careful
in the choice of his enemies.
Oscar Wilde
A Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891.
Those who have given themselves the most concern
about the happiness of peoples
have made their neighbors very miserable.
Anatole France
Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard, 1881.
I own I am not a friend
to a very energetic government.
It is always oppressive.
Thomas Jefferson
Letter to James Madison, December 20, 1787.
No wind serves him
who addresses his voyage
to no certain port.
Montaigne
Essays, 1588.
The reading of all good books
is like conversation
with the finest men of the past centuries.
Descartes
Discourse on Method, 1639
'Tis skill, not strength,
that governs a ship.
Thomas Fuller, M.D.
Gnomologia, 1732
A book on cheap paper
does not convince.
Elbert Hubbard
The Philistine, 1885 to 1915
A man is known by the company
his mind keeps.
Thomas Bailey Aldrich
"Leaves from a Notebook," in Ponkapog Papers, 1903
Greater things are believed
of those who are absent.
Tacitus
Histories, circa 104-109
The winds and waves
are always on the side
of the ablest navigators.
Edward Gibbon
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 1776
Old wine and an old friend
are good provisions.
George Herbert
Jacula Prudentum, 1651
The man who knows when not to act
is wise.
To my mind,
bravery is forethought.
Euripides
The Suppliant Women, circa 420 BC
There is nothing so easy
but it becomes difficult
when you do it reluctantly.
Terence
Heauton Timoroumenos, circa 150 BC
What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.
William Shakespeare
Romeo and Juliet, Act II, scene II.
Iron rusts from disuse,
stagnant water loses its purity
and in cold weather becomes frozen;
even so does inaction
sap the vigor of the mind.
Leonardo da Vinci
Notebooks, 1508
Some people seem as if they can never
have been children,
and others seems as if they could never
be anything else.
George Dennison Prentice
Prenticeana, 1860
Saying is one thing,
doing another.
Montaigne
Essays, 1588
The art of being wise
is the art of knowing what to overlook.
William James
Principles of Phsychology, 1890
Burning is no answer.
Camille Desmoulins
Reply to Robespierre on the burning of Desmoulins' newspaper, Vieux Cordelier, January 7, 1794
Government that oppresses
is
more terrible than tigers.
Confucius
The Book of Rites, circa 500 B.C.
Nothing great was ever achieved
without enthusiasm.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Essays: First Series, 1841
Our life
is what our thoughts make it.
Marcus Aurelius Antonius (121 to 180 A.D.)
Mediations
The hole and the patch
should be commensurate.
Thomas Jefferson
Letter to James Madison, June 20, 1787
The haste of a fool
is the slowest thing in the world.
Thomas Shadwell
A True Widow, 1678
Our love of what is beautiful
does not lead to extravagance;
our love of things of the mind
does not make us soft.
Pericles
Funeral Oration, (as reported by Thucydides in Histories), 430 B. C.
Anger is never without an argument,
but seldom with a good one.
George Savile, Marquis of Halifax
Political, Moral, and Miscellaneous Thoughts and Reflections, 1750
I wish I was as cocksure of anything
as Tom Macaulay is of everything.
Lord Melbourne
Preface to Lord Melbourne's Papers, 1889
We may live without poetry, music and art;
We may live without conscience, and live without heart;
We may live without friends; we may live without books;
But civilized man cannot live without cooks.
Owen Meredith
Lucille, 1860
I was, for some years, a member of Congress.
In my last canvass, I told the people of my District,
that,
if they saw fit to re-elect me,
I would serve them as faithfully as I had done;
but, if not,
they might go to hell, and I would go to Texas.
I was beaten, gentlemen, and here I am.
David Crockett
Speech on arrival in (Nacogdoches) Texas, January 5, 1836.
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
[Chorus]
For auld lang syne, my dear,
We twa hae rin about the braes,
We twa hae paidl't i' the burn,
And here 's a hand, my trusty fiere,
And surely ye'll be your pint-stowp,
Robert Burns
And never brought to min'?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And days o' lang syne?
For auld lang syne,
We'll tak a cup o' kindness yet
For auld lang syne.
