#quotation — Public Fediverse posts

A quotation from Montaigne

And certainly a wise man never loses anything if he has himself.
 
[Certes l’homme d’entendement n’a rien perdu, s’il a soy-mesme.]

Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592) French essayist
Essays, Book 1, ch. 38 (1.38)), “Of Solitude [De la solitude]” (1572) [tr. Cotton/Hazlitt (1877)]

More about (and translations of) this quote: wist.info/montaigne-michel-de/…

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A quotation from Voltaire

If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.
 
[Si Dieu n’existait pas, il faudrait l’inventer.]

Voltaire (1694–1778) French writer [pseud. of Francois-Marie Arouet]
Poem (1769-03-12), “Epistle to the Author of ‘The Three Imposters [Trois Imposteurs],'” l. 22

Much more about this quote: wist.info/voltaire/85662/

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A quotation from Gracian

Few bothersome things are important enough to bother with. It is folly to take to heart what you should turn your back on. Many things that were something are nothing if left alone, and others that were nothing turn into much because we pay attention to them.
 
[Pocas cosas de enfado se han de tomar de propósito, que sería empeñarse sin él. Es trocar los puntos tomar a pechos lo que se ha de echar a las espaldas. Muchas cosas que eran algo, dejándolas, fueron nada; y otras que eran nada, por haber hecho caso de ellas, fueron mucho.]

Baltasar Gracián y Morales (1601–1658) Spanish Jesuit priest, writer, philosopher
The Art of Worldly Wisdom [Oráculo Manual y Arte de Prudencia], § 121 (1647) [tr. Maurer (1992)]

More about (and translations of) this quote: wist.info/gracian-y-morales-ba…

#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #gracian #anxiety #attention #bother #concern #focus #prioritization #seriousness #significance #trouble #worry #benignneglect

A quotation from Douglas Adams

Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experiences of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.

Douglas Adams (1952–2001) English author, humorist, screenwriter
Last Chance to See, ch. 4 (1990) [with Mark Carwardine]

More about this quote: wist.info/adams-douglas/1461/

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A quotation from Bertrand Russell

Punctuality is a quality the need of which is bound up with social co-operation. It has nothing to do with the relation of the soul to God, or with mystic insight, or with any of the matters with which the more elevated and spiritual moralists are concerned. One would be surprised to find a saint getting drunk, but one would not be surprised to find him late for an engagement. And yet in the ordinary business of life punctuality is absolutely necessary.

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Education and the Social Order [Education and the Modern World], ch. 2 “The Negative Theory of Education” (1932)

More about this quote: wist.info/russell-bertrand/856…

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A quotation from Molly Ivins

I try to look at politics not as a spectrum that runs from right to left, but a scale that runs from top to bottom. Then the only political question is: Who’s it screw, and who’s doing the screwing?

Molly Ivins (1944–2007) American writer, political columnist [Mary Tyler Ivins]
Interview (2006-10-09), “Who’s It Screw, and Who’s Doing the Screwing?” by Rosalind Alexander, Seattle Weekly

More about this quote: wist.info/ivins-molly/85658/

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A quotation from James Howell

When war begins Hell opens.
 
[Quando la guerra Comincia, s’apre l’inferno.]

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

More about this quote: wist.info/howell-james/85653/

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A quotation from Bill Watterson

   CALVIN: My powerful brain has come up with a topic for my paper.
   HOBBES: Great.
   CALVIN: I’ll write about the debate over tyrannosaurs. Were they fearsome predators or disgusting scavengers?
   HOBBES: Which side will you defend?
   CALVIN: Oh, I believe they were fearsome predators, definitely.
   HOBBES: How come?
   CALVIN: They’re so much cooler that way.

Bill Watterson (b. 1958) American cartoonist
Calvin and Hobbes (1993-11-25)

More about this quote: wist.info/watterson-bill/85650…

#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #billwatterson #calvinandhobbes #bias #coolness #dinosaur #paleontology #science #termpaper #topic #tyrannosaur

A quotation from Ambrose Bierce

FAULT, n. One of my offenses, as distinguished from one of yours, the latter being crimes.

Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914?) American writer and journalist
“Fault,” “Devil’s Dictionary” column, San Francisco Wasp (1884-08-02)

More about this quote: wist.info/bierce-ambrose/85648…

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A quotation from Hannah Arendt

Totalitarianism is never content to rule by external means, namely, through the state and a machinery of violence; thanks to its peculiar ideology and the role assigned to it in this apparatus of coercion, totalitarianism has discovered a means of dominating and terrorizing human beings from within.

Hannah Arendt (1906–1975) German-American philosopher, political theorist
Origins of Totalitarianism, Part 3, ch. 10 “A Classless Society,” sec. 1 (1951)

More about this quote: wist.info/arendt-hannah/10240/

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A quotation from Euripides

CHORUS: Great treasure halls hath Zeus in heaven,
   From whence to man strange dooms be given,
      Past hope or fear.
   And the end men looked for cometh not,
   And a path is there where no man thought:
      So hath it fallen here.
   
[ΚΥΚΛΩΨ: πολλῶν ταμίας Ζεὺς ἐν Ὀλύμπῳ,
   πολλὰ δ᾽ ἀέλπτως κραίνουσι θεοί:
   καὶ τὰ δοκηθέντ᾽ οὐκ ἐτελέσθη,
   τῶν δ᾽ ἀδοκήτων πόρον ηὗρε θεός.
   τοιόνδ᾽ ἀπέβη τόδε πρᾶγμα.]

Euripides (485?-406? BC) Greek tragic dramatist
Medea [Μήδεια], l. 1415ff (431 BC) [tr. Murray (1906)]

More about (and translations of) this quote: wist.info/euripides/85637/

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A quotation (probably not) from Eleanor Roosevelt

He who learns but does not think is lost. He who thinks but does not learn is in great danger.

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) First Lady of the US (1933–1945), politician, diplomat, activist
(Misattributed)

More about this quote: wist.info/roosevelt-eleanor/85…

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A quotation from The Bible

The man who loves gold will not be reckoned virtuous,
   the man who chases after profit will be caught out by it.
Many have gone to their ruin for the sake of gold,
   though their destruction stared them in the face;
it is a snare for those who sacrifice to it,
   and every fool will be caught in it.
   
Ὁ ἀγαπῶν χρυσίον οὐ δικαιωθήσεται,
   καὶ ὁ διώκων διάφορα ἐν αὐτοῖς πλανηθήσεται.
πολλοὶ ἐδόθησαν εἰς πτῶμα χάριν χρυσίου,
   καὶ ἐγενήθη ἡ ἀπώλεια αὐτῶν κατὰ πρόσωπον αὐτῶν.
ξύλον προσκόμματός ἐστιν τοῖς ἐνθουσιάζουσιν αὐτῷ,
   καὶ πᾶς ἄφρων ἁλώσεται ἐν αὐτῷ.

The Bible (The Old Testament) (14th - 2nd C BC) Judeo-Christian sacred scripture [Tanakh, Hebrew Bible], incl. the Apocrypha (Deuterocanonicals)
Book 22b. Sirach (Ecclesiasticus) 31: 5ff (Sir 31:5–7) [tr. JB (1966)]

More about (and translations of) this quote: wist.info/bible-ot/85631/

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A quotation from John Lescroart

The essence of fascism is to make laws forbidding everything and then enforce them selectively against your enemies.

John Lescroart (b. 1948) American novelist
A Plague of Secrets, Part 1 (2009)

More about this quote: wist.info/lescroart-john/85629…

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A quotation from John Adams

The only thing most people do better than anyone else is read their own handwriting.

John Adams (1735–1826) American lawyer, Founding Father, statesman, US President (1797–1801)
(Attributed)

More about this quote: wist.info/adams-john/35775/

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A quotation from Einstein

Our situation on this earth seems strange. Every one of us appears here, involuntarily and uninvited, for a short stay, without knowing the why and the wherefore. In our daily lives we feel only that man is here for the sake of others, for those whom we love and for many other beings whose fate is connected with our own.
 
