Saturday, December 22, 2007

Quotes: Women.

Women
The woman’s job is to hold things together.
Woman 94 “I am a woman and my business is to hold things together.” Fitzgerald, Tender Is the Night.

I want the baby to grow up to be a useful woman.
Woman 169 “The only thing I care about is leaving the baby well placed, and I want her to have a good chance to grow up a useful woman.” Jewett, A Country Doctor.

A good wife keeps her house in order, her husband comfortable and fulfills the social responsibilities that come her way.
Woman 328 Mrs. Fraley: The best service to the public can be done by keeping one’s own house in order and one’s husband comfortable, and by attending to those social responsibilities which come in our way. Jewett, A Country Doctor.

Why should women who don’t marry be considered failures? All women shouldn’t bring up babies; some are failures at it.
Woman 328 Nan: It certainly can’t be the proper vocation of all women to bring up children, so many of them are dead failures at it; and I don’t see why all girls should be thought failures who do not marry. Jewett, A Country Doctor.

Women who have to spend their father’s or their husband’s money should feel that it is their own.
Woman 339 Nan: I think it is only fair that even those who have to spend their husband’s or their father’s money should be made to feel it is their own. Jewett, A Country Doctor.

The fact that there are so many women in civilization means that some are set aside for something beside marriage.
Woman 361 The simple fact that there is a majority of women in any center of civilization means that some are set apart by nature for other uses and conditions than marriage. Jewett, A Country Doctor.

Women are creative and unfathomable to the male artist as artists are to the average person.
Woman 333 Dr. Beatrice Hinkle: Fundamentally the male artist approximates more to the psychology of woman, who, biologically speaking, is a purely creative being and whose personality has been as mysterious and unfathomable to the man as the artist has been to the average person. Hull, ed. The Writer’s Book.

Women can only be understood if one understands the creativity of her nature.
Woman 333 Dr. Beatrice Hinkle: …woman is a being dominated by the creative urge and…no understanding of her as an individual can be gained unless the significance and effects of that great fact can be grasped. Hull, ed. The Writer’s Book.

You felt her influence as you might have felt from Eve after she had just been created.
Woman 647 One felt an influence breathing out of her, such as we might suppose to come from Eve, when she was just made, and her creator brought her to Adam, saying—“Behold, here is a woman!” Hawthorne, The Blithedale Romance.

Definition of an “accomplished” woman.
Woman (accomplished) 39 “[An accomplished woman] must have a thorough knowledge of music, singing, drawing, dancing, and the modern languages, to deserve the word; and besides all this, she must possess a certain something in her air and manner of walking, the tone of her voice, her address and expressions . . . yet add something more substantial, in the improvement of her mind by extensive reading.” Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice.

No woman will ever govern me, a man.
Woman govern 182 Creon: No woman while I live shall govern me. Sophocles. Antigone.

She was what men have made of women over the centuries: simple and innocent.
Women 395 Zenobia observes that the too-simple and too-innocent Priscilla is the perfect example of what men have made of women through the centuries. Mellow, Hawthorne in His Times.

She never had to make any effort to make men fall in love with her.
Women 158 She is one of those girls who need never make the slightest effort to have men fall in love with them. Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise.

Women 158 The education of all beautiful women is the knowledge of men. Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise.

Her beauty ends any criticism of her.
Women 159 But all criticism of Rosalind ends in her beauty. Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise.

She needs to be won again every time you meet her.
Women 167 I have to be won all over again every time you see me. Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise.

Women’s imagination jumps from admiration to love to matrimony in a moment.
Women 27 Darcy: “A lady’s imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony in a moment.” Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice.

The best thing a girl can be in this world is a beautiful little fool.
Women 17 Daisy: All right, I said, I’m glad it’s a girl…I hope she’ll be a fool—that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool. Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby.

Her whole life, vocation and occupation, other than what would be similar to ladies’ bridge parties today, was her lover, Lancelot.
Women 462 Guenever…it was her part to sit at home, though passionate, though real and hungry in her fierce and tender heart…no recognized diversions except what is comparable to the ladies’ bridge party of today…no occupation—except Lancelot. T. H. White, The Once and Future King.

There is always something interesting in every woman that you will not find in any other woman.
Women 127 My rule has been that you can always find something devilishly interesting in every woman that you wouldn’t find in any other. Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov.

Women 177 Never trust a woman’s tears. Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov.

She was a woman who people are surprised is able to get any man to marry her.
Women 20 Mrs. Allen was one of that numerous class of females whose society can raise no other emotion than surprise at there being any men in the world who could like them well enough to marry them. Austen, Northanger Abbey.

Bath was beset by plain-faced women.
Women 141 Sir Walter…hoped she [Mrs. Wallis] might make some amends for the many very plain faces he was continually passing in the streets…worst of Bath was, the number of its plain women…did not mean to say that there were no pretty women, but the number of the plain was out of all proportion…had frequently observed, as he walked, that one handsome face would be followed by thirty, or five and thirty frights; and once, as he had stood in a shop in Bond Street, he had counted eighty-seven women go by, one after another, without there being a tolerable face among them. Austen, Persuasion.

Women are fated not to forget males because they sit home with nothing to do while men are engaged in the world and have other things to think about.
Women 232 We [females] certainly do not forget you [males], so soon as you forget us…perhaps our fate rather than our merit…cannot help ourselves…live at home, quiet, confined and our feelings prey upon us [while] you are forced on exertion…have always a profession, pursuits, business of some sort or other, to take you back into the world immediately, and continual occupation and change soon weaken impressions. Austen, Persuasion.

All the books about women’s inconstancy were written by men.
Women 234 If I had such a memory as Benwick, I could bring you fifty quotations in a moment on my side of the argument, and I do not think I ever opened a book in my life which had not something to say upon woman’s inconstancy; songs and proverbs all talk of woman’s fickleness; but perhaps you will say, these were all written by men. Austen, Persuasion.

Chivalry would have seemed absurd to the Romans or the Vikings.
Women 64 But this state of utter subjection to the will of an almost unapproachable woman; this belief that no sacrifice was too great, that a whole lifetime might properly be spent in paying court to some exacting lady or suffering on her behalf--this would have seemed to the
Romans or to the Vikings not only absurd but unbelievable. Clark, Civilization.

Women through the centuries have been pictured as either saint or sinner.
Women 245 The picture of the wife going to church and living behind a white picket fence and of the prostitute swilling liquor and servicing the men is the western version of the dichotomy of saint/sinner found in many Christian and pagan cultures. Bradley, Time Present, Time Past.

God created women to tame man.
Women 209 Voltaire: God created woman only to tame mankind. . Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Voltaire.

Women 209 George Meredith: Woman will be the last thing civilized by man. . Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Voltaire.

She was a great man who happened to be a woman.
Women 209 Voltaire on the Marquise du Chatelet with whom he eloped: “a great man whose only fault was being a woman.” . Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Voltaire.

Women have a maternal instinct for helping the helpless.
Women 391 Spencer fears that the maternal instinct for helping the helpless may lead women to favor a paternalistic state. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Herbert Spencer.

There are more women who like to be loved than there are women who love.
Women 416 There’s more women likes to be loved than there is of those that loves. Jewett, The country of the Pointed Firs.

The fate of the professional woman: subordinate to some man who is her inferior.
Women 131 A woman of the highest order of intelligence, entering into the sciences, or into commerce or manufacturing, always finds herself subordinate to some man, and it not infrequently happens that he is her inferior on all rational counts. Mencken, Minority Report.

I curse the fickleness of women.
Women 506 Goatherd: I follow an easier and, in my opinion, a wiser path, which is to curse the fickleness of women, their inconstancy, their double-dealing, their broken promises, their broken faith, and last of all, the lack of judgment they show in their choice of objects for their desires and affections. Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote of La Mancha. Part One: 1605.

Intelligence in a marriageable girl hinders her from being married for all the usual reasons, good looks, vanity and canine affection.
Women 10 Certainly such elements in the character of a marriageable girl tended to interfere with her lot, and hinder it from being decided according to custom, by good looks, vanity, and merely canine affection. George Eliot, Middlemarch.

Men expect their women to show ardent, self-sacrificing affection.
Women 50 Casaubon: The great charm of your sex is its capability of an ardent self-sacrificing affection…. George Eliot, Middlemarch.

Women usually have no choice; they must marry the only man they can get.
Women 513 A woman’s choice usually means taking the only man she can get. George Eliot, Middlemarch.

