The sentence in boldface is a plain statement of the quote that follows.
Humility
We are nothing in other social circles.
Humility 42 …another lesson, in the art of knowing our own nothingness beyond our own circle…. Austen, Persuasion.
Humility is rare; even philosophers who write on the subject make sure that their names are on the title page.
Humility 181 Spinoza: …humility is very rare; and as Cicero said, even the philosophers who write books in its praise take care to put their names on the title-page. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Spinoza.
Modesty is hypocritical humility, seeking pardon for excellence and recognition of merit from people who have none.
Humility 310 Schopenhauer : What is modesty but hypocritical humility, by means of which, in a world swelling with envy, a man seeks to obtain pardon for excellences and merits from those who have none. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Schopenhauer.
If the supposed saint has no humility, she is no saint.
Humility 1069 [St. Philip Neri who tested the supposedly inspired and prophetic nun by asking her to remove his mud-spattered boots, which she refused to do, with anger]: “Give yourself no uneasiness, Holy Father…here is no miracle, for here is no humility.” Emerson, The Conduct of Life: Worship.
Humor
Jewish jokes reveal the philosophy and survival patterns of the people.
Humor 448 …Jewish jokes which, through ethnic humor, imparted the philosophy and the survival pattern of the people. Irving Stone, The Passions of the Mind (Life of Freud).
The hilarious is usually explained by “timing.”
Humor 246 He had whatever it takes to make that hilarious, generally explained by talk about ‘timing.’ Finney, From Time to Time
JFK joked that he had a great responsibility: he was the only one between Nixon and the White House.
Humor 203 JFK: “Do you realize...the responsibility I carry...I am the only person between Nixon and the White House.” Sorenson, Kennedy
JFK cited a Republican who mistakenly called Rochester Syracuse as proof that the Republicans did not know where they were or where they were going.
Humor 207 In Rochester he [Kennedy] quoted an earlier Republican candidate as having referred to it as Syracuse--proof, he said, that Republicans never did know where they were or where they were going. Sorenson, Kennedy
JFK thought that Nixon’s referring to him as “another Truman” a compliment, which he returned by saying that Mr. Nixon is another Dewey.
Humor 209 JFK: “Last Thursday night Mr. Nixon dismissed me as ‘another Truman’...a great compliment and I have no hesitation in returning the compliment: I consider him another Dewey.” Sorenson, Kennedy
Noting that Nixon had called him an ignoramus, a liar and a pied piper, JFK called Nixon simply a Republican, which JFK said Nixon thought was really low.
Humor 234 JFK: “in the last seven days..., he [Nixon] has called me an ignoramus, a liar, a pied piper...I just confine myself to calling him a Republican...and he says that is really getting low.” Sorenson, Kennedy
Khrushchev said both candidates [JFK and Nixon] were like a pair of boots: the only difference between them was left or right footed.
Humor 609 The Soviet Union’s Nikita Khrushchev had dismissed both candidates [Nixon and Kennedy] as “a pair of boots—which is better, the right or the left boot?” Sorenson, Kennedy
A clogged stateroom on a ship: you can’t swing a cat.
Humor 25 Notwithstanding all this furniture, there was still room to turn around in, but not to swing a cat in, at least with entire security to the cat. Twain, Innocents Abroad.
He had learned to tell a horse from a cow.
Humor 658 I had quickly learned to tell a horse from a cow, and was full of anxiety to learn more. Twain, Roughing It
Don’t kill me with the carving knife that was used to cut herrings; I’d rather be shot, please.
Humor 87 Nelly: “But I don’t like the carving-knife [by which to be killed], Mr. Hindley,” I answered: “It has been cutting red herrings; I’d rather be shot, if you please.” E. Brontë, Wuthering Heights.
Making the truth seem crazy is what the humorist is trying to do.
Humor 159 This heightening of some crazy truth—to a level where it will be seen as crazy—is at the heart of what the serious humorist is trying to do. Zinsser, On Writing Well.
The comic strip “Blondie” has run so long because it’s based on what everyone does: sleep, eat, raise a family and make money.
Humor 164 Chic Young, creator of “Blondie” on its longevity: It’s built on four things that everybody does: sleeping, eating, raising a family and making money. Zinsser, On Writing Well.
The humorist acts the victim or dunce, making the reader feel superior or at least making him identify with a fellow victim.
Humor 175 Re-reading Leacock reminded me that still another function of the humorist is to represent himself as the victim or the dunce, helpless in most situations…enables the reader to feel superior, or at least to identify with the fellow victim. Zinsser, On Writing Well.
For Freud, jokes and dreams were alike in that they had open meanings and a hidden purpose.
Humor 569 For Sigmund, jokes had certain elements in common with dreams: each had a manifest or open meaning, and behind that, a latent or buried purpose. Irving Stone, The Passions of the Mind (Life of Freud).
People want to learn how to laugh in the face of the inevitable.
Humor xxv We want to learn to laugh in the face of the inevitable…. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy.
Don’t sell half the horses in the stable, sell half the asses that populate the royal court.
Humor 204 When the Regent, for economy, sold half the horses that filled the royal stables, [Voltaire] remarks how much more sensible it would have been to dismiss half the asses that filled the royal court. . Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Voltaire.
Solemnity is a disease.
Humor 210 Voltaire: “I look upon solemnity as a disease.” Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Voltaire.
If a man can laugh at himself, he is not really miserable.
Humor 11 A man who can laugh, if only at himself, is never really miserable. Mencken, Minority Report.
Defines a sense of humor: surprising relations, hollowness of common assumptions, and turns of speech.
Humor 264 …sense of humor, which is to say, a capacity to discover hidden and surprising relations between apparently disparate things, to penetrate to the hollowness of common assumptions, and to invent novel and arresting turns of speech. Mencken, Minority Report.
On news of the death of Calvin Coolidge, Dorothy Parker asked, “How do they know?”
Humor 72 Malcolm Cowley: A friend remembers sitting next to [Dorothy Parker] at the theater when the news was announced of the death of the stolid Calvin Coolidge: “How to they know?” whispered Mrs. Parker. Cowley, ed., Writers at Work.
If the office had been any smaller, it would have been adultery.
Humor 74 Dorothy Parker: He and I had an office so tiny that an inch smaller and it would have been adultery. Cowley, ed., Writers at Work.
All sentences that begin with the letter W are funny.
Humor 95 Thurber quoting Benchley: “We must understand,” he’d say, “that all sentences that begin with W are funny..” Cowley, ed., Writers at Work.
Theatrical comedy exposes folly and curbs excesses.
Humor 109 Thornton Wilder: The comic tradition in the theater carries the intention of exposing folly and curbing excess. Cowley, ed., Writers at Work.
Establish a character as funny and everything he does is funny.
Humor 59 …once a character is really established as funny everything he does becomes funny. F. Scott Fitzgerald on Writing.
Johnson used difficult words in his essays so that people would have to use his dictionary.
Humor 122 Burney: Others there were…who said that the hard words in The Rambler were used by the author [Dr. Johnson] to render his dictionary indispensably necessary. Boswell, Life of Johnson, Vol. 1.
The person who plays a simpleton must never be one.
Humor 550 The most cunning part in a comedy is the clown’s, for a man who wants to be taken for a simpleton must never be one. Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote of La Mancha. Part Two: 1615.
Funny situation: man searches for the ass he is sitting on.
Humor 934 “One word only I beseech you to hear, valiant Don Quixote,” said Altisidora, “and it is this: I beg your pardon for saying you had stolen my garters, for by God and my soul I have them on, and I have fallen into the same blunder as the man who went searching for the ass he was riding on.” Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote of La Mancha. Part Two: 1615.
English humor treats the commonplace as remarkable; American humor treats the remarkable as commonplace.
Humor 99 James Thurber: Someone once wrote a definition of the difference between English and American humor: He said that the English treat the commonplace as if it were remarkable and the Americans treat the remarkable as if it were commonplace. Plimpton, ed. The Writer’s Chapbook
Humor: emotional chaos remembered in tranquility.
Humor 219 James Thurber: Humor is emotional chaos remembered in tranquility. Plimpton, ed. The Writer’s Chapbook
Wit has some truth; wisecracking is just exercising words.
Humor 222 Dorothy Parker: Wit has truth in it; wisecracking is simply calisthenics with words. Plimpton, ed. The Writer’s Chapbook
Humor defies definition.
Humor 4 One of the characteristics of humor is that it eludes definition. Feleki. A Random Walk in Science.
Humor relieves tension.
Humor 4 The greatest blessing of humor is that it relaxes tension. Feleki. A Random Walk in Science.
Laughter makes us feel superior to the thing we are laughing at.
Humor 5 Hobbes pointed out that laughter is the feeling of pride as, seeing the weakness of others, we experience our own intellectual superiority. Feleki. A Random Walk in Science.
The essence of humor is incongruity.
Humor 8 The crux of the simplest form of joke seems to be the production of an incongruity in the normal order of events. R V Jones. A Random Walk in Science.
Most good jokes involve preparation before the incongruity becomes apparent.
Humor 9 …the more advanced jokes usually involve a period of preparation…sometimes elaborate, before the incongruity becomes apparent. R V Jones A Random Walk in Science.
America’s success is raising food to sell to Europeans who must eat.
Humor 54 The commerce by which she [America] hath enriched herself are the necessaries of life, and will always have a market while eating is the custom of Europe. Thomas Paine, Common Sense, 1776. Hofstadter, ed. Great Issues in American History. Vol. 1. Independence.
Laughter results from feeling superior to what we are laughing at.
Humor 142 The passion of laughter is nothing else but sudden glory arising from some sudden conception of some eminency in ourselves, by comparison with the infirmity of others, or with our own formerly…. Addison, 4/24/1711. The Spectator.
If you can’t be dirty, you can’t be funny.
Humor 111 Mae West: “You can’t be funny if you have to be clean.” Pierpont, Claudia Roth. “A Critic at Large: The Strong Woman.” The New Yorker (Nov. 11, 1996), pp. 106-118.
