WIST

It was a time when a man with a policy would have been fatal to the country. I have never had a policy; I have simply tried to do what seemed best each day as each day came.

President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) US President (1861-65)
Remark to John M. Palmer
In Emanuel Hertz, ed., Lincoln Talks: A Biography in Anecdote, "Father Abraham" (1939)

I am the President of the most powerful nation in the world. I take orders from nobody, except photographers.

Harry S Truman (1884-1972) US President (1945-1953)
Remark to foreign dignitaries
In David Binder, "George Tames, Photographer, Dies at 75," New York Times (24 Feb 1994)

Money to get power, power to protect money.

Other Authors and Sources
Medici Family Motto (15th C)

Wealth, in even the most improbable cases, manages to convey the aspect of intelligence.

John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-2006) Canadian-American economist, diplomat, author
The Sydney Morning Herald (22 May 1982)

To play well the scenes in which we are ‘on’ concerns us much more than to guess about the scenes that follow it.

C.S. Lewis (1898-1963) English writer and scholar [Clive Staples Lewis]
The World’s Last Night (1960)

Sometime over the last week, WIST gained its 10,000th quotation. There’s a count kept in the sidebar, but it’s a bit deceptive because it includes Administrative posts (such as this), of which (prior to this one) there have ben 81. It appears that this Samuel Pepys quote was the official 10,000th.

It’s remarkable how quickly the numbers grow when you plug in five quotes every weekday, 25 a week. Though the numbers don’t always go just upward — I do periodic reviews through the collection, and occasionally come upon duplicates that need to be cleaned up.

It’s taken 24 years (!) to get to this point. At the current load rate, though, it will only take about 15 years further to get to 20,000. Best get a move on, then!

The worst policy is one made in secrecy by the experts.

John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-2006) Canadian-American economist, diplomat, author
In Michael Leapman, Times (London) (17 Jun 1971)

To photograph is to confer importance.

Susan Sontag (1933-2004) American essayist, novelist, activist
On Photography, ch. 2 (1977)

Peace is more the product of our day-to-day living than of a spectacular program, intermittently executed.

Dwight David Eisenhower (1890-1969) US President (1954-60)
Speech, Columbia University (23 Mar 1950)

Peace, above all things, is to be desired, but blood must sometimes be spilled to obtain it on equable and lasting terms.

Andrew Jackson (1767-1845) American President (1829–1837)
(Attributed)

I believe politics is the finest form of entertainment in the state of Texas: better than the zoo, better than the circus, rougher than football, and even more aesthetically satisfying than baseball. Becoming a fan of this arcane art form will yield a body endless joy — besides, they make you pay for it whether you pay attention or not.

Molly Ivins (1944-2007) American writer, political columnist [Mary Tyler Ivins]
“Good morning, Fort Worth! Glad to be here,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram (1 Mar 1992)

The Prodigal robs the Heir, the Miser himself.

Thomas Fuller (1654-1734) English writer, physician
Gnomologia, #4722 (1732)

The more a mind receives, the more does it expand.

Seneca the Younger (c. 4 BC-AD 65) Roman statesman, philosopher, playwright [Lucius Annaeus Seneca]
Moral Letters to Lucilius, 101.10 “On the Approaches to Philosophy” [tr. Gummere (1918)]

To deride patriotism marks impoverished blood, but to extol it as an ideal or an impulse above truth and justice, at the cost of the general interests of humanity, is far worse.

John, Viscount Morley (1838-1923) English politician and writer
Notes on Politics and History, ch. 5 (1913)

The God of Hell should be held in loathing, contempt and scorn. A God who threatens eternal pain should be hated, not loved — cursed, not worshiped. A heaven presided over by such a God must be below the lowest hell. I want no part in any heaven in which the saved, the ransomed and redeemed will drown with shouts of joy the cries and sobs of hell — in which happiness will forget misery, where the tears of the lost only increase laughter and double bliss.

Robert Green Ingersoll (1833-1899) American lawyer and orator
“The Great Infidels” (1881)
Full text.

The rule, acknowledged or not, seems to be that if we have great power we must use it. We would use a steam shovel to pick up a dime. We have experts who can prove there is no other way to do it.