Women are trained for their only vocation: marriage.
Women 337 We train them [women] from childhood in the affairs of love: their charm, their attire, their knowledge, their language, and all their instruction have only this end in view. Montaigne, Selected Essays.

Men expect women to throw their whole lives into being in love.
Women 953 It is a mistaken idea which men generally entertain that Nature has made women especially prone to throw their whole being into what is technically called love. Hawthorne, The Marble Faun.

Women have only one choice of a career; men have many choices.
Women 683 How can she [a woman] be happy, after discovering that fate has assigned her but one single event, which she must continue to make the substance of her whole life [while] a man has his choice of innumerable events. Hawthorne, The Blithedale Romance.

The world has lost much by not allowing women to speak in public.
Women 737 Zenobia: …injustice which the world did to women, and equally to itself, by not allowing them, in freedom and honor, and with the fullest welcome, their natural utterance in public. Hawthorne, The Blithedale Romance.

Society throttles women.
Women 737 Zenobia: The mistrust and disapproval of the vast bulk of society throttles us [women], as with two gigantic hands at our throats. Hawthorne, The Blithedale Romance.

Men have taken centuries to shape women like Priscilla.
Women 739 Zenobia on Priscilla: She is the type of womanhood, such as man has spent centuries in making it. Hawthorne, The Blithedale Romance.

In not allowing women to fully participate in life, men are denying themselves women’s insight and wisdom.
Women 739 Zenobia: In denying us [women] our rights, he [man] betrays even more blindness to his own interests…. Hawthorne, The Blithedale Romance.

Women’s place is by the side of her man, completely sympathetic, without reservation, unquestioning in her belief in him so that he does not lose faith in himself.
Women 739 Hollingsworth: She [woman] is the most admirable handiwork of God in her true place and character…at man’s side…sympathizer; …unreserved, unquestioning believer…lest man should utterly lose faith in himself…the echo of God’s own voice…. Hawthorne, The Blithedale Romance.

Man is wretched without a woman; but a woman without a man is a monster.
Women 740 Hollingsowrth: Man is a wretch without woman; but woman is a monster…without man as her acknowledged principal! Hawthorne, The Blithedale Romance.

Women who move outside the beaten track are hounded by everyone, including Providence and Destiny.
Women 827 ...that the whole universe, her own sex and yours, and Providence, or Destiny, to boot, make common cause against the woman who swerves one hair’s breadth out of the beaten track. Hawthorne, The Blithedale Romance.

In hours of darkness he will not have the light of my intelligence to guide him.
Women 828 Zenobia: For will he never, in many an hour of darkness, need that proud, intellectual sympathy which he might have had from me--the sympathy that would flash light along his course, and guide as well as cheer him. Hawthorne, The Blithedale Romance.

Men want women to regenerate them, purify them and elevate them.
Women 385 …if I still set a value on life it is only because I still hope one day to meet such a heavenly creature who will regenerate me, purify me and elevate me. Tolstoi, War and Peace.

Women’s principal employment is the toilet and adjusting their hair.
Women 33 Women: The toilet is their great scene of business and the right adjusting of their hair the principal employment of their lives. Addison, 3/12/1711. The Spectator.

Women were created to refine and soften humanity and it is degrading to consider them merely as objects of sight.
Women 100 It is, methinks, a low and degrading idea of that [female] sex, which was created to refine the joys and soften the cares of humanity…to consider them merely as objects of sight. Steele, 4/7/1711. The Spectator.

Mae West broke all the stereotypes of the female.
Women 114 Colette: “She [Mae West] alone, out of an enormous and dull catalogue of heroines, does not get married at the end of the film, does not die, does not take the road to exile, does not gaze sadly at her declining youth in a silver-framed mirror…and she alone does not experience the bitterness of the abandoned ‘older woman.’” Pierpont, Claudia Roth. “A Critic at Large: The Strong Woman.” The New Yorker (Nov. 11, 1996), pp. 106-118.

Life for a woman is all kisses and babies.
Women 292 Lysistrata: Our whole life’s but a pile of kisses and babies. Aristophanes, Lysistrata.

What is left for us women? Our children are borne and perish in vain in some far off land.
Women 307 Lysistrata: What of us then,/ Who ever in vain for children must weep/ Borne but to perish afar and in vain? Aristophanes, Lysistrata.

It’s hell to live with a man and hell to live without him.
Women 321 Men: A hell it is to live with you; to live without, a hell. Aristophanes, Lysistrata.

A sure formula: Be quiet and the women will surely talk.
Women 360 Sam well knew that he had only to remain quiet, and the women were sure to talk. Dickens, Pickwick.

Men bore me to death in two weeks.
Women and men 161 When I meet a man that doesn’t bore me to death after two weeks, perhaps it’ll be different. Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise.

To get men talking, just get them to talk about themselves.
Women and men 167 …after that, you make him talk about himself. Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise.

Women read romance novels to learn how a relationship between a man and a women becomes love.
Women and men 355 At the heart of every romance novel is a subject that is of enormous interest to a lot of women: how a relationship between a man and a woman develops into love. Marrow, L. Gross, ed. Editors on Editing.

Most romance novels deal with the problems in communication between a man and a woman in a relationship.
Women and men 355 Most successful romances explore in various amusing, exciting, and dramatic ways the problems men and women have communicating with each other and negotiating their roles within a relationship. Marrow, L. Gross, ed. Editors on Editing.

You can’t prove the superiority of men by the number of books they have written; they have had the opportunity to write books; women have not.
Women and men 234 Men have had every advantage of us [women] in telling their own story; education has been theirs in so much higher a degree; the pen has been in their hands; I will not allow books to prove anything. Austen, Persuasion.

We don’t want to have to cater to men and taking up all our time.
Women and men 402 Mrs. Todd: We don’t want…no men folks havin’ to be considered every minute an’ takin’ up all our time. Jewett, The country of the Pointed Firs.

Women seem to know by instinct that most men’s aspirations are vain.
Women and men 139 There seems to be a deep instinct in women which teaches them that most of the aspirations of men are vain. Mencken, Minority Report.

Men assume that a woman’s life should be totally concentrated on a man’s affections while for the man who has many other activities and interests, affection for the woman is incidental.
Women and men 842 It is nonsense, and a miserable wrong--the result, like so many others of masculine egotism--that the success or failure of a woman’s existence should be made to depend wholly on the affections, and on one species of affection; while man has such a multitude of other chances, that this [affection between man and woman]seems but an incident. Hawthorne, The Blithedale Romance.

Mae West: men are simply stepping stones.
Women and Men 107 Mae West: “I learned to take ‘em [men] for what they were…stepping stones.” Pierpont, Claudia Roth. “A Critic at Large: The Strong Woman.” The New Yorker (Nov. 11, 1996), pp. 106-118.

Women in science are considered to be mere diversions from serious thinking.
Women in science 226 By then all traces of our early bickering were forgotten, and we both [Francis Crick and James Watson] came to appreciate greatly her [Rosy’s] personal honesty and generosity, realizing years too late the struggle that the intelligent woman faces to be accepted by a scientific world which often regards women as mere diversions form serious thinking. Watson, The Double Helix.

Thursday, December 20, 2007

Quotes: Wit. Witchcraft. Wives and Husbands.

Wit
A fashionable person who has everything available to fill up her time still finds time to be vexed.
Wit 146 …and vexed her as much…as a person in Bath who drinks the water, gets all the new publications, and has a very large acquaintance, has time to be vexed. Austen, Persuasion.

I wouldn’t use that boat to cross a pond.
Wit 169 Admiral Croft: I wonder where that boat was built…I would not venture over a horse pond in it. Austen, Persuasion.

He has no fault except he is a commander.
Wit 171 Admiral Croft: He [Benwick] is a commander, it is true…but he has not another fault that I know of. Austen, Persuasion.

Witchcraft
She was considered a witch because she was old, ugly and poor and had two sons, one of whom was a poet and the other a fool.
Witchcraft 67 Once upon a time there lived an old woman, called Janet Gellatley, who was suspected to be a witch, on the infallible grounds that she was very old, very ugly, very poor, and had two sons, one of whom was a poet, and the other a fool, which visitation, all the neighborhood agreed, had come upon her for the sin of witchcraft. Sir Walter Scott, Waverley.

Wives and Husbands
The only thing a woman can expect of a husband is to endure him.
Wives and husbands 202 “I think,” says she, “I might be brought to endure him, and that is all a reasonable woman should expect in a husband.” Steele, 5/15/1711. The Spectator.

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Quotes: Winter. Wisdom.