Exaggeration as the basis of humor.
Humor exaggeration 643 …a Washoe wind…blows flimsy houses down, lifts shingle roofs occasionally, rolls up tin ones like sheet music, now and then blows a stage coach over and spills the passengers; and tradition says the reason there are so many bald people there, is, that the wind blows the hair off their heads while they are looking skyward after their hats. Twain, Roughing It
Example of a pun—takes a moment to get it too [“lye” and “liars”].
Humor pun 724 A white man cannot drink the water of Mono Lake, for it is nearly pure lye…said that the Indians in the vicinity drink it sometimes…not improbable, for they are among the purest liars I ever saw. Twain, Roughing It
Hunting
Hunting: the power to kill a living thing because you can.
Hunting 108 One day I picked up a dead quail that I had shot; when the bird had lined up in my sights, I felt the familiar rush of power and excitement, a kind of blood lust that linked me to the small creature suspended there at the end of my shot gun…now the bird hung limp in my hand, its fires quenched, the iridescent earth colors of browns and tans stained red because of what I had done…was disgusted with myself, with my violence, my lust, with the power I held so casually to destroy something so beautiful…something not required to sustain my own survival. Browning, Notes from Turtle Creek.
Hypocrisy
I am idolized in the pulpit, but I look inward and see how black from sin I am.
Hypocrisy 283 Dimmesdale: Canst thou deem it, Hester, a consolation, that I must stand up in my pulpit, and meet so many eyes turned upward to my face, as if the light of heaven were beaming from it!--must see my flock hungry for the truth, and listening to my words as if a tongue of Pentecost were speaking!--and then look inward, and discern the black reality of what they idolize? Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter.
The difference between religion and cant, piety and pretence, the truth of scripture and application of its words, not its spirit.
Hypocrisy xii Lest there should be any well-intentioned persons who do not perceive the difference…between religion and the cant of religion, piety and the pretence of piety, a humble reverence for the great truths of Scripture and an audacious and offensive obtrusion of its letter not its spirit in the commonest dissensions and meanest affairs of life…. Preface Dickens, Pickwick.
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Monday, June 11, 2007
Honor. Hope. Horsemanship. Humanity.
The sentence in bold face is a plain statement of the quote that follows. RayS.
Honor
To save the life of their hero, any six of the clan, including the speaker, will gladly give their lives in exchange.
Honor 356 Evan Maccombich: I was only ganging to say, my lord...that if your excellent honor, and the honorable Court, would let Vich Ian Vohr go free just this once, and let him gae back to France, and no to trouble King George’s government again, that ony six o’ the very best of his clan will be willing to be justified in his stead; and if you’ll just let me gae down to Glennaquoich, I’ll fetch them up to ye mysell, to head or hang, and you may begin wi’ me the very first man. Sir Walter Scott, Waverley.
If the Saxons laugh at the idea of six common clansmen considering themselves worthy of giving their lives for their hero, they may be right, but they must know that I will be back as I said I would with those six men.
Honor 356 Evan Maccombich: If the Saxon gentlemen are laughing...because poor man, such as me, thinks my life, or the life of six of my degree, is worth that of Vich Ian Vohr, it’s like enough they may be very right; but if they laugh because they think I would not keep my word, and come back to redeem him, I can tell them they ken neither the heart of a hielandman, nor the honor of a gentleman. Sir Walter Scott, Waverley.
Honor those who are supported by their labor rather than by praise.
Honor 1074 Honor him…who…finds support in labor instead of praise. Emerson, The Conduct of Life: Worship.
Hope
The Communists win over people by giving them hope Hope 9 If the Communists win Europe and a large part of the world, it will not be because they know how to stir up discontent or how to infect people with hatred, but because they know how to preach hope. Hoffer, The True Believer.
There are two kinds of hope: one that causes explosions and one that disciplines by patience: short term and long term.
Hope 31 There is a hope that acts as an explosive, and a hope that disciplines and infuses patience…the difference…between the immediate hope and the distant hope. Hoffer, The True Believer
Horsemanship
A good horseman controls his horse by his will, not by external actions.
Horsemanship 33 Already a good horseman, he was now initiated into the arts of manège [the art of riding and training horses] which when carried to perfection, almost realizes the fable of the Centaur, the guidance of the horse appearing to proceed from the rider’s mere volition, rather than from the use of any external and apparent signal of motion. Sir Walter Scott, Waverley.
Humanity
For the Greeks, humans were alike, not different.
Human 287 To the Greek, human beings were not chiefly different but chiefly alike. E. Hamilton. The Greek Way.
Humanitarian impulses come from egotism.
Human 396 …insights into the egotism of humanitarian impulses. Mellow, Hawthorne in His Times.
All human beings are full of contradictions.
Human Beings 173 Albert Schweitzer: Like all human beings, I am a person who is full of contradictions. Anderson, Schweitzer Album.
He knew that he would be hated for doing so much for him.
Human nature 225 …Amory knew that afterward Alec would secretly hate him for having done so much for him…. Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise.
We are made of flesh, but must live as if we were made of iron.
Human nature 83 “…we are cast in flesh but must live as iron.” Irving Stone, The Passions of the Mind (Life of Freud).
Everyone is an actor.
Human nature 374 We are all actors. Irving Stone, The Passions of the Mind (Life of Freud).
People would be shattered by knowing everything about themselves.
Human nature 468 …no man should know everything about himself…it could be shattering. Irving Stone, The Passions of the Mind (Life of Freud).
Men are never content with their life as it is.
Human nature 19 Men are not content with a simple life: They are acquisitive, ambitious, competitive, and jealous; they soon tire of what they have and pine for what they have not; and they seldom desire anything unless it belongs to others. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Plato.
Even in good people there is a latent beast.
Human nature 26 In all of us, even in good men, there is such a latent wild beast...which peers out in sleep. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Plato.
Every individual is a chaos of desires, emotions and ideas.
Human nature 39 Every individual is a cosmos or a chaos of desires, emotions and ideas. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Plato.
Man can visualize a better world and exert the will to achieve it.
Human nature 47 …man’s significance is that he can image a better world, and will some part of it at least into reality. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Plato.
Man is molded in part by the environment.
Human nature 72 …we can choose what we shall be, by choosing now the environment that shall mold us. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Aristotle.
We are our habits.
Human nature 76 We are what we repeatedly do. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Aristotle.
Each of us is a part of a perfect person.
Human nature 91 We are all mere fragments of what a man might be. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Aristotle.
Men should stop fighting men and instead war against the obstacles nature creates to obstruct man’s achievements.
Human nature 143 F. Bacon: We shall at last learn the noblest lesson of all, that man must not fight man, but must make war only on the obstacles that nature offers to the triumph of man. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Francis Bacon.
Men are like insects devouring one another.
Human nature 214 Voltaire’s Zadig…then represented to himself the human species as it really is, as a parcel of insects devouring one another on a little atom of clay….. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Voltaire.
Men are inevitably replaced.
Human nature 216 Voltaire on being replaced as the lover of du Chatelet: “one nail drives out another; so goes the world.” . Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Voltaire.
People don’t know where they came from before birth or where they are going after death.
Human nature 226 [Voltaire: [man] knows not whence he comes, nor whither goes. . Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Voltaire.
You can’t change institutions without changing the nature of people.
Human nature 248 Voltaire: After all, when one tries to change institutions without having changed the nature of men, that unchanged nature will soon resurrect those institutions. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Voltaire.
Man wants concord but needs discord to further exert his powers and develop his capacities.
Human nature 282 Kant: Man wishes concord; but nature knows better what is good for his species; and she wills discord in order that man may be impelled to a new exertion of his powers, and to the further development of his natural capacities. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Kant.
We are unhappy married or unmarried, alone or in society.
Human nature 326 Schopenhauer : We are unhappy married, and unmarried we are unhappy; we are unhappy when alone, and unhappy in society; we are like hedge hogs clustering together for warmth, uncomfortable when too closely packed, and yet miserable when kept apart. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Schopenhauer.
Men will not tolerate mandated equality.
Human nature 383 Spencer: Men as now constituted will not tolerate a compulsory equality. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Herbert Spencer.
Man is a bridge, not a goal.
Human nature 417 [Nietzsche] Zarathustra: What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not a goal. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Nietzsche.
Men must surpass what they are.
Human nature 445 ...he [Nietzsche] conceived of man as something that man must surpass. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Nietzsche.
Man suffers so much that he can only laugh.
Human nature 446 Nietzsche: Perhaps I know best why man is the only animal that laughs: he alone suffers so excruciatingly that he was compelled to invent laughter. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Nietzsche.
When we revere liberty as much as wealth, we will be better human beings.
Human nature 530 Durant: When we have learned to reverence liberty as well as wealth, we too shall have our Renaissance. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy.
Men are so complex and contradictory that it is hard to make judgments about them.
Human Nature 5 Truly man is a marvelously vain, diverse and fluctuating subject…hard to found a certain and uniform judgment on him. Montaigne, Selected Essays.
If men submitted all their actions and thoughts to be judged by the law, they would deserve hanging at least ten times.
Human nature 495 There is no man so good who if he submitted all his actions and thoughts to the consideration of the laws, would not deserve hanging ten times in his life…. Montaigne, Selected Essays.
If man cannot match his success in weapons and technology with social and political development, he will disappear like the dinosaur.
Humanity 584 JFK: “Unless man can match his strides in weaponry and technology with equal strides in social and political development, our great strengths like that of the dinosaur, will become incapable of proper control, and man, like the dinosaur, will vanish from the earth. Sorenson, Kennedy
Humanity must achieve unity through plurality.
Humanity 153 It is necessary for humanity to achieve unity through plurality, to learn to come together in the one Church, even while presenting a plurality of ways of thinking and acting, of cultures and civilizations. Pope John Paul II, Threshold
Man is the link between the wide universe and the microscopic.