[Seltsam erscheint unsere Lage auf dieser Erde. Jeder von uns erscheint da unfreiwillig und ungebeten zu kurzem Aufenthalt, ohne zu wissen, warum und wozu. Im täglichen Leben fühlen wir nur, dass der Mensch um anderer willen da ist, solcher, die wir lieben, und zahlreicher anderer, ihm Schicksalsverbundener Wesen.]

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-American physicist
Essay (1932-09), “My Credo [Mein Glaubensbekenntnis]”

More about (and translations of) this quote: wist.info/einstein-albert/201/

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A quotation from Montesquieu

What orators lack in depth, they give you in length.
 
[Ce qui manque aux orateurs en profondeur, ils vous le donnent en longueur.]

Charles-Lewis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu (1689–1755) French political philosopher
Pensées Diverses [Assorted Thoughts], # 828 / 1086 (1720-1755) [tr. Clark (2012)]

More about (and translations of) this quote: wist.info/montesquieu/85620/

#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #montesquieu #depth #length #longwindedness #orator #oratory #profundity #speech #speechifying #wordiness

A quotation from Henry Commager

The effort to equate loyalty with conformity is misguided because it assumes that there is a fixed content to loyalty and that this can be determined and defined. But loyalty is a principle, and eludes definition except in its own terms. It is devotion to the best interests of the commonwealth, and may require hostility to the particular policies which the government pursues, the particular practices which the economy undertakes, the particular institutions which society maintains.

Henry Steele Commager (1902–1998) American historian, writer, activist
Essay (1947-09), “Who Is Loyal to America?” sec. 2, Harper’s Magazine, Vol. 195, No. 1168

More about this quote: wist.info/commager-henry-steel…

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A quotation from Carl Sagan

Claims that cannot be tested, assertions immune to disproof are veridically worthless, whatever value they may have in inspiring us or in exciting our sense of wonder.

Carl Sagan (1934–1996) American scientist and writer
The Demon-Haunted World, ch. 10 “The Dragon in My Garage” (1995)

More about this quote: wist.info/sagan-carl/85616/

#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #carlsagan #assertion #claims #disproof #disproving #excitement #inspiration #proof #proving #testing #theory #truth #validation #verification #wonder

A quotation from Victor Hugo

He had slipped, climbed, rolled, searched, walked, persevered, that is all. Such is the secret of all triumphs.
 
[Il avait glissé, grimpé, roulé, cherché, marché, persévéré, voilà tout. Secret de tous les triomphes.]

Victor Hugo (1802–1885) French writer, journalist, human rights activist, politician
The Man Who Laughs [L’Homme qui rit; The Laughing Man; By Order of the King], Part 1, Book 3, ch. 1 (1.3.1) (1869) [tr. Unknown, Authorized (1871)]

More about (and translations of) this quote: wist.info/hugo-victor/85611/

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A quotation from Homer

This man who has fetched up here is some unlucky wanderer; we must now look after him, because all strangers and beggars are under Zeus’ protection, and any gift, though small, is welcome.
 
[ἀλλ’ ὅδε τις δύστηνος ἀλώμενος ἐνθάδ’ ἱκάνει,
τὸν νῦν χρὴ κομέειν· πρὸς γὰρ Διός εἰσιν ἅπαντες
ξεῖνοί τε πτωχοί τε, δόσις δ’ ὀλίγη τε φίλη τε.]

Homer (fl. 7th-8th C. BC) Greek author
The Odyssey [Ὀδύσσεια], Book 6, l. 206ff (6.206) [Nausicaa] (c. 700 BC) [tr. Verity (2016)]

More about (and translations of) this quote: wist.info/homer/48173/

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A quotation from Jean Kerr

OSCAR: I hate a friendly divorce. A lawyer is never entirely comfortable with a friendly divorce, any more than a good mortician wants to finish his job and then have the patient sit up on the table.