Winter
Snow reduces the landscape to its essential patterns.
Winter 8 Chester County snowscape is the landscape of the other seasons edited of its weedy summer detail, reduced to its basic patterns in field, forest, watercourse, hedgerow...squint your eyes at the snowscape, these patterns are further reduced to arrangements of pure form, shape, line, light and shadow. Browning, Notes from Turtle Creek.

Wisdom
Wisdom begins in wonder.
Wisdom 145 ‘Ah, that shows the lover of wisdom,’ Socrates said, ‘for wisdom begins in wonder.’ E. Hamilton. The Greek Way.

The belief that he is wise is the plague of man.
Wisdom 301 Montaigne: “The conviction of wisdom is the plague of man.” Eiseley, The Star Thrower

Plato did not say he was wise; he only sought wisdom.
Wisdom 6 …he [Plato] did not claim to have wisdom, but only to seek it…. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Plato.

Wise people see the causes of things.
Wisdom 192 Johnson: …since it is the great characteristic of a wise man to see events in their causes…. Boswell, Life of Johnson, Vol. 1.

The wise person desires nothing at all.
Wisdom 637 Dr. Johnson talked with approbation of one who attained to the state of the philosophical wise man, that is, to have no want of anything. Boswell, Life of Johnson, Vol. 1.

Wise people are not always wise.
Wisdom 992 …for wise men are not wise at all hours…. Emerson, The Conduct of Life: Wealth.

The difference between the unwise and the wise: the former wonders at the unusual; the latter wonders at the usual.
Wisdom 609 …that is ever the difference between the wise and the unwise: the latter wonders at what is unusual, the wise man wonders at the usual. Emerson, New England Reformers.

The wise see the miraculous in the common.
Wisdom 47 The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common. Emerson, Nature.

The wise can learn from a fool.
Wisdom 304 Rabelais: The wise may be instructed by a fool. Plimpton, ed. The Writer’s Chapbook

The wise are always cheerful.
Wisdom 33 The most certain sign of wisdom is a constant cheerfulness. Montaigne, Selected Essays.

The wise always have self-doubt; the opinionated and foolhardy are self assured.
Wisdom 432 …wisdom forbids you to be satisfied with and trust in yourself and always dismisses you discontented and timorous, whereas opinionativeness and foolhardiness fill their hosts with joy and assurance. Montaigne, Selected Essays.

Wisdom is always mixed with 9/10 nonsense or it is not wisdom.
Wisdom 746 Coverdale to Hollingsworth: I wish you could see fit to comprehend…that the profoundest wisdom must be mingled with nine-tenth of nonsense; else it is not worth the breath that utters it. Hawthorne, The Blithedale Romance.

The beginning of wisdom is to wonder at the mystery of existence and life.
Wisdom 171 Albert Schweitzer: the beginning of all wisdom is to be filled with the mystery of existence and of life. Anderson, The Schweitzer Album.

Wisdom 21 …a wise man is not always a good man. Steele, 3/7/1711 The Spectator.

The wise man is conscious of his own inadequacies; the fool feels good about himself because he observes the inadequacies of others.
Wisdom 225 The wise man and the fool: The first is humbled by the sense of his own infirmities; the last is lifted up by the discovery of those which he observed in other men. Addison, 5/24/1711. The Spectator.

Wisdom 245 The Spanish proverb says, “A wise man changes his mind, a fool never will.” Steele, 5/30/1711. The Spectator.

Ideas lengthen the existence of a wise man; passion lengthens the existence of the fool.
Wisdom 293 The hours of a wise man are lengthened by his ideas, as those of a fool are by his passions. Addison, 6/18/1711. The Spectator.

The wise use few words.
Wisdom 344 Chorus: Wise are her words and few…. Aristophanes, Thesmophoriazusae.

Maybe it isn’t foolishness, but so wise that I can not understand it.
Wisdom and foolishness 938 Well, not foolish, then...but wiser it may be than I can fathom. Hawthorne, The Marble Faun.

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Quotes: Weddings. Whitman. Widows. Will.

Weddings
Honeymoons isolate the couple from others to be in their own world.
Weddings 196 …wedding journey, the express object of which is to isolate two people on the ground that they are all the world to each other…. George Eliot, Middlemarch.

Whitman
Whitman taught us to see the world around us.
Whitman 479 Whitman…intensely conscious…open-eyed….tremendous eyes to see everything—he taught us to see things. Bloom, Western Canon.

Widows
To cure the gout, marry a widow with a loud voice and the gout, by comparison, will be a minor concern to you.
Widows 273 Mr. Weller: If ever you’re attacked with the gout, sir, jist you marry a widder as has got a good loud woice, with a decent notion of usin’ it, and you’ll never have the gout agin...a capital prescription...to drive away any illness as is caused by too much jollity. Dickens, Pickwick.

Will
The toughest will breaks like steel when fresh from the forge.
Will 180 Creon: The toughest will is first/ To break: like hard-tempered steel,/ Which snaps and shivers at a touch when fresh/ From off the forge. Sophocles. Antigone.

The leading cause of strife and misery is the will.
Will 308 Schopenhauer: …the leading conception of the world is will, and therefore strife, and therefore misery. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Schopenhauer.

We don’t have reasons for wanting something; we want something and think up reasons for why we want it.
Will 312 Schopenhauer : We do not want a thing because we have found reasons for it, we find reasons for it because we want it; we even elaborate philosophies and theologies to cloak our desires. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Schopenhauer.

Even when we are awake, we are partly asleep.
Will 315 Schopenhauer : Even when we are awake it [sleep] possesses us partly. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Schopenhauer.

Having insight does not assure the will to do something about it.
Will 957 But insight is not will…. Emerson, The Conduct of Life: Fate.

The most serious and formidable thing about men is the will.
Will 957 The one serious and formidable thing in nature is a will. Emerson, The Conduct of Life: Fate.

Monday, December 17, 2007

Quotes: Water. Wealth. Weapons. Weather.

Water
Water can create beautiful forms and strip the flesh to bones when cast up by the sea.
Water 11 It [water] can assume forms of exquisite perfection in a snow flake, or strip the living to a single shining bone cast up by the sea. Eiseley, The Immense Journey

Wealth
Wealth needs to be regulated by the state and excessive possessions must be given up to the state.
Wealth 37 But trade and industry will be regulated by the guardians to prevent excessive individual wealth or poverty; anyone acquiring more than four times the average possession of the citizens must relinquish the excess to the state. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Plato.

Wealth is like muck, useless unless it is spread. [Hello, Dolly.]
Wealth 118 F. Bacon: Money is like muck, not good unless it is spread. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Francis Bacon.

If you want to know what God thinks of money, look at those who have it.
Wealth 80 Dorothy Parker, quoting Maurice Baring: If you want to know what the Lord God thinks of money, you have only to look at those to whom he gives it. Cowley, ed., Writers at Work.

Wealth is in the tools that extend the range of human endeavor.
Wealth 990 Wealth begins in a tight roof that keeps the rain and wind out; in a good pump that yields you plenty of sweet water; in two suits of clothes, so to change your dress when you are wet; in dry sticks to burn; in a good double-wick lamp; and three meals; in a horse, or a locomotive to cross the land; in a boat to cross the sea; in tools to work with; in books to read; and so, in giving...by tools and auxiliaries, the greatest possible extension to our powers, as if it added feet, and hands, and eyes, and blood, length to the day, and knowledge, and good will. Emerson, The Conduct of Life: Wealth.

We honor the wealthy because they have the independence that all of us should have.
Wealth 239 We honor the rich because they have externally the freedom, power, and grace which we feel to be proper to man, proper to us. Emerson, History.

People laugh at rich men’s jokes but would not laugh if they were not rich.
Wealth 8 …as every rich man has usually some sly way of jesting, which would make no great figure were he not a rich man. Steele, 3/2/1711. The Spectator.

He is rich who benefits from the labors of others in his country and from different countries and times.
Wealth and Learning 991 He is the richest man who knows how to draw a benefit from the labors of the greatest number of men, of men in distant countries and in past times. Emerson, The Conduct of Life: Wealth.


Weapons
One man with a pistol is more powerful than one hundred who are unarmed because each of the one hundred fears to be the one hit by the bullet.
Weapons 170 The sapient Partridge says, that one man with a pistol is equal to a hundred unarmed, because, though he can shoot but one of the multitude, yet no one knows but that he himself may be that luckless individual. Sir Walter Scott, Waverley.

Weather
Noting the snow, he commented on the foolishness of not staying comfortably at home in such conditions.