Humanity 12 …significant to man that in terms of simple magnitude he is the mean between macrocosm and microcosm. Barnett, The Universe and Dr. Einstein.
Man can watch himself as he is in the act of perception.
Humanity 109 Least of all does [Man] understand his noblest and most mysterious faculty: the ability to transcend himself and perceive himself in the act of perception. Barnett, The Universe and Dr. Einstein
Man’s problem is that he is part of the world that he wants to explore.
Humanity 109 Man’s inescapable impasse is that he himself is part of the world he seeks to explore. Barnett, The Universe and Dr. Einstein
Man’s purpose is to unite, not to divide; the effect of division is monkeys throwing nuts at each other from separate trees.
Humanity 221 Merlyn: The destiny of man is to unite, not to divide; if you keep on dividing you end up as a collection of monkeys throwing nuts at each other out of separate trees. T. H. White, The Once and Future King.
Mankind can be perfected and is more decent than beastly.
Humanity 621 [King Arthur] had been taught by Merlyn to believe that man was perfectible: that he was on the whole more decent than beastly. T. H. White, The Once and Future King.
When we visit, we note the front door knocker because people and their door knockers resemble each other.
Humanity 40 Whenever we visit a man for the first time, we contemplate the features of his [front door] knocker with the greatest curiosity, for we well know, that between the man and his knocker, there will inevitably be a greater or less degree of resemblance and sympathy. Dickens, Sketches by Boz.
Human contradictions lead to a sense of absurdity.
Humanity 213 …humiliating absurdity of human contradictions…. Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov.
Beasts are never as cruel as men.
Humanity 216 People talk sometimes of bestial cruelty, but that’s a great injustice and insult to the beasts; a beast can never be so cruel as a man, so artistically cruel. Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov.
Men were given Paradise, but they chose freedom and unhappiness.
Humanity 220 …I recognize in all humility that I cannot understand why the world is arranged as it is; men are themselves to blame, I suppose; they were given Paradise, they wanted freedom…though they knew they would become unhappy, so there is no need to pity them. Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov.
Man became a rebel and thus unhappy.
Humanity 227 Man was created a rebel; and how can rebels be happy? Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov.
Human nature is contradictory.
Humanity 228 …the unsolved…contradictions of human nature. Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov.
Everyone either is or seems to be ridiculous.
Humanity 502 Isn’t every one constantly being or seeming ridiculous? Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov.
Man can be more or less than man, the former being more monstrous.
Humanity ix Man can either be less than man or more than man, and both are monsters, the last more dread. Henry Beston, The Outermost House.
Aeneas when shipwrecked saw some carved figures and recognized that the inhabitants knew the pathos of life.
Humanity 29 ...when Aeneas has been shipwrecked in a country that he fears is inhabited by barbarians...as he looks around he sees some figures carved in relief, and he says: “These men know the pathos of life, and mortal things touch their hearts.” Clark, Civilization.
To make themselves angels, men turn themselves into beasts.
Humanity 161 Montaigne: In trying to make themselves angels, men transform themselves into beasts. Clark, Civilization.
The essence of humanity is treating others with respect.
Humanity 364 The essence of humanity is treating one another with respect. Bradley, Time Present, Time Past.
Those waiting to be born could be greater than Shakespeare and Plato.
Humanity 530 Durant: Perhaps there are greater souls than Shakespeare’s, and greater minds than Plato’s, waiting to be born. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy.
Men try to turn their weaknesses into virtues.
Humanity 47 Men always try to make virtues of their weaknesses. Mencken, Minority Report.
Men are the only animals who try to make others unhappy.
Humanity 76 Men are the only animals who devote themselves assiduously to making one another unhappy. Mencken, Minority Report.
Humans do not respect intelligence; they admire presumption, effrontery and dogmatism.
Humanity 134 The human race, taking one day with another, has very little respect for intelligence; what it really admires is presumption, effrontery, dogmatism. Mencken, Minority Report.
Men are essentially antisocial.
Humanity 191 Every man is intrinsically anti-social. Mencken, Minority Report.
Englishmen have added new elements to humanity.
Humanity 841 This race [the English] has added new elements to humanity. Emerson, English Traits.
Removing man’s weaknesses from his nature would destroy him.
Humanity 268 Our being is cemented with sickly qualities; ambition, jealousy, envy, revenge, superstition, and despair…and even cruelty, too…[but] whoever should remove from man the seeds of these qualities would destroy the fundamental conditions of our life. Montaigne, Selected Essays.
Every man consists of the full spectrum of humanity.
Humanity 285 Every man bears the entire form of human nature. Montaigne, Selected Essays.
Humans are essentially seditious [rebellious] and discordant [conflicting].
Humanity 349 Yet what are we made up of other than sedition and discord? Montaigne, Selected Essays.
Humanity consists of an infinite multitude of individual wills.
Humanity 975 The march of humanity, springing as it does from an infinite multitude of individual wills…. Tolstoi, War and Peace
We are at the same time participants and bystanders, a puzzling role.
Humanity 144 We are simultaneously participants and bystanders, which is a puzzling role to play. L. Thomas, Lives of a Cell.
Honor
To save the life of their hero, any six of the clan, including the speaker, will gladly give their lives in exchange.
Honor 356 Evan Maccombich: I was only ganging to say, my lord...that if your excellent honor, and the honorable Court, would let Vich Ian Vohr go free just this once, and let him gae back to France, and no to trouble King George’s government again, that ony six o’ the very best of his clan will be willing to be justified in his stead; and if you’ll just let me gae down to Glennaquoich, I’ll fetch them up to ye mysell, to head or hang, and you may begin wi’ me the very first man. Sir Walter Scott, Waverley.
If the Saxons laugh at the idea of six common clansmen considering themselves worthy of giving their lives for their hero, they may be right, but they must know that I will be back as I said I would with those six men.
Honor 356 Evan Maccombich: If the Saxon gentlemen are laughing...because poor man, such as me, thinks my life, or the life of six of my degree, is worth that of Vich Ian Vohr, it’s like enough they may be very right; but if they laugh because they think I would not keep my word, and come back to redeem him, I can tell them they ken neither the heart of a hielandman, nor the honor of a gentleman. Sir Walter Scott, Waverley.
Honor those who are supported by their labor rather than by praise.
Honor 1074 Honor him…who…finds support in labor instead of praise. Emerson, The Conduct of Life: Worship.
Hope
The Communists win over people by giving them hope Hope 9 If the Communists win Europe and a large part of the world, it will not be because they know how to stir up discontent or how to infect people with hatred, but because they know how to preach hope. Hoffer, The True Believer.
There are two kinds of hope: one that causes explosions and one that disciplines by patience: short term and long term.
Hope 31 There is a hope that acts as an explosive, and a hope that disciplines and infuses patience…the difference…between the immediate hope and the distant hope. Hoffer, The True Believer
Horsemanship
A good horseman controls his horse by his will, not by external actions.
Horsemanship 33 Already a good horseman, he was now initiated into the arts of manège [the art of riding and training horses] which when carried to perfection, almost realizes the fable of the Centaur, the guidance of the horse appearing to proceed from the rider’s mere volition, rather than from the use of any external and apparent signal of motion. Sir Walter Scott, Waverley.
Humanity
For the Greeks, humans were alike, not different.
Human 287 To the Greek, human beings were not chiefly different but chiefly alike. E. Hamilton. The Greek Way.
Humanitarian impulses come from egotism.
Human 396 …insights into the egotism of humanitarian impulses. Mellow, Hawthorne in His Times.
All human beings are full of contradictions.
Human Beings 173 Albert Schweitzer: Like all human beings, I am a person who is full of contradictions. Anderson, Schweitzer Album.
He knew that he would be hated for doing so much for him.
Human nature 225 …Amory knew that afterward Alec would secretly hate him for having done so much for him…. Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise.
We are made of flesh, but must live as if we were made of iron.
Human nature 83 “…we are cast in flesh but must live as iron.” Irving Stone, The Passions of the Mind (Life of Freud).
Everyone is an actor.
Human nature 374 We are all actors. Irving Stone, The Passions of the Mind (Life of Freud).
People would be shattered by knowing everything about themselves.
Human nature 468 …no man should know everything about himself…it could be shattering. Irving Stone, The Passions of the Mind (Life of Freud).
Men are never content with their life as it is.
Human nature 19 Men are not content with a simple life: They are acquisitive, ambitious, competitive, and jealous; they soon tire of what they have and pine for what they have not; and they seldom desire anything unless it belongs to others. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Plato.
Even in good people there is a latent beast.
Human nature 26 In all of us, even in good men, there is such a latent wild beast...which peers out in sleep. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Plato.
Every individual is a chaos of desires, emotions and ideas.
Human nature 39 Every individual is a cosmos or a chaos of desires, emotions and ideas. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Plato.
Man can visualize a better world and exert the will to achieve it.
Human nature 47 …man’s significance is that he can image a better world, and will some part of it at least into reality. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Plato.
Man is molded in part by the environment.
Human nature 72 …we can choose what we shall be, by choosing now the environment that shall mold us. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Aristotle.
We are our habits.
Human nature 76 We are what we repeatedly do. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Aristotle.
Each of us is a part of a perfect person.
Human nature 91 We are all mere fragments of what a man might be. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Aristotle.
Men should stop fighting men and instead war against the obstacles nature creates to obstruct man’s achievements.
Human nature 143 F. Bacon: We shall at last learn the noblest lesson of all, that man must not fight man, but must make war only on the obstacles that nature offers to the triumph of man. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Francis Bacon.
Men are like insects devouring one another.
Human nature 214 Voltaire’s Zadig…then represented to himself the human species as it really is, as a parcel of insects devouring one another on a little atom of clay….. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Voltaire.
Men are inevitably replaced.
Human nature 216 Voltaire on being replaced as the lover of du Chatelet: “one nail drives out another; so goes the world.” . Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Voltaire.
People don’t know where they came from before birth or where they are going after death.
Human nature 226 [Voltaire: [man] knows not whence he comes, nor whither goes. . Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Voltaire.
