A quotation from Roosevelt

The individualism which finds its expression in the abuse of physical force is checked very early in the growth of civilization, and we of to-day should in our turn strive to shackle or destroy that individualism which triumphs by greed and cunning, which exploits the weak by craft instead of ruling them by brutality.

Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) American politician, statesman, conservationist, writer, US President (1901-1909)
Speech (1910-04-23), “Citizenship in a Republic [The Man in the Arena],” Sorbonne, Paris

#quote #quotes #quotation #avarice #cunning #economicinjustice #exploitation #greed #individualism #license #regulation
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A quotation from Russell, Bertrand

One of the symptoms of approaching nervous break-down is the belief that one’s work is terribly important, and that to take a holiday would bring all kinds of disaster.

Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Conquest of Happiness, Part 1, ch. 5 “Fatigue” (1930)

#quote #quotes #quotation #catastrophizing #collapse #ego #fatigue #importance #nerves #nervousbreakdown #priorities #work
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A quotation from Watterson, Bill

CALVIN (as he and Hobbes ride a wagon downhill): I think life should be more like TV.

CALVIN: I think all of life’s problems ought to be solved in thirty minutes with simple homilies, don’t you? I think weight and oral hygiene ought to be our biggest concerns.

CALVIN: I think we should all have powerful, high-paying jobs, and everyone should drive fancy sports cars. All our desires should be instantly gratified.

CALVIN (as the wagon flies off a cliff): Women should always wear tight clothes, and men should carry powerful handguns.

CALVIN (as he and Hobbes tumble in mid-air): Life overall should be more glamorous, thrill-packed, and filled with applause, don’t you think?

HOBBES (as they pick themselves up from the ground): I think my life is too featherbrained already.

CALVIN: Of course, if life was really like that, what would we watch on TV?

#quote #quotes #quotation #consumerism #tv #instantgratification #paradise #reallife #reality #television #utopia
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A quotation from Franklin, Ben

Well done is better than well said.

Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) American statesman, scientist, philosopher, aphorist
Poor Richard (1737 ed.)

#quote #quotes #quotation #action #wordsanddeeds
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A quotation from Travers, P. L.

You do not chop off a section of your imaginative substance and make a book specifically for children, for — if you are honest — you have no idea where childhood ends and maturity begins. It is all endless and all one.

P. L. Travers (1899-1996) Australian-British writer [Pamela Lyndon Travers; b. Helen Lyndon Goff]
Essay (1978-07-02), “I Never Wrote for Children,” New York Times

#quote #quotes #quotation #audience #books #childhood #children #literature #maturity #writing
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A quotation from Montaigne

All other knowledge is harmful to him who has not the knowledge of goodness.

[Toute autre science, est dommageable à celuy qui n’a la science de la bonté.]

Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) French essayist
Essays, Book 1, ch. 24 “Of Pedantry [Du pedantisme]” (c. 1572-78) (1.24) (1595) [tr. Ives (1925), ch. 25]

#quote #quotes #quotation #goodness #knowledge #learning #morality #virtue
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A quotation from Stevenson, Robert Louis

It is a mere illusion that, above a certain income, the personal desires will be satisfied and leave a wider margin for the generous impulse.

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) Scottish essayist, novelist, poet
Familiar Studies of Men and Books, “Henry David Thoreau,” § 2 (1882)

#quote #quotes #quotation #charity #comfort #desire #generosity #satisfaction #wealth
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A quotation from Smith, Sydney

It is always right that a man should be able to render a reason for the faith that is within him.

Sydney Smith (1771-1845) English clergyman, essayist, wit
Memoir of the Reverend Sydney Smith, by His Daughter, Lady Holland, Vol. 1, ch. 3 (1855)

#quote #quotes #quotation #articulate #belief #faith #reason #religion #self-awareness #understanding
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A quotation from Bierce, Ambrose

LOGIC, n. The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding. The basis of logic is the syllogism, consisting of a major and a minor premise and a conclusion — thus:

Major Premise: Sixty men can do a piece of work sixty times as quickly as one man.

Minor Premise: One man can dig a post-hole in sixty seconds; therefore —

Conclusion: Sixty men can dig a post-hole in one second.

This may be called the syllogism arithmetical, in which, by combining logic and mathematics, we obtain a double certainty and are twice blessed.

Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914?) American writer and journalist
“Logic,” The Cynic’s Word Book (1906)

#quote #quotes #quotation #conclusion #error #logic #syllogism #premises
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A quotation from Russell, Bertrand

Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness.

Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Conquest of Happiness, Part 2, ch. 12 “Affection” (1930)

#quote #quotes #quotation #boldness #caution #engagement #halfheartedness #happiness #love #meme #reticence
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A quotation from Fuller, Thomas

Regard not so much what the World thinks of thee, as what thou thinkest of thyself.

Thomas Fuller (1654-1734) English physician, preacher, aphorist, writer
Introductio ad Prudentiam, Vol. 1, # 1552 (1725)

#quote #quotes #quotation #conscience #integrity #publicopinion #reputation #selfopinion #selfregard #selfrespect
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« Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted. »

― Martin Luther King, Jr.

🔗 · https://poligraf.tumblr.com/post/735732688294674432/human-salvation-lies-in-the-hands-of-the

#quotes #MartinLutherKingJr #creativity #salvation

A quotation from Watterson, Bill

CALVIN: A little rudeness and disrespect can elevate a meaningless interaction to a battle of wills and add drama to an otherwise dull day.

Bill Watterson (b. 1958) American cartoonist
Calvin and Hobbes (1992-08-08)

#quote #quotes #quotation #boredom #bullying #confrontation #disrespect #drama #rudeness
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A quotation from Taylor, Barbara Brown

Every human interaction offers you the chance to make things better or to make things worse.

Barbara Brown Taylor (b. 1951) American minister, academic, author
An Altar in the World, ch. 8 (2009)

#quote #quotes #quotation #engagement #interaction #opportunity
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A quotation from Wilde, Oscar

Death must be so beautiful. To lie in the soft brown earth, with the grasses waving above one’s head, and listen to silence. To have no yesterday, and no to-morrow. To forget time, to forget life, to be at peace.

Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) Irish poet, wit, dramatist
The Canterville Ghost, ch. 5 [The Ghost] (1887)

#quote #quotes #quotation #death #eternalrest #grave #restinpeace #rip
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A quotation from Shakespeare

LADY MACDUFF: When our actions do not,
Our fears do make us traitors.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616) English dramatist and poet
Macbeth, Act 4, sc. 2, l. 4ff (4.2.4-5) (1606)

#quote #quotes #quotation #action #appearances #betrayal #fear #inaction #traitor #treason #shakespeare
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A quotation from Chamfort

Stupidity would not be totally stupid if it did not go in terror of intelligence. Vice would not be entirely vicious if it did not hate virtue.

[La sottise ne serait pas tout-à-fait la sottise, si elle ne craignait pas l’esprit. Le vice ne serait pas tout-à-fait le vice, s’il ne haïssait pas la vertu.]

Nicolas Chamfort (1741-1794) French writer, epigrammist (b. Nicolas-Sébastien Roch)
Products of Perfected Civilization [Produits de la Civilisation Perfectionée], Part 1 “Maxims and Thoughts [Maximes et Pensées],” ch. 2, ¶ 139 (1795) [tr. Merwin (1969)]

#quote #quotes #quotation #folly #opposition #stupidity #vice
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A quotation from Steinbeck, John

Except for the field organizers of strikes, who were pretty tough monkeys and devoted, most of the so-called Communists I met were middle-class, middle-aged people playing a game of dreams. I remember a woman in easy circumstances saying to another even more affluent: “After the revolution even we will have more, won’t we, dear?” Then there was another lover of proletarians who used to raise hell with Sunday picnickers on her property.

I guess the trouble was that we didn’t have any self-admitted proletarians. Everyone was a temporarily embarrassed capitalist. Maybe the Communists so closely questioned by the investigation committees were a danger to America, but the ones I knew — at least they claimed to be Communists — couldn’t have disrupted a Sunday-school picnic. Besides they were too busy fighting among themselves.

John Steinbeck (1902-1968) American writer
Essay (1960-06-01), “A Primer on the Thirties,” Esquire

#quote #quotes #quotation #America #communism #capitalism #classwarfare #perspective #proletariat #revolution #socialism
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#encouragement

#December

#quotes

A quotation from Sagan, Carl

Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people, citizens of distant epochs, who never knew one another. Books break the shackles of time, proof that humans can work magic.

Carl Sagan (1934-1996) American scientist and writer
Cosmos, ch. 11 “The Persistence of Memory” (1980)

#quote #quotes #quotation #books #communication #continuity #humanity #writing
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