Weather 113 Mr. John Knightley: Actually snowing at this moment!--the folly of not allowing people to be comfortable at home--and the folly of people’s not staying comfortably at home when they can! Austen, Emma

Why quit the tranquility and independence of one’s fireplace to go out into the sleety rain of April?
Weather 303 Mr. John Knightley: Such a man, to quit the tranquility and independence of his own fire-side, and on the evening of a cold sleety April day rush out again into the world. Austen, Emma

People who exert their faculties are superior to all weather conditions.
Weather 202 Johnson: He that shall resolutely excite his faculties, or exert his virtues, will soon make himself superior to the seasons; and may set at defiance the morning mist and the evening damp, the blasts of the east, and the clouds of the south. Boswell, Life of Johnson, Vol. 1.

We need to see the February nor’easter and the soft breezes of June as equal experiences.
Weather 641 …we can never call ourselves regenerated men, till a February northeaster shall be as grateful to us as the softest breeze of June. Hawthorne, The Blithedale Romance.

Friday, December 14, 2007

Quotes: War.

War
Each month in a war seems like forever.
War 3 Forty months passed, each month forever. WWII. Blum, V Was for Victory.

Most get through war by looking at it as a job to be done; not much concern for goals and purposes of the war.
War 67 “Most regard the war as a job to be done and there is not much willingness to discuss what we are fighting for.” Blum, V Was for Victory

From the worm’s eye-view, soldiers are tired, don’t want to die and shocked as they emerge from battle.
War 68 Ernie Pyle: We see [the war] from the worm’s eye view, and our segment of the picture consists only of tired soldiers who are alive and don’t want to die…of shocked men wandering back down the hill from battle… Blum, V Was for Victory

If you don’t kill him, he will kill you.
War 69 “You shoot him in the back, you blow him apart with mines, you kill or maim him…with the least danger to yourself [and] he does the same to you…and if you don’t beat him at his own game, you don’t live to appreciate your own nobleness.” Blum, V Was for Victory

The general was worse than the enemy.
War 87 John Hersey on General Marvin modeled on Patton in Bell for Adano: “But…General Marvin showed himself during the invasion to be a bad man, something worse than what our troops were trying to throw out.” Blum, V Was for Victory

They didn’t come back and we miss them still.
War 1 For all those who did not come back, and those who miss them still. Childers, Wings of Morning.

The true story of war is not war but love, memory and sorrow.
War And in the end, of course, a true war story is never about war…[but] about love and memory…[and] sorrow. Tim O’Brien, The Things They Carried in Childers, Wings of Morning.

They were all thinking the same thing: will I come back from this mission and eat at this mess hall.
War 72 …they were all thinking the same thing: When the weary crews straggle back to this mess hall this afternoon, another mission behind them, will I be among them? Childers, Wings of Morning

It was on the first missions that they saw flak and fighters and understood their own fragility.
War 135 The first five missions were typically the worst in a combat tour, when men saw flak and fighters and the tight formations for the first time, when they came to understand the brutal fragility of their existence. Childers, Wings of Morning

The medals cannot replace my husband.
War 218 “Poor exchange, all these meaningless medals in place of my husband.” [war] Childers, Wings of Morning

The families of those who did not come back were all alike—snapshots, scrapbooks, V-mails and the heartbreaking telegram.
War 246 Everywhere I saw reflected back at me the same tableau of love and pain that I had known in my own family—the same snapshots from the last visit home, the scrapbooks full of yellowing newspaper clippings and curling photographs, the boxes of V-mails, the same heartbreaking telegrams, kept neatly in their torn envelopes. Childers, Wings of Morning

War will exist until the conscientious objector is honored as the warrior is today.
War 89 JFK: War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today. Schlesinger, A Thousand Days

War provides the President with an opportunity for greatness.
War 619 JFK: War, he pointed out, made it easier for a President to achieve greatness. Schlesinger, A Thousand Days

There is always a war somewhere.
War 39 I haven’t seen a paper lately but I suppose there’s a war—there always is. Fitzgerald, Tender Is the Night.

This land cost twenty lives.
War 67 This land here [battlefield] cost twenty lives that summer. Fitzgerald, Tender Is the Night.

No one knows exactly why WWI happened.
War 578 In 1963 he [Kennedy] would cite the 1914 conversation between two German leaders on the origins and expansion of that war [WWI], a former chancellor asking, ‘How did it all happen?’ and his successor saying, ‘Ah, if only one knew.’ Sorenson, Kennedy

JFK did not want the victims of a nuclear war asking, “How did it happen?” and receive the reply, “If only one knew.”
War 578 JFK: “If this planet is ever ravaged by nuclear war—if the survivors of that devastation can then endure the fire, poison, chaos, and catastrophe—I do not want one of those survivors to ask another, ‘How did it all happen?’ and receive the incredible reply: ‘Ah, if only one knew.’” Sorenson, Kennedy

Those who win wars gain recognition, not those who prevent them.
War 853 JFK: Customarily [history and posterity] reserve the mantle of greatness for those who win wars, not those who prevent them. Sorenson, Kennedy

Death will be the fate of a thousand men before nightfall.
War 243 “Poor fellow!” said Fergus in a momentary fit of compassion; then instantly added, “But it will be a thousand men’s fate before night; so come along.” Sir Walter Scott, Waverley.

These brave fellows will sleep the sleep of death before tomorrow night.
War 249 “How many of these brave fellows will sleep more soundly before to-morrow night….’ Sir Walter Scott, Waverley.

The ground is covered with carcasses.
War 255 “The ground is cumbered with carcasses,” said the old mountaineer….. Sir Walter Scott, Waverley.

The next best thing to victory is honorable death.
War 263 Waverley: “I am sorry for poor Colonel Gardner’s death: he was once very kind to me”...[Mac-Ivor]: ...Then be sorry for five minutes, and then be glad again; his chance today may be ours tomorrow...what does it signify?--the next best thing to victory is honorable death....” . Sir Walter Scott, Waverley.

Mostly the poor die in battle.
War 225 …your reign will be an endless series of petty battles…in which the poor man will be the only one who dies. T. H. White, The Once and Future King.

Why do men fight? Leaders who lead their innocent populations to slaughter or the populations who reflect their own desires and choose and want leaders who lead their populations to slaughter.
War 622 Why did men fight? Was it the wicked leaders who led innocent populations to slaughter, or was it wicked populations who chose leaders after their own hearts? T. H. White, The Once and Future King.

Most wars are fought about nothing.
War 630 The fantastic thing about war was that it was fought about nothing—literally nothing. T. H. White, The Once and Future King.

The old clock ticked away the life of a little boy who grew up and never returned to tell time by its ticking.
War 414 The New York Herald: In many a country cottage over the land, a tall old clock in a quiet corner told time in a tick-tock deliberation…face and dial of the clock had known the eyes of a boy who listened to its tick-tock and learned to read its minute and hour hands…the boy had seen years measured off by the swinging pendulum, had grown to man size, had gone away…the people in the cottage knew that the clock would stand there and the boy would never again come into the room and look at the clock with the query, “What is the time?” Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln: The War Years.

Why did he win? He was there first with the most men.
War 519 Confederate Major Nathan Bedford Forrest…fifteen horses had been killed under him…his answer to a woman who asked him the secret of his success was, “Ma’am, I got thar fust with the most men.” Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln: The War Years.

Jefferson Davis: We are fighting for independence and we will have that or extermination.
War 565 Jefferson Davis: I worked night and day for twelve years to prevent it [war], but I could not…North was mad and blind, would not let us govern ourselves, and so the war came; now it must go on until the last man of this generation falls in his tracks and his children seize his musket and fight our battles, unless you acknowledge our right to self-government…not fighting for slavery…fighting for independence, and that, or extermination, we will have. Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln: The War Years.

At the foot of a tree a pile of amputated arms and legs.
War 636 Of a large brick mansion on the banks of the Rappahannock, used as a hospital during a battle, Whitman had noted, “Out doors, at the foot of a tree, within ten yards of the front of the house, I notice a heap of amputated feet, legs, arms, hands, etc., a full load for a one-horse cart.'’ Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln: The War Years.

The Light Brigade’s sacrifice: brilliant, grand but not war.
War 756 …the Light Brigade at Balaklava and the Frenchman who summarized its useless sacrifice: “It is brilliant; it is grand; but it is not war.” Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln: The War Years.

Lincoln on the battlefield saw a man with a hole in his head and another with both arms shot off, with their eyes accusing him.
War 789 Wrote the guard…of this day, “I saw him [Lincoln] ride over the battlefields at Petersburg, the man with the hole in his forehead and the man with both arms shot away lying, accusing, before his eyes.” Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln: The War Years.