You can’t change institutions without changing the nature of people.
Human nature 248 Voltaire: After all, when one tries to change institutions without having changed the nature of men, that unchanged nature will soon resurrect those institutions. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Voltaire.
Man wants concord but needs discord to further exert his powers and develop his capacities.
Human nature 282 Kant: Man wishes concord; but nature knows better what is good for his species; and she wills discord in order that man may be impelled to a new exertion of his powers, and to the further development of his natural capacities. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Kant.
We are unhappy married or unmarried, alone or in society.
Human nature 326 Schopenhauer : We are unhappy married, and unmarried we are unhappy; we are unhappy when alone, and unhappy in society; we are like hedge hogs clustering together for warmth, uncomfortable when too closely packed, and yet miserable when kept apart. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Schopenhauer.
Men will not tolerate mandated equality.
Human nature 383 Spencer: Men as now constituted will not tolerate a compulsory equality. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Herbert Spencer.
Man is a bridge, not a goal.
Human nature 417 [Nietzsche] Zarathustra: What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not a goal. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Nietzsche.
Men must surpass what they are.
Human nature 445 ...he [Nietzsche] conceived of man as something that man must surpass. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Nietzsche.
Man suffers so much that he can only laugh.
Human nature 446 Nietzsche: Perhaps I know best why man is the only animal that laughs: he alone suffers so excruciatingly that he was compelled to invent laughter. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Nietzsche.
When we revere liberty as much as wealth, we will be better human beings.
Human nature 530 Durant: When we have learned to reverence liberty as well as wealth, we too shall have our Renaissance. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy.
Men are so complex and contradictory that it is hard to make judgments about them.
Human Nature 5 Truly man is a marvelously vain, diverse and fluctuating subject…hard to found a certain and uniform judgment on him. Montaigne, Selected Essays.
If men submitted all their actions and thoughts to be judged by the law, they would deserve hanging at least ten times.
Human nature 495 There is no man so good who if he submitted all his actions and thoughts to the consideration of the laws, would not deserve hanging ten times in his life…. Montaigne, Selected Essays.
If man cannot match his success in weapons and technology with social and political development, he will disappear like the dinosaur.
Humanity 584 JFK: “Unless man can match his strides in weaponry and technology with equal strides in social and political development, our great strengths like that of the dinosaur, will become incapable of proper control, and man, like the dinosaur, will vanish from the earth. Sorenson, Kennedy
Humanity must achieve unity through plurality.
Humanity 153 It is necessary for humanity to achieve unity through plurality, to learn to come together in the one Church, even while presenting a plurality of ways of thinking and acting, of cultures and civilizations. Pope John Paul II, Threshold
Man is the link between the wide universe and the microscopic.
Humanity 12 …significant to man that in terms of simple magnitude he is the mean between macrocosm and microcosm. Barnett, The Universe and Dr. Einstein.
Man can watch himself as he is in the act of perception.
Humanity 109 Least of all does [Man] understand his noblest and most mysterious faculty: the ability to transcend himself and perceive himself in the act of perception. Barnett, The Universe and Dr. Einstein
Man’s problem is that he is part of the world that he wants to explore.
Humanity 109 Man’s inescapable impasse is that he himself is part of the world he seeks to explore. Barnett, The Universe and Dr. Einstein
Man’s purpose is to unite, not to divide; the effect of division is monkeys throwing nuts at each other from separate trees.
Humanity 221 Merlyn: The destiny of man is to unite, not to divide; if you keep on dividing you end up as a collection of monkeys throwing nuts at each other out of separate trees. T. H. White, The Once and Future King.
Mankind can be perfected and is more decent than beastly.
Humanity 621 [King Arthur] had been taught by Merlyn to believe that man was perfectible: that he was on the whole more decent than beastly. T. H. White, The Once and Future King.
When we visit, we note the front door knocker because people and their door knockers resemble each other.
Humanity 40 Whenever we visit a man for the first time, we contemplate the features of his [front door] knocker with the greatest curiosity, for we well know, that between the man and his knocker, there will inevitably be a greater or less degree of resemblance and sympathy. Dickens, Sketches by Boz.
Human contradictions lead to a sense of absurdity.
Humanity 213 …humiliating absurdity of human contradictions…. Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov.
Beasts are never as cruel as men.
Humanity 216 People talk sometimes of bestial cruelty, but that’s a great injustice and insult to the beasts; a beast can never be so cruel as a man, so artistically cruel. Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov.
Men were given Paradise, but they chose freedom and unhappiness.
Humanity 220 …I recognize in all humility that I cannot understand why the world is arranged as it is; men are themselves to blame, I suppose; they were given Paradise, they wanted freedom…though they knew they would become unhappy, so there is no need to pity them. Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov.
Man became a rebel and thus unhappy.
Humanity 227 Man was created a rebel; and how can rebels be happy? Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov.
Human nature is contradictory.
Humanity 228 …the unsolved…contradictions of human nature. Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov.
Everyone either is or seems to be ridiculous.
Humanity 502 Isn’t every one constantly being or seeming ridiculous? Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov.
Man can be more or less than man, the former being more monstrous.
Humanity ix Man can either be less than man or more than man, and both are monsters, the last more dread. Henry Beston, The Outermost House.
Aeneas when shipwrecked saw some carved figures and recognized that the inhabitants knew the pathos of life.
Humanity 29 ...when Aeneas has been shipwrecked in a country that he fears is inhabited by barbarians...as he looks around he sees some figures carved in relief, and he says: “These men know the pathos of life, and mortal things touch their hearts.” Clark, Civilization.
To make themselves angels, men turn themselves into beasts.
Humanity 161 Montaigne: In trying to make themselves angels, men transform themselves into beasts. Clark, Civilization.
The essence of humanity is treating others with respect.
Humanity 364 The essence of humanity is treating one another with respect. Bradley, Time Present, Time Past.
Those waiting to be born could be greater than Shakespeare and Plato.
Humanity 530 Durant: Perhaps there are greater souls than Shakespeare’s, and greater minds than Plato’s, waiting to be born. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy.
Men try to turn their weaknesses into virtues.
Humanity 47 Men always try to make virtues of their weaknesses. Mencken, Minority Report.
Men are the only animals who try to make others unhappy.
Humanity 76 Men are the only animals who devote themselves assiduously to making one another unhappy. Mencken, Minority Report.
Humans do not respect intelligence; they admire presumption, effrontery and dogmatism.
Humanity 134 The human race, taking one day with another, has very little respect for intelligence; what it really admires is presumption, effrontery, dogmatism. Mencken, Minority Report.
Men are essentially antisocial.
Humanity 191 Every man is intrinsically anti-social. Mencken, Minority Report.
Englishmen have added new elements to humanity.
Humanity 841 This race [the English] has added new elements to humanity. Emerson, English Traits.
Removing man’s weaknesses from his nature would destroy him.
Humanity 268 Our being is cemented with sickly qualities; ambition, jealousy, envy, revenge, superstition, and despair…and even cruelty, too…[but] whoever should remove from man the seeds of these qualities would destroy the fundamental conditions of our life. Montaigne, Selected Essays.
Every man consists of the full spectrum of humanity.
Humanity 285 Every man bears the entire form of human nature. Montaigne, Selected Essays.
Humans are essentially seditious [rebellious] and discordant [conflicting].
Humanity 349 Yet what are we made up of other than sedition and discord? Montaigne, Selected Essays.
Humanity consists of an infinite multitude of individual wills.
Humanity 975 The march of humanity, springing as it does from an infinite multitude of individual wills…. Tolstoi, War and Peace
We are at the same time participants and bystanders, a puzzling role.
Humanity 144 We are simultaneously participants and bystanders, which is a puzzling role to play. L. Thomas, Lives of a Cell.
Sunday, June 10, 2007
Hitler. Holocaust.
Hitler
Hitler 280 Rudolf Hess on Hitler at the Nuremberg trials: “It was given me to work many years of my life under the greatest son whom my people have brought forth in their thousand-year history.” Bracher, The German Dictatorship [Rudolph Hess’s praise for Hitler at the Nuremberg Trials.]
Hitler 400 Three points: 1. As far as Hitler was concerned, World War I had never ended; 2. the acquisition of Lebensarum presupposed aggressive expansion; 3. totalitarian rule depended on a prepared mobilized community which diverted its internal conflicts to the outside. Bracher, The German Dictatorship [For Hitler, WWI never ended, expansion required aggression and Totalitarian rule diverted internal conflicts to outside conflicts.]
Hitler 408 Even in the final, eerily grotesque scene in the bunker of the bombed-out Reich Chancellery, the lost war moved [Hitler] only to the observation that the German people were not worthy of him or of the tasks put to them. Bracher, The German Dictatorship [When he lost WWII, Hitler thought that the German people had not been worthy of him.]
Hitler future 406 Hitler’s vision of post-war Europe in 1941-1942: Germanic empire stretching from Norway to the Alps, from the Atlantic to the Black Sea, linked by a gigantic network of highways. Berlin: gigantic world capital. 180 million Russians must die out. No procreation permitted. No education to prevent resistance. “In case of difficulties, the ghetto populations would be rounded up and liquidated by a handful of bombs...and the matter is settled.” Bracher, The German Dictatorship [Hitler’s vision of the future after WWII]
Hitler future 408 Tough and determined, even with catastrophe imminent, the Nazi leadership clung to its conviction that Russia must be destroyed, that the Slavs must be decimated, resettled in Siberia, and made into slave labor, and that the Jews must be exterminated. Bracher, The German Dictatorship [To the end, Hitler believed that Russia must be destroyed, the Slavs enslaved and the Jews exterminated.]
Hitler future 409 The new Europe, he [Hitler] had written...could come into being only through the hegemony of the best race and most powerful nation, just as ancient Rome had unified Italy; once that was done, Europe could hold up its head as a world power and face North America. Bracher, The German Dictatorship [Hitler saw Europe controlled by Germany as had Rome.]