Jean Kerr (1922–2003) American author and playwright [b. Bridget Jean Collins]
Mary, Mary, Act 1 (1961)

More about this quote: wist.info/kerr-jean/85607/

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A quotation from Richard Steele

Though it is by the benefit of nature that length of time thus blots out the violence of afflictions; yet with tempers too much given to pleasure, it is almost necessary to revive the old places of grief in our memory, and ponder step by step on past life, to lead the mind into that sobriety of thought which poises the heart, and makes it beat with due time, without being quickened with desire, or retarded with despair, from its proper and equal motion.

Richard Steele (1672–1729) Anglo-Irish writer, journalist, playwright, politician
Essay (1710-06-06), “On the Death of Friends,” The Tatler, No. 181

More about this quote: wist.info/steele-richard/85605…

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A quotation from Propertius

All things in the world are not suited to all men alike, nor is any prize secured by a chariot no better than its rivals.
 
[Omnia non pariter rerum sunt omnibus apta,
Palma nec ex aequo ducitur ulla iugo.]

Propertius (50–16 BC) Roman elegiac poet [Sextus Propertius]
Elegies, Book 4, Elegy 9, l. 7ff (4.9.7–9) [tr. Goold (Loeb) (1990)]

More about (and translations of) this quote: wist.info/propertius/85603/

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A quotation from Shakespeare

FABIAN If this were played upon a stage now, I could
   condemn it as an improbable fiction.

William Shakespeare (1564–1616) English dramatist and poet
Twelfth Night, Act 3, sc. 4, l. 136ff (3.4.136-137) (1601)

More about this quote: wist.info/shakespeare-william/…

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A quotation from Samuel Johnson

The vanity of being known to be trusted with a secret, is generally one of the chief motives to disclose it; for however absurd it may be thought to boast an honour by an act which shows that it was conferred without merit, yet most men seem rather inclined to confess the want of virtue than of importance, and more1 show their influence, though at the expense of their probity, than glide through lift with no other pleasure than the private consciousness of fidelity; which, while it is preserved, must be without praise, except from the single person who tries and knows it.

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer, lexicographer, critic
Essay (1750-05-01), The Rambler, No. 13

More about this quote: wist.info/johnson-samuel/2153/

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A quotation from Ingersoll

Strange! that a world cursed by God, filled with temptations and thick with fiends, should be the only place where hope exists, the only place where man can repent, the only place where reform is possible! Strange! that heaven, filled with angels and presided over by God, is the only place where reformation is utterly impossible! Yet these are the teachings of all the believers in the eternity of punishment.

Robert Green Ingersoll (1833–1899) American lawyer, freethinker, orator
Lecture (1881-05-01) “The Great Infidels,” Booth’s Theater, New York City

More about this quote: wist.info/ingersoll-robert-gre…

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A quotation from Adlai Stevenson

Ignorance is stubborn and prejudice dies hard.

Adlai Stevenson II (1900–1965) American politician, diplomat, statesman
Speech (1963-10-01), “Statement on the Draft Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination,” Committee III, United Nations, New York City

More about this quote: wist.info/stevenson-adlai-ewin…

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A quotation from Disraeli

The Disappointment of Manhood succeeds to the delusion of Youth; let us hope that the heritage of Old Age is not Despair!

Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) English politician and author
Vivian Grey, Book 8, ch. 5 (1827)

More about this quote: wist.info/disraeli-benjamin/85…

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A quotation from Twain

I could have given my own sect the preference and made everybody a Presbyterian without any trouble, but that would have been to affront a law of human nature: spiritual wants and instincts are as various in the human family as are physical appetites, complexions, and features, and a man is only at his best, morally, when he is equipped with the religious garment whose color and shape and size most nicely accommodate themselves to the spiritual complexion, angularities, and stature of the individual who wears it.

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
Novel (1889), A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, Part 3 “The Tale of the Lost Land,” ch. 10 “Beginnings of Civilization”

More about this quote: wist.info/twain-mark/85582/

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