A hundred thousand men wearing hats are killing an equal number who are wearing turbans. [The “Little Endians” vs. the “Big Endians”: where to break an egg. Jonathan Swift.]
War 212 Voltaire’s Philosopher in Micromégas: …while I am speaking, there are 100,000 animals of our own species, covered with hats, slaying an equal number of their fellow creatures, who wear turbans….. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Voltaire.

The people who order the slaughter of millions and thank God for their success.
War 212 Voltaire’s Philosopher in Micromégas: Besides the punishment should…be inflicted upon…those sedentary and slothful barbarians who, from their palaces, give orders for murdering a million of men, and then solemnly thank God for their success. . Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Voltaire.

The Seven Years’ War to decide whether France or Britain should win a few acres of snow—Canada.
War 226 Voltaire on the Seven Years’ War: …madness and suicide, the devastation of Europe to settle whether England or France should win “a few acres of snow” in Canada. . Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Voltaire.

It takes twenty years to mature a man and only a moment to kill him.
War 245 Voltaire on war: Twenty years are required to bring man from the state of a plant in which he exists in the womb of his mother, and from the state of an animal, which is his condition in infancy, to a state in which the maturity of reason begins to make itself felt…but one moment suffices in which to kill him. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Voltaire.

The ruler does not suffer the consequences of war and therefore can choose to start one for insignificant reasons.
War 285 Kant: …the ruler, who, as such, is not a mere citizen, but the owner of the state, need not in the least suffer personally by war, nor has he to sacrifice his pleasures of the table or the chase, or his pleasant palaces, court festivals, or the like…can therefore resolve for war from insignificant reasons, as if it were but a hunting expedition. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Kant.

Perhaps sports and finance can become the “moral equivalent of war” and thus avoid war in the future.
War 503 Santayana: Perhaps the development of international sports may give some outlet to the spirit of group rivalry, and serve in some measure as “a moral equivalent for war”; and perhaps the cross-investments of finance may overcome the tendency of trade to come to blows for the markets of the world. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Santayana.

War is revolt against the discipline of civilization.
War 13 …war is a natural revolt against the necessary but extremely irksome discipline of civilization…. Mencken, Minority Report.

When a man dies for his country, he is really dying for his government which is made up of politicians who never die in the wars they create.
War 173 Is a young man bound to serve his country in war…what is called his country is only the government, and that government consists merely of professional politicians…[who] never sacrifice themselves for their country…[and] make all wars, but very few of them ever die in one. Mencken, Minority Report.

In the old days, the danger was that of a duelist; today it is the danger of a hog in a slaughter house.
War 179 Yesterday the danger that a soldier ran in the field was the danger of a duelist with a sword in hand; today it is much more like the danger of a hog in a slaughter-house. Mencken, Minority Report.

What did we learn from two wars in twenty-five years?
War 135 Paul Gallico: Two wars in twenty-five years have forced us to grow up a little. Hull, ed. The Writer’s Book.

You cannot win a political war with the military.
War 300 This [the Vietnam War] was a political war; one could not produce military answers. Halberstam, The Best and the Brightest.

Bombing in Vietnam was a way of avoiding war.
War 513 But the bombing allowed them a rationale for thinking it was not war, it was just bombing, a way increasingly in their own minds of not going to war. Halberstam, The Best and the Brightest.

Stay close to the enemy and air power is neutralized.
War 613 The way to offset U.S. might (which was clearly technological and not based on individual bravery or superiority soldier against soldier) was to close with the Americans as tightly as possible, within thirty meters [which] neutralized the American air and artillery power. Halberstam, The Best and the Brightest.

The body count was marvelous.
War 638 Rostow: “The body count in Chau Doc is marvelous!” Halberstam, The Best and the Brightest.

No one realized the successes of the Vietcong because they faded away into the night.
War 647 The…Vietcong were resilient, but their successes never showed; they did not hold terrain, they faded into the night, their strength was never visible. Halberstam, The Best and the Brightest.

The Vietnamese knew they could keep fighting until the Americans quit.
War 665 …a fully confident Pham Van Dong…told Harrison Salisbury of the New York Times in December 1966 in Hanoi: “And how long do you Americans want to fight, Mr. Salisbury… one year? Two years? Three years? Five years? Ten years? Twenty years? We will be glad to accommodate you.” Halberstam, The Best and the Brightest.

It is the duty not to mistreat prisoners of war to protect one’s own soldiers from mistreatment if they are captured.
War 220 Admiral Canaris to Hitler: Since the eighteenth century there has gradually been established that war captivity is neither revenge nor punishment, but solely protective custody…contrary to military tradition to kill or injure helpless people and in the interest of all belligerents in order to prevent mistreatment of their own soldiers in case of capture. Conot, Justice at Nuremberg.

It is accepted international principle that combatants can use the same methods used against them.
War 378 Rosenberg: It is a recognized principle of international law that, in war, reprisals may be taken by resorting to the same procedures and the same concepts as primarily used by the enemy. Conot, Justice at Nuremberg.

Although “War of Aggression” has not been defined, it is considered an international crime.
War 493 Although Biddle had found it impossible to define precisely what constituted a war of aggression—a definition that experts on international law still cannot agree on—the judgment declared: to initiate a war of aggression is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole. Conot, Justice at Nuremberg.

Men describe experiences in war as they would like them to have been, not as they actually were.
War 279 He described the Schöon Graben affair exactly as men who have taken part in battles always do describe them—that is, as they would like them to have been, as they have heard them described by others, and as sounds well, but not in the least as they really had been. Tolstoi, War and Peace.

Why are millions slaughtered because leaders are ambitious or find some other reason to engage in war?
War 716 To us it is incomprehensible that millions of Christian men killed and tortured each other because Napoleon was ambitious or Alexander firm or because England’s policy was astute or the Duke of Oldenburg wronged: …why because the Duke was wronged thousands of men from the other end of Europe slaughtered and pillaged the inhabitants of Smolensk and Moscow, and were slaughtered by them. Tolstoi, War and Peace.

Men fight for their own private ends and somehow produce a stupendous victory, the purpose of which no one has any idea.
War 810 Providence compelled all these men, striving for the attainment of their own private ends, to combine for the accomplishment of a single stupendous result, of which no one man (neither Napoleon, nor Alexander, still less any of those who did the actual fighting) had the slightest inkling. Tolstoi, War and Peace.

War is vile and we ought not to play at it.
War 922 War is not a polite recreation but the vilest thing in life, and we ought to understand that and not play at war. Tolstoi, War and Peace.

Men slaughter men and then celebrate.
War 922 Tens of thousands of men meet--as they will tomorrow--to massacre one another: to kill and maim, and then they will offer up thanksgiving services for having slain such vast numbers...and proclaim victory, supposing that the more men they have slaughtered the more credit to them. Tolstoi, War and Peace

War 943 Soldier: “Down she crashes and out fly your guts.” Tolstoi, War and Peace

It’s not the details of the fighting that count but the spirit of the troops.
War 956 Long experience in war had taught him [General Kutuzov]…that it was impossible for one man to direct hundreds of thousands of others waging a struggle with death, and he knew that the outcome of a battle is determined not by the dispositions of the commander-in-chief, nor the place where the troops are stationed, nor the number of cannon or the multitude of the slain, but by that intangible force called the spirit of the army, and he kept an eye on that force and guided it as far as lay within his power. Tolstoi, War and Peace

Cannon balls smashed human bodies.
War 972 The cannon-balls flew just as swiftly and cruelly from each side, smashing human bodies, and still the fearful work went on…. Tolstoi, War and Peace

In the faces of the opposing armies he saw the same dismay, horror and conflict he felt in his own heart; who is causing this to happen?
War 1143 On the faces of all the Russians, on the faces of the French soldiers and officers, without exception, he read the same dismay, horror, and conflict that he felt in his own heart: ‘But who, after all, is doing this?’ Tolstoi, War and Peace

His witnessing the slaughter destroyed his faith in life, in humanity and in God.
War 1146 From the moment Pierre had witnessed that hideous massacre committed by men who had no desire to do it…his faith in the right ordering of the universe, in humanity, in his own self and in God had been destroyed…felt that to get back to faith in life was not in his power. Tolstoi, War and Peace

The maneuver was not planned but unfolded, incident by incident, and could only be seen in its entirety after it was completed.
War 1170 …the maneuver was, in reality, never conceived of as a whole but came about step by step, incident by incident, moment by moment, as the result of an infinite number of most diverse conditions, and was only seen in its entirety when it was a fait accompli and belonged to the past. Tolstoi, War and Peace

Everything had been planned but, as is always the case, no one reached the objective on time.
War 1176 Everything had been admirably thought out, as dispositions always are, and as is always the case, not a single column reached its objective at the appointed time. Tolstoi, War and Peace

A force is at work that causes men to slaughter each other and you cannot contradict or cancel it.
War 1201 In the changed face of the corporal, in the sound of his voice, in the agitating, deafening din of the drums, Pierre recognized that mysterious callous force which drove men against their will to murder their kind—that force the workings of which he had witnessed during the executions…to be afraid or to try to escape that force, to address entreaties or exhortations to those who were serving as its tools, was useless. Tolstoi, War and Peace

The spirit of the army is their readiness to fight and face danger.
War 1224 This X is the spirit of the army—in other words, the greater or lesser readiness to fight and face danger on the part of all the men composing an army…. Tolstoi, War and Peace

War 124 The tragedy of war is not in the dead nor in the living; it is in the living dead. Sevareid, Not So Wild a Dream.