Holocaust
Holocaust 430 Here we are faced by the completely impersonal bureaucratic “extermination” of a people classified as a species of inferior subhumans, as “vermin,” a problem which the farmer Himmler handled as though it were a biological disease. Bracher, The German Dictatorship [The extermination of the Jews was a bureaucratic exercise.]
Holocaust 11 Churchill: There is no doubt that this is probably the greatest and most horrible crime ever committed in the whole history of the world, and it has been done by scientific machinery by nominally civilized men in the name of a great state…. Conot, Justice at Nuremberg. [For Churchill, the Holocaust was the greatest crime ever committed in the world, with scientific precision by supposedly civilized people.]
Hitler 280 Rudolf Hess on Hitler at the Nuremberg trials: “It was given me to work many years of my life under the greatest son whom my people have brought forth in their thousand-year history.” Bracher, The German Dictatorship [Rudolph Hess’s praise for Hitler at the Nuremberg Trials.]
Hitler 400 Three points: 1. As far as Hitler was concerned, World War I had never ended; 2. the acquisition of Lebensarum presupposed aggressive expansion; 3. totalitarian rule depended on a prepared mobilized community which diverted its internal conflicts to the outside. Bracher, The German Dictatorship [For Hitler, WWI never ended, expansion required aggression and Totalitarian rule diverted internal conflicts to outside conflicts.]
Hitler 408 Even in the final, eerily grotesque scene in the bunker of the bombed-out Reich Chancellery, the lost war moved [Hitler] only to the observation that the German people were not worthy of him or of the tasks put to them. Bracher, The German Dictatorship [When he lost WWII, Hitler thought that the German people had not been worthy of him.]
Hitler future 406 Hitler’s vision of post-war Europe in 1941-1942: Germanic empire stretching from Norway to the Alps, from the Atlantic to the Black Sea, linked by a gigantic network of highways. Berlin: gigantic world capital. 180 million Russians must die out. No procreation permitted. No education to prevent resistance. “In case of difficulties, the ghetto populations would be rounded up and liquidated by a handful of bombs...and the matter is settled.” Bracher, The German Dictatorship [Hitler’s vision of the future after WWII]
Hitler future 408 Tough and determined, even with catastrophe imminent, the Nazi leadership clung to its conviction that Russia must be destroyed, that the Slavs must be decimated, resettled in Siberia, and made into slave labor, and that the Jews must be exterminated. Bracher, The German Dictatorship [To the end, Hitler believed that Russia must be destroyed, the Slavs enslaved and the Jews exterminated.]
Hitler future 409 The new Europe, he [Hitler] had written...could come into being only through the hegemony of the best race and most powerful nation, just as ancient Rome had unified Italy; once that was done, Europe could hold up its head as a world power and face North America. Bracher, The German Dictatorship [Hitler saw Europe controlled by Germany as had Rome.]
Holocaust
Holocaust 430 Here we are faced by the completely impersonal bureaucratic “extermination” of a people classified as a species of inferior subhumans, as “vermin,” a problem which the farmer Himmler handled as though it were a biological disease. Bracher, The German Dictatorship [The extermination of the Jews was a bureaucratic exercise.]
Holocaust 11 Churchill: There is no doubt that this is probably the greatest and most horrible crime ever committed in the whole history of the world, and it has been done by scientific machinery by nominally civilized men in the name of a great state…. Conot, Justice at Nuremberg. [For Churchill, the Holocaust was the greatest crime ever committed in the world, with scientific precision by supposedly civilized people.]
Saturday, June 9, 2007
Heresy and Orthodoxy. Hero. History.
Heresy and Orthodoxy
Heresy and orthodoxy 574 One generation’s heresy is the next generation’s orthodoxy. Irving Stone, The Passions of the Mind (Life of Freud).
Hero
Hero 188 It will never make any difference to a hero what the laws are. Emerson, The Conservative. [Heroes are not bound by laws.]
Hero 369 The hero is not fed on sweets,/ Daily his own heart he eats. Emerson, Prudence. [Heroes are very self-critical.]
Heroes 241 Don Quixote: They [classical authors] do not portray them [heroes] or describe them as they were but as they should have been, to give example by their virtues to the men to come after them. Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote of La Mancha, Part 1: 1605. [Classical authors wrote about heroes, not as they were, but as they should have been.]
Heroic 124 And yet we recognize that to despise material obstacles, and even to defy the blind forces of fate, is man’s supreme achievement; and…in the end, civilization depends on man extending his powers of mind and spirit to the utmost…. Clark, Civilization. [Man’s ultimate achievement is to defy obstacles and fate.]
Heroism 19 When a flippant high school youth asked him [Kennedy], as we walked down a street in Ashland, Wisconsin, in 1959, how he came to be a hero, he gaily replied, “It was easy--they sank my boat.” Sorenson, Kennedy [JFK said he became a hero because the Japs sank his boat.]
Heroism 261 Angus Wilson: The opportunities for heroism are limited in this kind of world: the most people can do is sometimes not to be as weak as they’ve been at other times. Cowley, ed., Writers at Work. [Heroism in today’s world is not to be as weak as we usually are.]
Heroism 261 Angus Wilson: the heroism of my people…is in their success in making a relationship with other human beings…and their willingness to accept some sort of pleasure principle in life as against the gnawings of a Calvinist conscience and the awareness of Freudian motivations. Cowley, ed., Writers at Work. [Heroism in today’s society is to make relationships, to enjoy life without allowing religious conscience and Freudian motivates deter you.]
Heroism 379 The characteristic of heroism is its persistency. Emerson, Prudence. [Heroes are persistent.]
Heroism 640 The greatest obstacle to being heroic, is the doubt whether one may not be going to prove one’s self a fool; the truest heroism is, to resist the doubt—and the profoundest wisdom, to know when it ought to be resisted, and when to be obeyed. Hawthorne, The Blithedale Romance. [The biggest obstacle to being heroic is one’s doubt that he may appear in the eyes of others as a fool.]
Heroism 777 There can be no truer test of the noble and heroic, in any individual, than the degree in which he possesses the faculty of distinguishing heroism from absurdity. Hawthorne, The Blithedale Romance. [The test of the heroic is to distinguish it from the absurd.]
History
History 165 ...circumstances swayed by human nature are bound to repeat themselves and in the same situation men are bound to act in the same way unless it is shown to them that such a course in other days ended disastrously. E. Hamilton. The Greek Way. [In the same circumstances, people will act in the same way unless they learn from history how others fared.]
History 165 Thucydides wrote his book because he believed that men would profit from a knowledge of what brought about the ruinous struggle precisely as they profit from a statement of what causes deadly disease. E. Hamilton. The Greek Way. [Thucydides wrote his book to show people the cause of the ruinous struggle.]
History 408 Eiseley on the 60s: …he complained that his students refused to read anything more than five years old. “Plot gives way to episode.” “Make the revolution. Afterward we will decide what to do about it.” If one cannot efface the past, one can at least pretend that history has never been. Christianson, Fox at the Wood’s Edge: Loren Eiseley [The spirit of the 1960s: Never read anything more than five years old.]
History 199 …the history of National Socialism from beginning to end is the history of its underestimation. Bracher, The German Dictatorship [Hitler’s National Socialists were constantly underestimated.]
History 109 When something had enough steam behind it to move people and make an impression on history, it must have some rational explanation, and Kennedy wanted to know what that rational explanation was. Schlesinger, A Thousand Days [JFK wanted to know what had moved people and made a difference in history.]
History 376 ...the rise of the so-called “New History” with its emphasis on the life of the common man.... Boorstin, The Americans: Colonial Experience [New History” emphasized the life of the common man.]
History 717 What was there in prehistory in the events and conditions prior to recorded history, which still survived in the mind of modern man? Irving Stone, The Passions of the Mind (Life of Freud). [What residue from pre-history still influenced modern man?]
History 66 …great catastrophes have periodically denuded the earth and reduced man again to his first beginnings; like Sisyphus, civilization has repeatedly neared its zenith only to fall back into barbarism and begin de capo its upward travail. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Aristotle. [Civilization reaches peaks, then falls back into barbarity again.]
History 100 Lucretius: "…some nations wax, others wane, and in a brief space the races of living things are changed, and like runners hand over the lamp of life." Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Francis Bacon. [Civilizations wax and wane and pass the torch to those that follow.]
History 220 Voltaire: History is nothing more than a picture of crimes and misfortunes. . Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Voltaire. [History is a listing of crimes and misfortunes.]
History 20 Voltaire: History is after all nothing but a pack of tricks which we play upon the dead; we transform the past to suit our wishes for the future; and in the upshot history proves that anything can be proved by history. . Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Voltaire. [Anything can be proved by history; history is transformed to help modern people secure what they want in the future.]
History 221 Voltaire: I wish to write a history not of wars, but of society; and to ascertain how men lived in the interior of their families; and what were the arts which they commonly cultivated…my object is the history of the human mind…but I want to know what were the steps by which men passed from barbarism to civilization. . Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Voltaire. [What were the steps by which man passed from barbarism to civilization?]
History 283 Kant: The history of the human race, viewed as a whole, may be regarded as the realization of a hidden plan of nature to bring about a political constitution…in which all the capacities implanted by her in mankind can be fully developed. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Kant. [History records how man has been brought by nature to use all of his capacities to their fullest.]
History 297 Hegel: …history is the growth of freedom…. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Hegel.
History 381 Spencer: History [in an industrial society] begins to study the people at work rather than kings at war; …ceases to be record of personalities and becomes the history of great inventions and new ideas. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Herbert Spencer. [Modern history is the story of great inventions and new ideas.]
History 599 Johnson: Of the future we certainly know nothing; but we may form conjectures from the past; and the power of forming conjectures, includes, in my opinion, the duty of acting in conformity to that probability which we discover. Boswell, Life of Johnson, Vol. 1. [We turn insights in the past into probability for the future.]
History 141 ...the whole interest of history lies in the fortunes of the poor. Emerson, Man the Reformer. [History is the story of the progress of the poor.]