And pu'd the gowans fine;
But we've wander'd monie a weary fit
Sin' auld lang syne.
Frae mornin' sun till dine;
But seas between us braid hae roar'd
Sin' auld lang syne.
And gie's a hand o' thine;
And we'll tak a right guid-willie waught
For auld lang syne.
And surely I'll be mine;
And we'll tak a cup o' kindness yet
For auld lang syne!
Auld Lang Syne,1788
A citizen, first in war,
first in peace,
and first in the hearts of his countrymen.
Henry "Light Horse Harry" Lee
Resolutions Adopted by the Congress on the Death of Washington, December 19, 1799
Have nothing in your house
that you do not know to be useful,
or believe to be beautiful.
William Morris
Hope and Fears for Art, 1882
These are the times that try men's soul.
The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will
in this crisis,
shrink from the service of their country;
but he that stands it now,
deserves the love and thanks
of men and women.
Thomas Paine
The Crisis, December, 1776
The greatest offence against virtue
is to speak ill of it.
William Hazlitt
Sketches and Essays, 1839.
A book that furnishes no quotations is,
Night hath a thousand eyes.
He who knows only his own side of the case,
He that complies against his will
What is a weed?
When two do the same thing
A little learning, may be a dangerous thing,
It is one thing to show a man that he is in error,
Two men look out through the same bars:
Perhaps the most valuable result of all education
One more such victory
Glory ought to be the consequence,
A sword never kills anybody;
I have the consolation of having added nothing
But who is to guard
Wrinkles should merely indicate
The little toy dog is covered with dust,
We hate to see you go, old guy
Everyone complains about his memory,
From fanaticism to barbarism
That these United Colonies are,
I have always found
Men do not realize
Many eyes go through the meadow,
This is a sickness rooted and inherent
One sword keeps another
No society in which eccentricity is a matter of reproach,
There is nothing so subject
Force cannot give right.
We learn geology
The most may err
A meal without wine
Every man who has been in office a few years
You know my method.
A different taste in jokes
Art is long
In politics as in religion,
An honest man can feel no pleasure
No man was ever great
Though the flame of liberty may sometimes cease to shine,
Day by day he gazed upon her,
I begin to smell a rat.
The great pleasure of a dog is
Have a care
No man is good enough
Forewarned, forearmed:
Truth is the daughter
Knowledge is the antidote
Every mile
Folks never understand
When a stupid man is doing something he is ashamed of,
Do not do an immoral thing
To teach is to learn twice.
You have not converted a man
If I have seen further
A wise man is not governed by others,
But though an old man
In a calm sea
He jests at scars
Every man is the son
Based upon the investigation reviewed . . . the Commission concluded that there is no credible evidence that Lee Harvey Oswald was part of a conspiracy to assassinate President Kennedy. . . . The conclusion that there is no evidence of a conspiracy was also reached independently by Dean Rusk, the Secretary of State; Robert S McNamara, the Secretary of Defense; C. Douglas Dillon, the Secretary of the Treasury; Robert F. Kennedy, the Attorney General; J. Edgar Hoover, the Director of the FBI; John A. McCone, the Director of the CIA; and James J. Rowley, the Chief of the Secret Service, on the basis of the information available to each of them.
Reading is to the mind
It is a newspaper's duty to print the news,
Next to the originator of a good sentence
Curiosity is one of the permanent
The face of tyranny
It is far easier to make war
Change is not made without inconvenience,
A man must keep a little back shop
The reluctant obedience of distant provinces
We must indeed all hang together,
My opinion is, that power should always be distrusted,
Don't fire until you see
"That these United Colonies are,
Procrastination is the thief of time.
No garden [is] without its weeds.
Life is made up of interruptions.
A man of learning is never bored.
He knows nothing and thinks he knows everything.
Man exists for his own sake
it is a plaything.
Thomas Love Peacock
Crotchet Castle, 1831
John Lyly
Maides Metamorphose, 1600
knows little of that.
John Stuart Mill
On Liberty, 1859
is of his opinion still.
Samuel Butler
Hudibras, 1664
A plant whose virtues have not been discovered.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Fortune of the Republic, 1878
it is never quite the same thing.