Impressions of waiting out a bombing in a bomb shelter.
War 145 …to sit in the corridor or the dank cellar holding tight to the children who cry with fright at the look in their parents’ eyes while droning like that of a million bees fills the sky. Sevareid, Not So Wild a Dream.

The emotional response to nearby bombing.
War 160 And God! The terrifying violence of bombs nearby, how they stunned the mind, ripped the nerves, and turned one’s limbs to water. Sevareid, Not So Wild a Dream.

Soldiers born with names but died as numbers.
War 353 They [American soldiers] were born as names and would die as numbers. Sevareid, Not So Wild a Dream.

The technology of war: you don’t see the ones you kill.
War 388 They located the enemy by the abstractions of mathematics, an imagined science; they reported the enemy through radio waves that no man could visualize; and they destroyed him most frequently with projectiles no eye could follow. Sevareid, Not So Wild a Dream.

The soldiers’ bodies were relaxed, but their faces were not.
War 390 You noticed that their [soldiers’] bodies were relaxed, but their faces were not. Sevareid, Not So Wild a Dream.

Thousands of bodies are a problem in sanitation; six bodies seem like a tragedy [because you see them as individuals.]
War 402 He looked at the bodies and went on: “With a thousand, it would be just a problem of sanitation; with six, it seems like a tragedy.” Sevareid, Not So Wild a Dream.

Knowing that you are the specific target of shell fire is a terrifying sensation.
War 438 To be near shell fire intended for something or somebody else is distressing enough, but to know that you are the target is quite another sensation. Sevareid, Not So Wild a Dream.

Wars are each century’s attempt to destroy itself.
War 460 [Gertrude Stein] was just then finishing a new book…about all the wars she had known, from reading and in life, and its theme…was that wars come because every century tries to destroy itself. Sevareid, Not So Wild a Dream.

You cannot communicate the experience of war.
War 495 It [war] can never be communicated. Sevareid, Not So Wild a Dream.

I tried to explain that I could not explain the experience of war.
War 495 …this attempt to explain that I could not really explain the war…. Sevareid, Not So Wild a Dream.

Enough wars will kill all the green and shut off the oxygen.
War 27 If we let fly enough of them [missiles], we can even burn out the one-celled green creatures in the sea, and thus turn off the oxygen. L. Thomas, Lives of a Cell.

Nuclear enthusiasts are busy calculating acceptable levels of massive numbers of deaths.
War 27 ...the nuclear realists, busy as their minds must be with calculations of acceptable levels of megadeath.... L. Thomas, Lives of a Cell.

Bell for Adano suggested that the American soldier was a dangerous shit.
War American 88 Bell, [Hersey] wrote, “was the first novel or book of any kind, during the Second World War, to suggest that the American hero…might be a dangerous shit.” Blum, V Was for Victory

War is not like chess; it consists of complex collisions of diverse wills.
War and chess 843 How much more complex is the game of war, which must be played within certain limits of time and where it is a question not of one will manipulating inanimate objects but of something resulting from the innumerable collisions of diverse wills. Tolstoi, War and Peace.

Only dictators can conduct sudden, bold, determined wars.
War and dictatorship 100 Senator Baker of Oregon: I want sudden, bold, forward determined war; and I do not think anybody can conduct war of that kind as well as a dictator. Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln: The War Years.

Each side in the Civil War invokes and prays to the same God.
War and God 772 Lincoln: Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other. Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln: The War Years.

In war, morality becomes relative.
War and morality 72 The relativity of moral ideas is proved anew every time there is a war. Mencken, Minority Report.

Wars will cease when those who have to fight make the decision between war and peace.
War and peace 285 Kant: When those who must do the fighting have the right to decide between war and peace, history will no longer be written in blood. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Kant.

Profiteers who make cheap goods to increase profit at the expense of the armies they are outfitting.
War and profiteering 479 General James Grant Wilson noted…that some of the most competent and energetic contractors were the most dishonest…in tents, a lighter cloth or a few inches off the size; in harness, split leather; in saddles, inferior materials and workmanship; in shoes, paper soles; in clothes, shoddy; in mixed horse feed, chaff and a larger proportion of the cheaper grain…. Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln: The War Years.

There’s no science when unforeseeable circumstances come together to produce an event that could not be foretold.
War and science 762 Prince Andrei: What science can there be where everything is vague and depends on an endless variety of circumstances, the significance of which becomes manifest all in a moment, and no one can foretell when that moment is coming? Tolstoi, War and Peace.

Wars create more scoundrels than they kill.
War and the Home Front 480 Blackwood’s Magazine: A great war always creates more scoundrels than it kills. Sandburg, Abraham Lincoln: The War Years.

When people die in war, who knows what contributions they might have made to the world that now have been lost?
War death 182 The flame that burned so brightly in fifth-century Athens would have given more and still more light to the world if these dead had not died, and died truly in vain. E. Hamilton. The Greek Way.

This book about the last bomber shot down over Germany during WWII belongs to my father who inspired it and to my grandparents who always believed that the family would some day be reunited again.
War memory death 273 But ultimately this book belongs to my father, Tom Childers, who inspired it and who did not live to see it completed, and to my late grandparents, Ernest and Callie Goodner, who preserved Howard’s letters and his memory and who always believed, as the old wartime song went, that they would meet again. Childers, Wings of Morning.

In communicating with those who had lost their sons, we brought back to life the men who had died.
War memory love generations 246 And as we talked and wrote and visited in the months that followed, the crew came alive again, one by one, borne on the wings of memory, and we found ourselves bound together in a chain of love and loss that passed beyond the generations. Childers, Wings of Morning

Hitler was influenced by the discipline and hierarchy of the military organization.
War military order 66 It was the discipline of war and the “front-line acquaintance” with the clear and simple military hierarchy of order and values which were to shape Hitler’s sense of values and turn this unstable dreamer…into the rigid fanatic with incredibly oversimplified ideas of war and order. Bracher, The German Dictatorship.

Thursday, December 13, 2007

Quotes: Villain. Violence. Virtue. Visual. Vocations.Volcano.Voltaire. Vulgarity.

Villain
The villain is always the person who strikes the first blow.
Villain 223 You can always spot the villain…in the last resort, it is ultimately the man who strikes the first blow. T. H. White, The Once and Future King.

Violence
The cave man fondled the ax; today men fondle the machine gun.
Violence 101 The hand that hefted the ax, out of some blind allegiance to the past fondles the machine gun as lovingly. Eiseley, The Immense Journey

Virtue
Without immortality, there is no virtue.
Virtue 67 There is no virtue if there is no immortality. Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov.

People prefer virtue if no strong temptation exists to overlook it.
Virtue 275 Johnson on virtue: Every man prefers virtue when there is not some strong incitement to transgress its precepts. Boswell, Life of Johnson, Vol. 1.

Virtue requires dealing with difficulty and contention.
Virtue 168 …virtue presupposes difficulty and contention…. Montaigne, Selected Essays.

Conscious virtue masks a secret vice.
Virtue and vice 182 Psychoanalysts: …every conscious virtue is an effort to conceal or correct a secret vice. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Spinoza.

Visual
Images turn viewers into bystanders.
Visual 353 Jerzy Kosinski: The image is…ultimately deadly, because it turns the viewer into a bystander. Plimpton, ed. The Writer’s Chapbook

Two kinds of visual memory: create an image with your eyes open; replicate images with your eyes closed.
Visual memory 13 There are two kinds of visual memory: one when you skillfully create an image in the laboratory of your mind with your eyes open…and the other when you instantly evoke, with shut eyes, on the dark innerside of your eyelids, the objective, absolutely optical replica…. Nabokov, Lolita.