History 240 ...there is properly no history; only biography. Emerson, History. [History is biography.]
History 66 …it would be said of John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson that both had their Bay of Pigs, that the former’s lasted four days and the latter’s lasted four years. Halberstam, The Best and the Brightest [JFK and LBJ both had their Bay of Pigs; JFK’s lasted four days; LBJ’s lasted four years.]
History 717 We are forced to fall back on fatalism to explain the irrational events of history (that is to say, events the intelligence of which we do not see). Tolstoi, War and Peace. [Irrational events are explained as fatalism.]
History 1400 The ancient historians…wrote of the parts played by the individuals who stood in authority over that people, and regarded their activity as an expression of the activity of the nation as a whole. Tolstoi, War and Peace [Ancient history is the story of leaders who were supposed to represent the character of their people.]
History truth viii Peter Gay: The craft of history has two tasks to perform: To tell the truth about the past insofar as it lies in fallible men to tell the truth; and to give passing events a lasting memorial and immortality to mortal men. Bracher, The German Dictatorship. [History’s purpose is to tell the truth about the past and to memorialize mortal men.]
Heresy and orthodoxy 574 One generation’s heresy is the next generation’s orthodoxy. Irving Stone, The Passions of the Mind (Life of Freud).
Hero
Hero 188 It will never make any difference to a hero what the laws are. Emerson, The Conservative. [Heroes are not bound by laws.]
Hero 369 The hero is not fed on sweets,/ Daily his own heart he eats. Emerson, Prudence. [Heroes are very self-critical.]
Heroes 241 Don Quixote: They [classical authors] do not portray them [heroes] or describe them as they were but as they should have been, to give example by their virtues to the men to come after them. Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote of La Mancha, Part 1: 1605. [Classical authors wrote about heroes, not as they were, but as they should have been.]
Heroic 124 And yet we recognize that to despise material obstacles, and even to defy the blind forces of fate, is man’s supreme achievement; and…in the end, civilization depends on man extending his powers of mind and spirit to the utmost…. Clark, Civilization. [Man’s ultimate achievement is to defy obstacles and fate.]
Heroism 19 When a flippant high school youth asked him [Kennedy], as we walked down a street in Ashland, Wisconsin, in 1959, how he came to be a hero, he gaily replied, “It was easy--they sank my boat.” Sorenson, Kennedy [JFK said he became a hero because the Japs sank his boat.]
Heroism 261 Angus Wilson: The opportunities for heroism are limited in this kind of world: the most people can do is sometimes not to be as weak as they’ve been at other times. Cowley, ed., Writers at Work. [Heroism in today’s world is not to be as weak as we usually are.]
Heroism 261 Angus Wilson: the heroism of my people…is in their success in making a relationship with other human beings…and their willingness to accept some sort of pleasure principle in life as against the gnawings of a Calvinist conscience and the awareness of Freudian motivations. Cowley, ed., Writers at Work. [Heroism in today’s society is to make relationships, to enjoy life without allowing religious conscience and Freudian motivates deter you.]
Heroism 379 The characteristic of heroism is its persistency. Emerson, Prudence. [Heroes are persistent.]
Heroism 640 The greatest obstacle to being heroic, is the doubt whether one may not be going to prove one’s self a fool; the truest heroism is, to resist the doubt—and the profoundest wisdom, to know when it ought to be resisted, and when to be obeyed. Hawthorne, The Blithedale Romance. [The biggest obstacle to being heroic is one’s doubt that he may appear in the eyes of others as a fool.]
Heroism 777 There can be no truer test of the noble and heroic, in any individual, than the degree in which he possesses the faculty of distinguishing heroism from absurdity. Hawthorne, The Blithedale Romance. [The test of the heroic is to distinguish it from the absurd.]
History
History 165 ...circumstances swayed by human nature are bound to repeat themselves and in the same situation men are bound to act in the same way unless it is shown to them that such a course in other days ended disastrously. E. Hamilton. The Greek Way. [In the same circumstances, people will act in the same way unless they learn from history how others fared.]
History 165 Thucydides wrote his book because he believed that men would profit from a knowledge of what brought about the ruinous struggle precisely as they profit from a statement of what causes deadly disease. E. Hamilton. The Greek Way. [Thucydides wrote his book to show people the cause of the ruinous struggle.]
History 408 Eiseley on the 60s: …he complained that his students refused to read anything more than five years old. “Plot gives way to episode.” “Make the revolution. Afterward we will decide what to do about it.” If one cannot efface the past, one can at least pretend that history has never been. Christianson, Fox at the Wood’s Edge: Loren Eiseley [The spirit of the 1960s: Never read anything more than five years old.]
History 199 …the history of National Socialism from beginning to end is the history of its underestimation. Bracher, The German Dictatorship [Hitler’s National Socialists were constantly underestimated.]
History 109 When something had enough steam behind it to move people and make an impression on history, it must have some rational explanation, and Kennedy wanted to know what that rational explanation was. Schlesinger, A Thousand Days [JFK wanted to know what had moved people and made a difference in history.]
History 376 ...the rise of the so-called “New History” with its emphasis on the life of the common man.... Boorstin, The Americans: Colonial Experience [New History” emphasized the life of the common man.]
History 717 What was there in prehistory in the events and conditions prior to recorded history, which still survived in the mind of modern man? Irving Stone, The Passions of the Mind (Life of Freud). [What residue from pre-history still influenced modern man?]
History 66 …great catastrophes have periodically denuded the earth and reduced man again to his first beginnings; like Sisyphus, civilization has repeatedly neared its zenith only to fall back into barbarism and begin de capo its upward travail. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Aristotle. [Civilization reaches peaks, then falls back into barbarity again.]
History 100 Lucretius: "…some nations wax, others wane, and in a brief space the races of living things are changed, and like runners hand over the lamp of life." Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Francis Bacon. [Civilizations wax and wane and pass the torch to those that follow.]
History 220 Voltaire: History is nothing more than a picture of crimes and misfortunes. . Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Voltaire. [History is a listing of crimes and misfortunes.]
History 20 Voltaire: History is after all nothing but a pack of tricks which we play upon the dead; we transform the past to suit our wishes for the future; and in the upshot history proves that anything can be proved by history. . Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Voltaire. [Anything can be proved by history; history is transformed to help modern people secure what they want in the future.]
History 221 Voltaire: I wish to write a history not of wars, but of society; and to ascertain how men lived in the interior of their families; and what were the arts which they commonly cultivated…my object is the history of the human mind…but I want to know what were the steps by which men passed from barbarism to civilization. . Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Voltaire. [What were the steps by which man passed from barbarism to civilization?]
History 283 Kant: The history of the human race, viewed as a whole, may be regarded as the realization of a hidden plan of nature to bring about a political constitution…in which all the capacities implanted by her in mankind can be fully developed. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Kant. [History records how man has been brought by nature to use all of his capacities to their fullest.]
History 297 Hegel: …history is the growth of freedom…. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Hegel.
History 381 Spencer: History [in an industrial society] begins to study the people at work rather than kings at war; …ceases to be record of personalities and becomes the history of great inventions and new ideas. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Herbert Spencer. [Modern history is the story of great inventions and new ideas.]
History 599 Johnson: Of the future we certainly know nothing; but we may form conjectures from the past; and the power of forming conjectures, includes, in my opinion, the duty of acting in conformity to that probability which we discover. Boswell, Life of Johnson, Vol. 1. [We turn insights in the past into probability for the future.]
History 141 ...the whole interest of history lies in the fortunes of the poor. Emerson, Man the Reformer. [History is the story of the progress of the poor.]
History 240 ...there is properly no history; only biography. Emerson, History. [History is biography.]
History 66 …it would be said of John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson that both had their Bay of Pigs, that the former’s lasted four days and the latter’s lasted four years. Halberstam, The Best and the Brightest [JFK and LBJ both had their Bay of Pigs; JFK’s lasted four days; LBJ’s lasted four years.]
History 717 We are forced to fall back on fatalism to explain the irrational events of history (that is to say, events the intelligence of which we do not see). Tolstoi, War and Peace. [Irrational events are explained as fatalism.]
History 1400 The ancient historians…wrote of the parts played by the individuals who stood in authority over that people, and regarded their activity as an expression of the activity of the nation as a whole. Tolstoi, War and Peace [Ancient history is the story of leaders who were supposed to represent the character of their people.]
History truth viii Peter Gay: The craft of history has two tasks to perform: To tell the truth about the past insofar as it lies in fallible men to tell the truth; and to give passing events a lasting memorial and immortality to mortal men. Bracher, The German Dictatorship. [History’s purpose is to tell the truth about the past and to memorialize mortal men.]
Wednesday, June 6, 2007
Hatred. Heaven. Hegel. Hell.
Hate
Hate 618 He [Kennedy] detested qualities, but not people. Schlesinger, A Thousand Days [He hated people’s qualities but not the people.]
Hatred 95 Hatred is the most accessible and comprehensive of all unifying agents. Hoffer, The True Believer [Hatred unifies.]
Hatred 97 We always look for allies when we hate. Hoffer, The True Believer [When we hate we look for allies.]
Hatred 98 Often, when we are wronged by one person, we turn our hatred on a wholly unrelated person or group. Hoffer, The True Believer [Sometimes when we are wronged by someone, we turn our hatred on someone else.]
Hatred 100 We cannot hate those we despise. Hoffer, The True Believer
Hatred 102 Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life. Hoffer, The True Believer [Hatred can give meaning and purpose to empty lives.]
Hatred 183 Isabella: “The single pleasure I can imagine is to die or see him [Heathcliff] dead!” E. Brontë, Wuthering Heights. [My greatest pleasure would be to die or see him dead.]
Hatred 208 Isabella: Monster! would that he could be blotted out of creation, and out of my memory! E. Brontë, Wuthering Heights. [He is a monster who should be blotted from creation and my memory.]