Publilius Syrus
Sententiae, circa 50 B.C.
but the want of learning
is a calamity to any people.
Frederick Douglass
Speech at Colored High School Commencement, Baltimore, Maryland, June 22, 1894.
and another to put him in possession of truth.
John Locke
An Essay concerning Human Understanding, 1690.
One sees the mud,
and one the stars.
Frederick Langbridge
A Cluster of Quiet Thoughts, 1896
is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do,
when it ought to be done,
whether you like it or not.
Walter Bagehot
Physics and Politics, 1879
and we are lost.
Pyrrhus
After defeating the Romans at Asculum, 279 B.C.
not the motive of our actions.
Pliny the Younger
Letters, circa 100 A.D.
it's a tool in the killer's hand.
Seneca (the Younger)
Letters to Lucilius, circa 63-65 A.D.
to my private fortune during my public service,
and of retiring with hands
as clean as they are empty.
Thomas Jefferson
Letter to Count Diodati, 1807
the guards?
Juvenal
Satires, circa 115
where smiles have been.
Mark Twain
Following the Equator, 1897
But sturdy and staunch he stands;
The little toy soldier is red with rust,
And his musket moulds in his hands.
Time was when the little toy dog was new,
And the soldier was passing fair;
And that was the time when our Little Boy Blue
Kissed them and put them there.
"Now don't you go till I come," he said,
"And don't you make any noise!"
So, toddling off to his trundle bed,
He dreamt of the pretty toys;
And, as he was dreaming, an angel song
Awakened our Little Boy Blue-
Oh! the years are many, the years are long,
But the little toy friends are true!
Ay, faithful to Little Boy Blue they stand,
Each in the same old place,
Awaiting the touch of a little hand,
The smile of a little face;
And they wonder, as waiting the long years through
In the dust of that little chair,
What has become of our Little Boy Blue,
Since he kissed them and put them there.
Eugene Field,
Little Boy Blue, 18--
Although we know it's time.
Though sadness fills our hearts right now
We'll not forget good times.
And smiles will soon replace our tears
For joy is what you brought.
No better job could have been done
of filling up our lives.
So go in peace our golden friend
You've earned your final rest.
You could not have done a better job
It's time to sleep at last.
Donald Ray Burger
Elegy for Toby, July 22, 1999, 1:07 pm
but no one complains
about his judgment.
Francois, Duc de La Rochefoucauld
Reflexions, ou Sentences et maximes morales, 1665.
is only one step.
Denis Diderot
Essai sur le merite de la vertu, 1745.
and of Right ought to be
Free and Independent States;
that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown,
and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain,
is and ought to be totally dissolved.
Thomas Jefferson
Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776
that the man whose second thoughts are good
is worth watching.
J.M. Barrie
What Every Woman Knows, 1906
how great an income thrift is.
Cicero
Paradoxa stoicorum, 46 B.C.
but few see the flowers in it.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Journals, 1834.
in the nature of a tyranny:
that he that holds it does not trust his friends.
Aeschylus
Prometheus Bound, circa 478 B.C.
in the sheath.
George Herbert
Jacula Prudentum, 1651.
can be in a wholesome state.
John Stuart Mill
Principles of Political Economy, 1848.
to the inconstancy of fortune
as war.
Miguel de Cervantes
Don Quixote de la Mancha, 1605-l6l5.
Thomas Jefferson
Draft of Instructions to the Virginia Delegates
in the Continental Congress, August, 1774.
the morning after the earthquake.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The Conduct of Life, 1860.
as grossly as the few.
John Dryden
Absalom and Achitophel, 1681.
is like a day without sunshine.
Anthelme Brillat-Savarin
Physiologie du Gout, 1825.
believes he has a life estate in it, a vested right.
This is not the principle of our government.
It is a rotation in office that will perpetuate our liberty.
Andrew Jackson
Journal, May-June 1829.
It is founded upon the observance of trifles.
Arthur Conan Doyle
Remark by Sherlock Holmes in The Boscombe Valley Mystery, 1892
is a great strain on the affections.