Vocations
It’s not that you can’t do it; it’s that what you want to do is wrong for you.
Vocations 329 Nan: It isn’t so much that people can’t do anything, as that they try to do the wrong things…. Jewett, A Country Doctor.

Volcano
Impressions of a spouting volcano.
Volcano 369 To our left, a hundred yards away, was a river of fire into which the crater was vomiting. Sevareid, Not So Wild a Dream.

Volcano 369 [The lava] moved rapidly down the steep slope, enormous red boulders swimming in what resembled liquid fire. Sevareid, Not So Wild a Dream.

Voltaire
Tribute to Voltaire: He prepared us for freedom.
Voltaire 252 Tribute to Voltaire: On the funeral car were the words: …he prepared us for freedom. . Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Voltaire.

Vulgarity
The essence of vulgarity is greed.
Vulgarity 1071 What is vulgar, and the essence of all vulgarity, but the avarice of reward? Source Unknown.

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Quotes: Values. Vanity. Victory.

Values
The ethics of Jesus and Buddha emphasize the feminine virtues: all people are precious; returns good for evil and identifies virtue with love.
Values 179 One [system of ethics] is that of Buddha and Jesus, which stresses the feminine virtues, considers all men to be equally precious, resists evil only by returning good, identifies virtue with love…. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Spinoza.

The ethics of Machiavelli and Nietzsche stress masculine virtues: inequality of men, relishes combat, conquest and rule and identifies virtue with power.
Values 179 Another [system of ethics] is that of Machiavelli and Nietzsche, which stresses the masculine virtues, accepts the inequality of men, relishes the risks of combat and conquest and rule, identifies virtue with power…. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Spinoza.

The ethics of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle defines virtue with intelligence to judge when to use the masculine or feminine values.
Values 180 A third [system of ethics], the ethic of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, denies the universal applicability of either the feminine or masculine virtues; considers that only the informed and mature mind can judge, according to diverse circumstances, when love should rule and when power; identifies virtue, therefore, with intelligence…. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Spinoza.

Men don’t want rights; they want privileges.
Values 25 …what men value in this world is not rights but privileges. Mencken, Minority Report.

The English value performance, not power and ideas only if they have concrete results.
Values 887 The English…do not respect power, but only performance, value ideas only for an economic result. Emerson, English Traits.

Values are taught, not inherited.
Values 89 “Values are not inherited; they’re taught.” Justice Anthony Kennedy. Jeffrey Rosen, “Annals of Law: The Agonizer.” The New Yorker, November 1996

Vanity
People are more vain of their deficiencies than of their gifts.
Vanity 418 …people are generally quite as vain, or even more so, of their deficiencies, than of their available gifts. Hawthorne, The House of the Seven Gables.

Victory
JFK was magnanimous in victory and immediately concentrated on reconciliation with his adversary.
Victory 516 Magnanimous in victory, as always, the President turned his attention to the problem of reconciliation. Sorenson, Kennedy

JFK accepted Khrushchev’s statesmanlike action as a constructive contribution to peace.
Victory 809 Rejecting the temptation of a dramatic TV appearance, he [Kennedy] issued a brief three-paragraph statement welcoming Khrushchev’s ‘statesmanlike decision…an important and constructive contribution to peace.’ Sorenson, Kennedy

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Quotes: Understanding. Uniform. Unity and Multiplicity. Universe. Universities. Utilitarianism.

Understanding
Understanding 241 …seeing is not the same thing as understanding. [knowledge] Eiseley, The Star Thrower

Fanatical nationalism undermines belief in international understanding.
Understanding 160 “Fanatical nationalism”—the conscious and systematic undermining of faith in international understanding. Bracher, The German Dictatorship

Uniform
A uniform sways the ladies.
Uniform 524 …a good uniform must work its way with the women sooner or later. Dickens, Pickwick.

Uniforms never seem to fit exactly.
Uniforms 18 …general postman’s coat—queer coats those—made by contract—no measuring—mysterious dispensations of Providence—all the short men get long coats—all the long men short ones. Dickens, Pickwick.

Unity and Multiplicity
The oldest problem in philosophy: bringing multiplicity into unity.
Unity and multiplicity 167 “The attempt to bridge the chasm between multiplicity and unity is the oldest problem of philosophy, religion, and science,” observed Henry Adams in Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres (1905). Boorstin, The Americans: Colonial Experience

Multiplicity is different aspects of the same unity.
Unity, multiplicity 10 Ira Wolfert: Multiplicity is merely different aspects of the same unity. Hull, ed. The Writer’s Book.

Universe
Minute Earth and lonely man in a huge universe.
Universe 116 In a universe whose size is beyond human imagining, where our world floats like a dust mote in the void of night, men have grown inconceivably lonely. Eiseley, The Immense Journey

The universe has been widened by the telescope and the microscope.
Universe 218 Between the telescope and the microscope the Adamic universe has widened, that’s all. Eiseley, The Star Thrower

Speeds of different bodies in the universe.
Universe 29 The entire solar system…is moving within the local star system at the rate of 13 miles a second; the local star system is moving within the Milky Way at the rate of 200 miles a second; and the whole Milky Way is drifting with respect to the remote external galaxies at the rate of 100 miles a second—and all in different directions! Barnett, The Universe and Dr. Einstein

Universities
The Nazis closed the universities in Czechoslovakia and Poland and sent their professors to concentration camps.
Universities 272 The role accorded scholarship and universities in the “new order of Europe” was made clear in 1939, when the universities of occupied Czechoslovakia and Poland were closed and the majority of their professors sent to concentration camps. Bracher, The German Dictatorship

The Nazis destroyed the universities to destroy the intellectual centers that might resist the intended destiny of their countries as satellites and slaves for the Nazis.
Universities 272 …intended to decimate the universities of northern and western Europe, with the clearly stated purpose of depriving non-German countries of their intellectual center, of reducing their powers of resistance, and of making them amenable to their future roles as satellites (in the West) or slaves (in the East). Bracher, The German Dictatorship

Universities served the system, not the cause of truth.
Universities 56 …university authorities, who we thought were merely serving the system and not the cause of truth. Sevareid, Not So Wild a Dream.

Utilitarianism
Utilitarianism was added to goodness, beauty and truth as the aims of man.
Utilitarianism 469 Croce’s...elevation of the concept of Utility to a parity of Goodness, Beauty, and Truth. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Benedetto Croce.

Monday, December 10, 2007

Quotes: Truth. Tyranny.

Truth
Those who did not act on truth in their lives will lose this knowledge of truth when they die.
Truth 131 Emanuel Swedenborg: “That the spirits who knew truth in this life, but did it not, at death shall lose this knowledge.” Emerson, Method of Nature.

Truth is revealed only to disinterested seekers.
Truth 10 Truth is a jealous mistress and will reveal herself not a whit to any but a disinterested seeker.... E. Hamilton. The Greek Way.

He suggests that nighttime fears and apprehensions are truer than reality as seen during the day.
Truth 125 Sometimes, he suggests, one’s nighttime fears and apprehensions are closer to the truth than the hard facts seen in mundane light. Mellow, Hawthorne in His Times.

The Greeks recognized that truth was paradoxical and accepted both sides of the paradox.
Truth 318 They [the Greeks] saw both sides of the paradox of truth, giving predominance to neither, and in all Greek art there is an absence of struggle, a reconciling power, something of calm and serenity, the world has yet to see again. E. Hamilton. The Greek Way.

People are fearless who recognize and accept reality regardless that it does its worst to them.
Truth 370 Melville: “By visible truth we mean the apprehension of the absolute condition of present things as they strike the eye of the man who fears them not, though they do their worst to him….” Mellow, Hawthorne in His Times.

The devout seek truth with their hearts, not their minds.
Truth 84 The devout are always urged to seek the absolute truth with their hearts and not their minds. Hoffer, The True Believer

People cannot be forced to accept truth.
Truth 190 Man cannot be forced to accept the truth. Pope John Paul II, Threshold

Every truth contains some error.
Truth 431 Seldom, very seldom, does complete truth belong to any human disclosure; seldom can it happen that something is not a little disguised, or a little mistaken. Austen, Emma

Can the devil speak the truth?
Truth 310 Waverley: What, can the devil speak truth? Sir Walter Scott, Waverley.