Hatred 217 Isabella: I’d rather he [Heathcliff] suffered less, if I might cause his sufferings, and he might know that I was the cause. E. Brontë, Wuthering Heights. [I don’t care how much he suffers so long as he knows that I caused it.]
Hatred 218 Hindley: Oh, if God would but give me strength to strangle him in my last agony, I’d go to hell with joy. E. Brontë, Wuthering Heights. [If I could strangle him, I would go to Hell with joy.]
Hatred 635 Hate has a keen eye. Irving Stone, The Passions of the Mind (Life of Freud). [Hate is keen.]
Hatred 182 Spinoza: To hate is to acknowledge our inferiority and our fear; we do not hate a foe whom we are confident we can overcome. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Spinoza. [To hate is to acknowledge that we are inferior and afraid; we don’t hate people who seem inferior to us.]
Hatred 190 Achilles to Hector: Hector, I’ll have not talk of pacts with you/ forever unforgiven as you are;/ as between men and lions there are none,/ no concord between wolves and sheep, but all/ hold one another hateful through and through/ so there can be no courtesy between us,/ no sworn truce, till one of us is down/ and glutting with his blood the war god Arês. Homer, Iliad. [There can never be anything but hatred between us; it is our nature to hate each other.]
Hatred, war 483 Russell: Hatred and war come largely of fixed ideas or dogmatic faith. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell. [Hatred and wars are caused by inflexible ideas and dogmatic faith.]
Health
Health 10 In good health, the air is a cordial of incredible virtue. Emerson, Nature. [When we are in good health, breathing is a joyous experience.]
Health 77 To consult the preservation of life, as the only end of it, to make our health our business, to engage in no action that is not part of a regimen, or course of physick…. Addison, 3/29/1711. The Spectator. [It is wrong to make preserving our life the sole purpose of our life.]
Heaven
Heaven 299 Cathy: He wanted all to lie in an ecstasy of peace; I wanted all to sparkle and dance in a glorious jubilee…I said his heaven would be only half alive; and he said mine would be drunk; I said I should fall asleep in his…. E. Brontë, Wuthering Heights. [Two distinctive views of heaven.]
Heaven 678 Swedenborg: …in heaven the angels are advancing continually to the spring-time of their youth, so that the oldest angel appears the youngest. Emerson, Representative Men: Swedenborg, or The Mystic. [In heaven the angels constantly grow younger.]
Hegel
Hegel 299 Hegel…forgot that his own dialectic condemned his thought to impermanence and decay. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Hegel. [Hegel did not recognize that his own theory condemned his ideas to be eventually replaced.]
Hell
Hell 292 What is hell?…the suffering of being unable to love. Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov. [Hell is not being able to love.]
Hell Badlands 128 General Alfred Scully, the craggy old Sioux baiter, coined the classic description of the Badlands when he called them “Hell with the fires out.” Christianson, Fox at the Wood’s Edge: Loren Eiseley [The Badlands are hell without the fires.]
Hate 618 He [Kennedy] detested qualities, but not people. Schlesinger, A Thousand Days [He hated people’s qualities but not the people.]
Hatred 95 Hatred is the most accessible and comprehensive of all unifying agents. Hoffer, The True Believer [Hatred unifies.]
Hatred 97 We always look for allies when we hate. Hoffer, The True Believer [When we hate we look for allies.]
Hatred 98 Often, when we are wronged by one person, we turn our hatred on a wholly unrelated person or group. Hoffer, The True Believer [Sometimes when we are wronged by someone, we turn our hatred on someone else.]
Hatred 100 We cannot hate those we despise. Hoffer, The True Believer
Hatred 102 Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life. Hoffer, The True Believer [Hatred can give meaning and purpose to empty lives.]
Hatred 183 Isabella: “The single pleasure I can imagine is to die or see him [Heathcliff] dead!” E. Brontë, Wuthering Heights. [My greatest pleasure would be to die or see him dead.]
Hatred 208 Isabella: Monster! would that he could be blotted out of creation, and out of my memory! E. Brontë, Wuthering Heights. [He is a monster who should be blotted from creation and my memory.]
Hatred 217 Isabella: I’d rather he [Heathcliff] suffered less, if I might cause his sufferings, and he might know that I was the cause. E. Brontë, Wuthering Heights. [I don’t care how much he suffers so long as he knows that I caused it.]
Hatred 218 Hindley: Oh, if God would but give me strength to strangle him in my last agony, I’d go to hell with joy. E. Brontë, Wuthering Heights. [If I could strangle him, I would go to Hell with joy.]
Hatred 635 Hate has a keen eye. Irving Stone, The Passions of the Mind (Life of Freud). [Hate is keen.]
Hatred 182 Spinoza: To hate is to acknowledge our inferiority and our fear; we do not hate a foe whom we are confident we can overcome. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Spinoza. [To hate is to acknowledge that we are inferior and afraid; we don’t hate people who seem inferior to us.]
Hatred 190 Achilles to Hector: Hector, I’ll have not talk of pacts with you/ forever unforgiven as you are;/ as between men and lions there are none,/ no concord between wolves and sheep, but all/ hold one another hateful through and through/ so there can be no courtesy between us,/ no sworn truce, till one of us is down/ and glutting with his blood the war god Arês. Homer, Iliad. [There can never be anything but hatred between us; it is our nature to hate each other.]
Hatred, war 483 Russell: Hatred and war come largely of fixed ideas or dogmatic faith. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell. [Hatred and wars are caused by inflexible ideas and dogmatic faith.]
Health
Health 10 In good health, the air is a cordial of incredible virtue. Emerson, Nature. [When we are in good health, breathing is a joyous experience.]
Health 77 To consult the preservation of life, as the only end of it, to make our health our business, to engage in no action that is not part of a regimen, or course of physick…. Addison, 3/29/1711. The Spectator. [It is wrong to make preserving our life the sole purpose of our life.]
Heaven
Heaven 299 Cathy: He wanted all to lie in an ecstasy of peace; I wanted all to sparkle and dance in a glorious jubilee…I said his heaven would be only half alive; and he said mine would be drunk; I said I should fall asleep in his…. E. Brontë, Wuthering Heights. [Two distinctive views of heaven.]
Heaven 678 Swedenborg: …in heaven the angels are advancing continually to the spring-time of their youth, so that the oldest angel appears the youngest. Emerson, Representative Men: Swedenborg, or The Mystic. [In heaven the angels constantly grow younger.]
Hegel
Hegel 299 Hegel…forgot that his own dialectic condemned his thought to impermanence and decay. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Hegel. [Hegel did not recognize that his own theory condemned his ideas to be eventually replaced.]
Hell
Hell 292 What is hell?…the suffering of being unable to love. Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov. [Hell is not being able to love.]
Hell Badlands 128 General Alfred Scully, the craggy old Sioux baiter, coined the classic description of the Badlands when he called them “Hell with the fires out.” Christianson, Fox at the Wood’s Edge: Loren Eiseley [The Badlands are hell without the fires.]
Monday, June 4, 2007
Happiness
Happiness
Happiness 383 I am happier even than Jane; she only smiles, I laugh. Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice.
Happiness 410 Happiness, he [Kennedy] often said, paraphrasing Aristotle, is the full use of one’s faculties along lines of excellence, and to him the Presidency offered the ideal opportunity to pursue excellence. Sorenson, Kennedy [Happiness is the use of one’s faculties to achieve excellence.]
Happiness 628 Ham and eggs, and after these a pipe…a “downgrade,” a flying coach, a fragrant pipe and a contented heart—these make happiness…what all the ages have struggled for. Twain, Roughing It [Happiness is ham and eggs, a pipe, a flying coach and a contented heart.]
Happiness 81 Simply to breathe was an act of joy. Irving Stone, The Passions of the Mind (Life of Freud).
Happiness 53 For men are made for happiness, and anyone who is completely happy has a right to say to himself, ‘I am doing God’s will on Earth.” Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov. [Happiness is the belief that one is doing God’s will on earth.]
Happiness 135 You’ll be happy with her, but perhaps—not tranquilly happy. Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov. [You’ll be happy but not tranquil.]
Happiness 234 Too, too well they know the value of complete submission; and until men know that, they will be unhappy. Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov. [Men are only happy when they completely submit.]
Happiness 257 Life will bring you many misfortunes, but you will find your happiness in them. Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov. [You can find happiness in misfortunes.]
Happiness 260 One day is enough for a man to know all happiness. Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov. [To live the day fully is to know happiness.]
Happiness 78 …though external goods and relationships are necessary to happiness, its essence remains within us. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Aristotle. [Material goods and relationships are necessary to happiness, but happiness resides within us.]
Happiness 112 F. Bacon: Is there then any such happiness as for a man’s mind to be raised above the confusion of things, where he may have a respect of the order of nature and the error of men? Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Francis Bacon. [Happiness is to rise above confusion to see order in nature and in the errors of men.]
Happiness 180 Spinoza…begins by making happiness the goal of conduct; and he defines happiness very simply as the presence of pleasure and the absence of pain. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Spinoza. [Happiness is the presence of pleasure and the absence of pain.]
Happiness 226 Voltaire: This world, this theater of pride and wrong,/ Swarms with sick fools who talk of happiness….. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Voltaire. [Those who talk of happiness are sick fools.]
Happiness 344 …man’s happiness depends on what he is, rather than on external circumstance. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Schopenhauer. [Happiness depends on what a person is, not on external circumstances.]
Happiness 239 …and the secret of happiness in this world is not only to be useful, but to be forever elevating one’s uses. Jewett, A Country Doctor. [Happiness is the feeling of being useful.]
Happiness 124 My own happiness in the past often approached such an ecstasy that I could not share it even with the person dearest to me but had to walk it away in quiet streets and lanes…. F. Scott Fitzgerald on Writing. [I could never communicate my happiness to others, but had to walk in quiet places.]
Happiness 749 …and happiness (which never comes but incidentally) will come to us unawares. Hawthorne, The Blithedale Romance. [Happiness always comes incidentally and catches us unawares.]