George Elliot
Daniel Deronda, 1876
and time is fleeting.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
A Psalm of Life, 1839
it so happens that we have less charity
for those who believe the half of our creed,
than for those that deny the whole of it.
Charles Caleb Colton,
Lacon, 1825.
in the exercise of power over his fellow citizens.
Thomas Jefferson
Letter to John McLish, January 13, 1813.
by imitation.
Samuel Johnson
Rasselas, 1759.
the coal can never expire.
Thomas Paine
The American Crisis, December 23, 1776.
Day by day he sighed with passion,
Day by day his heart within him
Grew more hot with love and longing.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Hiawatha, II, 1855.
Miguel de Cervantes
Don Quixote de la Mancha, 1605-l6l5.
that you may make a fool of yourself with him
and not only will he not scold you,
but he will make a fool of himself too.
Samuel Butler
Note-Books, circa 1890.
where there is more sail than ballast.
William Penn
Some Fruits of Solitude, 1693.
to be another man's master.
George Bernard Shaw
Major Barbara, 1905
to be prepared
is half the victory.
Miguel de Cervantes
Don Quixote, 16l5
of time.
Aulus Gellius, 130 to 175 A. D.
Noctis Atticae
to fear
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Society and Solitude, "Courage," 1870
is two in winter.
George Herbert
Jacula Prudentum, Published posthumously in 1652.
the folks they hate.
James Russell Lowell
The Bigelow Papers: Series II, 1886.
he always declares that it's his duty.
G.B. Shaw
Caesar and Cleopatra, 1898
for moral reasons.
Thomas Hardy
Jude the Obscure, 1875
Joseph Joubert
Pensees, 1842.
because you have silenced him.
John Morley
Rousseau, 1876
it is by standing
on the shoulders of giants.
Isaac Newton
Letter to Robert Hooke, February 5, 1675
nor does he try to govern them;
he prefers that reason alone prevail.
La Bruyere
Characters, 1688
I am but a young gardener.
Thomas Jefferson
Letter to Charles W. Peale, 1811
every man is a pilot.
John Ray
English Proverbs, 1670.
that never felt a wound.
William Shakespeare
Romeo in: Romeo and Juliet, Act II, Scene II, 1595.
of his own works.
Miguel de Cervantes
Don Quixote de la Mancha, 1615
Page 350 of Report of the Warren Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy
Released to the public on September 27, 1964.
what exercise is to the body.
Sir Richard Steele
Tatler, 1710.
and raise hell.
Wilbur F. Storey, Editor
Statement of the aims of the Chicago Times. 1861.
is the first quoter of it.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Letters and Social Aims, 1875
and certain characteristics
of a vigorous mind.
Samuel Johnson
The Rambler, 1751
Is always mild at first.
Racine
Britannicus, 1669
that we enjoy intercourse with superior minds.
William Ellery Chaning
"Self-Culture," 1838
there must be great audiences too.
Walt Whitman
Notes Left Over, 1881
Aristotle (384 to 322 BC)
Quoted in The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, by Diogenes Laertius, circa 200 AD.
than to make peace.
Georges Clemenceau
Speech, July 14, 1919
even from worse to better.
Richard Hooker
Preface to English Dictionary, 1580.
where he can be himself without reserve.
In solitude alone can he know true freedom.
Michel de Montaigne
Essais, 1580.
generally costs more than it is worth.
Lord Macaulay
Historical Essays Contributed to the 'Edenburgh Review,' 1828
or most assuredly,
we shall all hang separately.
Benjamin Franklin
Remark on signing the Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776.
in whatever hands it is placed.
Sir William Jones
Letter to Lord Althorpe. October 5, 1782.
the whites of their eyes.
William Prescott
Command given at the Battle of Bunker Hill, June 17, 1775.
and of right ought to be,
free and independent states."
Richard Henry Lee, Delegate from Virginia.
Motion before the Continental Congress, Philadelphia, Pa., June 7, 1776.
Edward Young
Night Thoughts, 1742.
Thomas Fuller
Gnomologia, 1732.
W.S. Gilbert
Patience, I, 1881
Jean Paul Richter
Hesperus, VIII, 1795
That points clearly to a political career.
George Bernard Shaw
Major Barbara, 1905