No truth is ugly.
Truth 663 You are teaching people to understand that no truth is ugly, and no lie is beautiful. Irving Stone, The Passions of the Mind (Life of Freud).

We accept lies as truth and demand the same lies from others.
Truth 272 …we consider the veriest lies as truth and demand the same lies from others. Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov.

Different religions and philosophies are simply different manifestations of the same truth.
Truth 291 Carlyle: …diverse religions and philosophies are but the changing garments of one eternal truth. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Kant.

Truth is the unity of many opposed parts.
Truth 295 Truth…is an organic unity of opposed parts. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Hegel.

Truth lies in the coordination of antagonistic ideas.
Truth 365 Spencer: Truth generally lies in the coordination of antagonistic opinions. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Herbert Spencer.

Imaginative literature gives the impression of truth.
Truth 25 John Hersey: …among all the means of communication now available, imaginative literature comes closer than any to being able to give an impression of the truth. Hull, ed. The Writer’s Book.

Truth is in the connection between cause and effect.
Truth 701 Truth, or the connection between cause and effect, alone interests us. Emerson, Representative Men: Montaigne, or The Skeptic.

Use truth.
Truth 761 …to honor every truth by use. Emerson, Representative Men, Goethe, or the Writer.

Focusing on only one aspect of truth distorts the whole truth and becomes falsehood.
Truth 424 Truth is our element of life, yet a man fasten his attention on a single aspect of truth, and apply himself to that alone for a long time, the truth becomes distorted and not itself but falsehood. Emerson, Intellect.

He wanted to know the blunt truth about the enemy in order to save lives.
Truth 184 …Stilwell wanted above all to be well informed, to know his own men’s and the enemy’s capabilities, and he knew that anything less than the blunt truth and blunt intelligence about the enemy might cost him lives, his boys. Halberstam, The Best and the Brightest.

The worse the news the more he needed it—accurately.
Truth 184 [For Stilwell] it did not matter whether the news was good or bad; the worse the news, the more you needed it. Halberstam, The Best and the Brightest.

Truth is what others can be persuaded to believe.
Truth 227 Our truth of today is not what is, but what others can be persuaded to believe…. Montaigne, Selected Essays.

Truth can be learned from error more easily than from confusion.
Truth 89 Francis Bacon: Truth comes out of error more easily than out of confusion. A Random Walk in Science.

The Romans lie when they appear to be telling the truth and speak truth when they seem to be telling a lie, so much so that no one should believe them under any conditions.
Truth 1193 In short, they [the Romans] lie so much like truth, and speak truth so much as if they were telling a lie, that their auditor suspects himself in the wrong, whether he believes or disbelieves them. Hawthorne, The Marble Faun.

There are no new truths.
Truth 827 There are no new truths, much as we have prided ourselves on finding some.

The human mind is so varied that no truth appears the same to any two people.
Truth 512 At this meeting Pierre was for the first time struck by the endless variety of the human mind, preventing any truth from ever presenting itself in the same way to any two persons. Tolstoi, War and Peace.

Truths from emotions are moral; truths from reason are the result of reflection.
Truth 153 Albert Schweitzer: I was always, even as a boy, engrossed in the philosophical problem of the relation between emotion and reason;...truths that we derive from the emotions are of a moral kind--compassion, kindness, forgiveness, love for our neighbor;...reason...teaches...truths that come from reflection. Anderson, The Schweitzer Album.

Seek the truth, not emotional satisfaction.
Truth xxi Careful always to seek for truth and not for our own emotional satisfaction…. Sevareid, Not So Wild a Dream.

Truth will win in the end.
Truth 64 …believing with naïveté that the truth is strong by itself and cannot lose in the end. Sevareid, Not So Wild a Dream.

Truth justifies itself.
Truth 143 “The truth is its own justification….” Sevareid, Not So Wild a Dream.

Making debating points rather than seeking the truth.
Truth 215 The Congress alternately dozed and shouted, and its members sought to make debating points rather than to find the truth. Sevareid, Not So Wild a Dream.

Does suppressing the truth ever pay?
Truth 226 …does it ever pay to suppress the truth? Sevareid, Not So Wild a Dream.

It takes a lot of negotiation to tell the truth.
Truth 352 It is rather extraordinary how men must plot and combine and negotiate merely to tell the truth. Sevareid, Not So Wild a Dream.

We believe that two and two are four and that black is black and white is white.
Truth 383 We whose names are hereunto subscribed do solemnly declare, that we do in our consciences believe two and two make four; and that we shall adjudge any man whatsoever to be our enemy who endeavors to persuade us to the contrary…that it is our resolution as long as we live to call black black, and white white. Addison, 7/25/1711. The Spectator.

Make the people laugh when you tell them the truth or they will kill you.
Truth 106 George Bernard Shaw once observed, “If you tell people the truth, make them laugh or they’ll kill you.” Pierpont, Claudia Roth. “A Critic at Large: The Strong Woman.”
The New Yorker (Nov. 11, 1996), pp. 106-118.

He told them the truth, but he transformed it into a lie.
Truth and falsehood 242 He had spoken the very truth, and transformed it into the veriest falsehood. Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter.

The intellect needs the truth cloaked in rhetoric and the will needs it presented as illusion.
Truth and Will 1123 The intellect is stimulated by the statement of truth in a trope, and the will by clothing the laws of life in illusion. Emerson, The Conduct of Life: Illusions.

The drama is not literal truth.
Truth drama 27 Literalness was not the truth, especially in drama. Blum, V Was for Victory

Ideology masquerades as truth.
Truth ideology 164 The world, tired of ideology, is opening itself to the truth. Pope John Paul II, Threshold

Truth in poetry and the truth of science are both true.
Truth poetry science 31 The truth of poetry and the truth of science were both true. E. Hamilton. The Greek Way.

Tyranny
Tyranny triumphs if the people are amused.
Tyranny 600 …the maxim of the tyrant, “If you would rule the world quietly, you must keep it amused.” Emerson, New England Reformers.

Thursday, December 6, 2007

Quotes: Travel. Triage. True Believer.

Travel
Thoreau stayed at home, but traveled in his mind.
Travel 241 Thoreau was a stay-at-home who traveled much in his mind…. Eiseley, The Star Thrower

In traveling on a cruise ship you are both prince and prisoner.
Travel 273 [On being aboard pleasure ship]: You’re a prince but a prisoner, too: But this new absence of ability or need to decide is liberating...you give in to the deliciousness of being taken care of...spend hours in a deck chair, blanket tucked around you by a deck steward, your smile of thanks almost that of an invalid. Finney, From Time to Time.

Nazareth: a town precisely as it was when Jesus was there.
Travel 427 Nazareth is wonderfully interesting because the town has an air about it of being precisely as Jesus left it…. Twain, Innocents Abroad.

Travel produces many annoyances and wonderful memories when the annoyances are forgotten.
Travel 467 Our experiences in Europe have taught us that in time this fatigue will be forgotten; the heat will be forgotten; the thirst, the tiresome volubility of the guide, the persecutions of the beggars—and then, all that will be left will be pleasant memories of Jerusalem, memories we shall call up with always increasing interest as the years go by, memories which some day will become all beautiful when the last annoyance that encumbers them shall have faded out of our minds never again to return. Twain, Innocents Abroad.

Impressions of a train pulling away from the stations.
Travel 580 A moment afterwards, the train—with all the life of its interior…was gliding away in the distance, and rapidly lessening to a point, which, in another moment, vanished. Hawthorne, The House of the Seven Gables.

To fly is not travel; it’s a translation from one place to another.
Travel 74 To go by airplane, of course, is not to travel at all—it is merely to be translated from one condition in space to another. Sevareid, Not So Wild a Dream.

Triage
Does anyone have the right to decide who lives and who dies?
Triage 132 Brother, let me ask one thing more: has any man a right to look at other men and decide which is worthy to live? Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov.

True Believer
The true believer believes in complete and total solutions to problems.
True believer xxi The true believer is the believer in total solutions. Sidney Hook. Hoffer, The True Believer

The true believer feels exalted because he has been relieved of the burden of an autonomous existence.
True believer 131 The exaltation of the true believer does not flow from reserves of strength and wisdom but from a sense of deliverance: he has been delivered from the meaningless burdens of an autonomous existence. Hoffer, The True Believer

True believers are relieved to be rid of personal responsibility by losing their individuality and independence to become one with a whole group.
True believers 104 When we renounce the self and become part of a compact whole, we not only renounce personal advantage but are also rid of personal responsibility. Hoffer, The True Believer