Quotes: Legend. Legislating. Leisure. Letter to the Editor. Liberalism. Liberty. Libraries.

A collection of quotes on various topics. The sentence in bold face is a plain statement of the quotes that follows.

Legend
Don’t let the candle of the legacy of the Round Table burn out.
Legend 629 [King] Arthur: “I am giving you the candle now [the legacy of the Round Table]—you wont let it [burn] out?” T. H. White, The Once and Future King.

Legislating
Establishing right by might won’t work.
Legislating behavior 422 King Arthur: Unfortunately we have tried to establish Right by Might, and you can’t do that. T. H. White, The Once and Future King.

Ignorance, idleness and vice are the characteristics of legislators.
Legislators 14 You have clearly proved that ignorance, idleness and vice are the proper ingredients for qualifying a legislator. Swift, Gulliver’s Travels. Adler and VanDoren, eds. Great Treasury of Western Thought.

Leisure
The average man spends his leisure as his dog spends its leisure.
Leisure 70 …the average man simply spends his leisure as a dog spends it. Mencken, Minority Report.

Letter To The Editor
Write those letters to the editor in your head, but don’t put them on paper.
Letter to the Editor 158 Truman Capote: Write those letters to the editor in your head, but don’t put them on paper. Plimpton, ed. The Writer’s Chapbook

Liberalism
Liberals fail to understand the constraints on Presidential action.
Liberalism 680 …occasional annoyance over the refusal of some liberals to understand the constraints on Presidential action…. Schlesinger, A Thousand Days

Liberals see a constant development toward an improved future.
Liberalism 77 The liberal sees the present as the legitimate offspring of the past and as constantly growing and developing toward an improved future. Hoffer, The True Believer

Liberals try to legislate virtue.
Liberalism 205 RP Warren: The tragedy of a big half of American liberalism is to try to legislate virtue. Cowley, ed., Writers at Work.

Liberty
Most people want security, not liberty.
Liberty 123 The thirst for liberty does not seem to be natural to man[:] most people want security in this world, not liberty.' Mencken, Minority Report.

Liberty puts people on their own and exposes them to the consequences of their decisions.
Liberty 123 Liberty puts [people] on their own, and so exposes them to the natural consequences of their congenital stupidity and incompetence. Mencken, Minority Report.

Inferior men only want the liberty to quit work, lie in the sun and scratch themselves.
Liberty 168 The only liberty an inferior man really cherishes is the liberty to quit work, stretch out in the sun, and scratch himself. Mencken, Minority Report.

The liberty of speaking and writing leads to thinking.
Liberty 789 This light they [the English] derive from the liberty of speaking and writing, and thereby thinking. Emerson, English Traits.

“Liberty” means many different things to Englishmen.
Liberty 12 The liberty of an Englishman is a phrase of so various a signification…that I shall not here presume to define its meaning. Soame Jenyns, “The Objections to the Taxation…Considered.” 1765. Hofstadter, ed. Great Issues in American History. Vol. 1. Independence.

Liberty in a free society means the right to participate in legislation.
Liberty 28 …the foundation of English liberty, and of all free government, is a right in the people to participate in their legislative council…. First Continental Congress, 1774. Hofstadter, ed. Great Issues in American History. Vol. 1. Independence.

Liberty does not exist in words, but in the hearts and minds of the people.
Liberty, Peace 838 JFK: [Paraphrase of Judge Learned Hand’s discourse on liberty]: [Liberty] peace…does not rest in charters and covenants alone…[but] in the hearts and minds of all people…and if it is cast out there, then no act, no pact, no treaty, no organization can hope to preserve it…so let us not rest all our hopes on parchment and on paper…[but] strive to build…a desire for peace…in the hearts and minds of all our people. Sorenson, Kennedy

Libraries
Libraries house ideas.
Libraries 93 It was to house these precious texts, any one of which might contain some new revelation that might alter the course of human thought, that Cosimo de Medici built the library of San Marco. Clark, Civilization.