Happiness 421 The fountain-head of happiness is not without but within us…. Tolstoi, War and Peace. [Happiness is not outside of us but within us.]
Happiness 1198 Here and now for the first time in his life Pierre fully appreciated the enjoyment of eating because he was hungry, of drinking because he was thirsty, of sleep because he was sleepy, of warmth because he was cold, of talking to a fellow creature because he felt like talking and wanted to hear a human voice. Tolstoi, War and Peace [For the first time he knew the happiness of eating, drinking, sleeping, warmth and talking because he was hungry, thirsty, tired, cold and wanted to hear a human voice.]
Happiness 1199 …a superfluity of the comforts of life destroys all joy in gratifying one’s needs…. Tolstoi, War and Peace [Having too much of anything destroys the joy in it.]
Happiness 7 …none of the other animals is happy, since they in no way share in contemplation. Aristotle, Ethics. Adler and VanDoren, eds. Great Treasury of Western Thought. [Animals cannot be happy because they cannot contemplate.]
Happiness 48 True happiness…arises…from the enjoyment of one’s self. Addison, 3/17/1711. The Spectator. [True happiness is when one enjoys oneself.]
Happiness 153 A dreary look-forward this, for a man who felt it to be the best definition of happiness to live throughout the whole range of his faculties and sensibilities. Introductory: “The Custom House.” Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter. [Happiness is to live the whole range of faculties and sensibilities.]
Happiness 380 It was the sort of afternoon that might induce a couple of elderly gentlemen, in a lonely field, to take off their great-coats and play at leap-frog in pure lightness of heart and gaiety. Dickens, Pickwick. [It was the kind of afternoon that would tempt elderly gentlemen to play leap frog.]
Happiness 71 Mr. Pickwick thought he had never felt so happy in his life, and at no time so much disposed to enjoy, and make the most of, the passing moment. Dickens, Pickwick. [Happiness is making the most of the passing moment.]
Happiness 799 Let us leave our old friend in one of those moments of unmixed happiness, of which…there are ever some, to cheer our transitory existence. Dickens, Pickwick. [We have moments of happiness in our transitory existence.]
Happiness 383 I am happier even than Jane; she only smiles, I laugh. Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice.
Happiness 410 Happiness, he [Kennedy] often said, paraphrasing Aristotle, is the full use of one’s faculties along lines of excellence, and to him the Presidency offered the ideal opportunity to pursue excellence. Sorenson, Kennedy [Happiness is the use of one’s faculties to achieve excellence.]
Happiness 628 Ham and eggs, and after these a pipe…a “downgrade,” a flying coach, a fragrant pipe and a contented heart—these make happiness…what all the ages have struggled for. Twain, Roughing It [Happiness is ham and eggs, a pipe, a flying coach and a contented heart.]
Happiness 81 Simply to breathe was an act of joy. Irving Stone, The Passions of the Mind (Life of Freud).
Happiness 53 For men are made for happiness, and anyone who is completely happy has a right to say to himself, ‘I am doing God’s will on Earth.” Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov. [Happiness is the belief that one is doing God’s will on earth.]
Happiness 135 You’ll be happy with her, but perhaps—not tranquilly happy. Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov. [You’ll be happy but not tranquil.]
Happiness 234 Too, too well they know the value of complete submission; and until men know that, they will be unhappy. Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov. [Men are only happy when they completely submit.]
Happiness 257 Life will bring you many misfortunes, but you will find your happiness in them. Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov. [You can find happiness in misfortunes.]
Happiness 260 One day is enough for a man to know all happiness. Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov. [To live the day fully is to know happiness.]
Happiness 78 …though external goods and relationships are necessary to happiness, its essence remains within us. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Aristotle. [Material goods and relationships are necessary to happiness, but happiness resides within us.]
Happiness 112 F. Bacon: Is there then any such happiness as for a man’s mind to be raised above the confusion of things, where he may have a respect of the order of nature and the error of men? Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Francis Bacon. [Happiness is to rise above confusion to see order in nature and in the errors of men.]
Happiness 180 Spinoza…begins by making happiness the goal of conduct; and he defines happiness very simply as the presence of pleasure and the absence of pain. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Spinoza. [Happiness is the presence of pleasure and the absence of pain.]
Happiness 226 Voltaire: This world, this theater of pride and wrong,/ Swarms with sick fools who talk of happiness….. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Voltaire. [Those who talk of happiness are sick fools.]
Happiness 344 …man’s happiness depends on what he is, rather than on external circumstance. Will Durant, The Story of Philosophy, Schopenhauer. [Happiness depends on what a person is, not on external circumstances.]
Happiness 239 …and the secret of happiness in this world is not only to be useful, but to be forever elevating one’s uses. Jewett, A Country Doctor. [Happiness is the feeling of being useful.]
Happiness 124 My own happiness in the past often approached such an ecstasy that I could not share it even with the person dearest to me but had to walk it away in quiet streets and lanes…. F. Scott Fitzgerald on Writing. [I could never communicate my happiness to others, but had to walk in quiet places.]
Happiness 749 …and happiness (which never comes but incidentally) will come to us unawares. Hawthorne, The Blithedale Romance. [Happiness always comes incidentally and catches us unawares.]
Happiness 421 The fountain-head of happiness is not without but within us…. Tolstoi, War and Peace. [Happiness is not outside of us but within us.]
Happiness 1198 Here and now for the first time in his life Pierre fully appreciated the enjoyment of eating because he was hungry, of drinking because he was thirsty, of sleep because he was sleepy, of warmth because he was cold, of talking to a fellow creature because he felt like talking and wanted to hear a human voice. Tolstoi, War and Peace [For the first time he knew the happiness of eating, drinking, sleeping, warmth and talking because he was hungry, thirsty, tired, cold and wanted to hear a human voice.]
Happiness 1199 …a superfluity of the comforts of life destroys all joy in gratifying one’s needs…. Tolstoi, War and Peace [Having too much of anything destroys the joy in it.]
Happiness 7 …none of the other animals is happy, since they in no way share in contemplation. Aristotle, Ethics. Adler and VanDoren, eds. Great Treasury of Western Thought. [Animals cannot be happy because they cannot contemplate.]
Happiness 48 True happiness…arises…from the enjoyment of one’s self. Addison, 3/17/1711. The Spectator. [True happiness is when one enjoys oneself.]
Happiness 153 A dreary look-forward this, for a man who felt it to be the best definition of happiness to live throughout the whole range of his faculties and sensibilities. Introductory: “The Custom House.” Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter. [Happiness is to live the whole range of faculties and sensibilities.]
Happiness 380 It was the sort of afternoon that might induce a couple of elderly gentlemen, in a lonely field, to take off their great-coats and play at leap-frog in pure lightness of heart and gaiety. Dickens, Pickwick. [It was the kind of afternoon that would tempt elderly gentlemen to play leap frog.]
Happiness 71 Mr. Pickwick thought he had never felt so happy in his life, and at no time so much disposed to enjoy, and make the most of, the passing moment. Dickens, Pickwick. [Happiness is making the most of the passing moment.]
Happiness 799 Let us leave our old friend in one of those moments of unmixed happiness, of which…there are ever some, to cheer our transitory existence. Dickens, Pickwick. [We have moments of happiness in our transitory existence.]
Friday, June 1, 2007
Update on the Blog. Habit. Half-truths. Handicaps. Handwriting.
Why this Blog?
The purpose of this blog is to gather quotes from all the books I have read, many of which will be unfamiliar to my readers, and group them under topics like "achievement." I am presently only on "g" in volume one of my collected quotes. Seven volumes remain after I complete this one. These quotes are valuable just as ideas to think about but could also be useful in writing and speaking to reinforce your own ideas.
To make your use of the quotes easier, about midway through the quotes in the blog, I began to summarize wordy or convoluted quotes in plain English. You can first find the essence of the quote at the end of the quote in boldface and then read the quote to see if it is useful.
Again, I invite my readers to send their own quotes to add to my list.
Recent topics: "guilt," "greatness," "government," "God," "good," "genius," "greatness," "friendship," "character," "America," "freedom," "fate," "failure," "evil," education," etc.
Here's the beginning of the letter "h."
Habit
The purpose of this blog is to gather quotes from all the books I have read, many of which will be unfamiliar to my readers, and group them under topics like "achievement." I am presently only on "g" in volume one of my collected quotes. Seven volumes remain after I complete this one. These quotes are valuable just as ideas to think about but could also be useful in writing and speaking to reinforce your own ideas.
To make your use of the quotes easier, about midway through the quotes in the blog, I began to summarize wordy or convoluted quotes in plain English. You can first find the essence of the quote at the end of the quote in boldface and then read the quote to see if it is useful.
Again, I invite my readers to send their own quotes to add to my list.
Recent topics: "guilt," "greatness," "government," "God," "good," "genius," "greatness," "friendship," "character," "America," "freedom," "fate," "failure," "evil," education," etc.
Here's the beginning of the letter "h."
Habit
Habit 276 After one has followed a certain course for some time, everything seems to persuade one that no other is possible. Jewett, A Country Doctor. [Force of habit causes one to think that there is no other course of behavior to follow.]
Half-Truths
Half-truths 63 …this is not an authoritative textbook…[but] is a book of thoughts, and it does not shy away from half-truths so long as they seem to hint at a new approach and help to formulate new questions. Hoffer, The True Believer [The True Believer is not a textbook but a book of thoughts, including half-truths if they are useful.]
Handicaps
Handicaps 106 Thornton Wilder: Everyone is born with an array of handicaps--even Mozart, even Sophocles--and acquires new ones. Cowley, ed., Writers at Work. [We are all born with handicaps and acquire new ones as we go on in life.]
Handwriting and Social Class
Handwriting and social class 539 At that time the opinion existed that it was beneath a gentleman to write legibly, or with a hand in the least suitable to a clerk. George Eliot, Middlemarch. [If a gentleman wrote legibly, he was considered no better than a clerk.]
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