Wendell Berry (b. 1934) American farmer, educator, poet, conservationist
“The Loss of the Future,” The Long-Legged House (1969)

The saving of our world from pending doom will come, not through the complacent adjustment of the conforming majority, but through the creative maladjustment of a nonconforming minority.

Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman and reformer
Strength to Love, 2.3 (1963)

A really new idea affronts current agreement — it wouldn’t be a new idea if it didn’t — and the group, impelled as it is to agreement, is instinctively hostile to that which is divisive.

William Hollingsworth "Holly" Whyte, Jr. (1917-1999) American sociologist, journalist, and civic planner
The Organization Man, ch. 5 (1956)

There are families in which the father will say to his child, “You’ll get a thick ear if you do that again,” while the mother, her eyes brimming over with tears, will take the child to her arms and murmur lovingly, “Now, darling, is it kind to Mummy to do that?” And who would maintain that the second method is less tyrannous than the first?

George Orwell (1903-1950) English writer [pseud. of Eric Arthur Blair]
“Lear, Tolstoy and the Fool” (1947)

To be sure, a version of the kingdom of the world that effectively carries out law, order, and justice is indeed closer to God’s will for the kingdom of the world. Decent, moral people should certainly encourage this as much as possible, whatever their religious faith might be. But no version of the kingdom of the world is closer to the kingdom of God than others because it does its job relatively well. For God’s kingdom looks like Jesus, and no amount of sword-wielding, however just it might be, can ever get a person, government, nation, or world closer to that. The kingdom of God is not an ideal version of the kingdom of the world; it’s not something that any version of the kingdom of the world can aspire toward or be measured against. The kingdom of God is a completely distinct, alternative way of doing life.

Gregory Boyd (b. 1957) American evangelical pastor, Christian theologian, author.
The Myth of a Christian Nation (2007)

The distinguishing feature of our American governmental system is the freedom of the individual; it is quite as important to prevent his being oppressed by many men as it is to save him from the tyranny of one.

Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) US President (1901-1909)
Thomas H. Benton, ch. 6 (1886)
Full text.

A Mob’s a Monster; Heads enough, but no Brains.

Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) American statesman, scientist, philosopher
Poor Richard’s Almanack (Nov 1747)

Women commend a modest Man, but like him not.

Thomas Fuller (1654-1734) English writer, physician
Gnomologia, #5805 (1732)

By “nationalism” I mean first of all the habit of assuming that human beings can be classified like insects and that whole blocks of millions or tens of millions of people can be confidently labeled “good” or “bad.” But secondly … I mean the habit of identifying oneself with a single nation or other unit, placing it beyond good and evil and recognizing no other duty than that of advancing its interests.

George Orwell (1903-1950) English writer [pseud. of Eric Arthur Blair]
“Notes on Nationalism” (May 1945)

To find the cause of our ills in something outside ourselves, something specific that can be spotted and eliminated, is a diagnosis that cannot fail to appeal. To say that the cause of our troubles is not in us but in the Jews, and pass immediately to the extermination of the Jews, is a prescription likely to find a wide acceptance.

Eric Hoffer (1902-1983) American writer, philosopher, longshoreman
The Passionate State of Mind, Sec. 126 (1955)

I look forward to an America which will not be afraid of grace and beauty … an America which will reward achievement in the arts as we reward achievement in business or statecraft.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy (1917-1963) US President (1961-63)
Remarks, Amherst College (1963)

It is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood.

Sir Karl Popper (1902-1994) Austrian-British philosopher
Unended Quest: An Intellectual Autobiography (1976)

We are more apt to persecute the unfortunates than the scoundrels; the scoundrels may retaliate.

Paul Eldridge (1888-1982) American educator, novelist, poet
(Attributed)

It is pretty to see what money will do.

Samuel Pepys (1633-1703) English diarist, naval administrator
Diary (21 Mar 1667)

Mr. David Stockman has said that supply-side economics was merely a cover for the trickle-down approach to economic policy — what an older and less elegant generation called the horse-and-sparrow theory: If you feed the horse enough oats, some will pass through to the road for the sparrows.

John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-2006) Canadian-American economist, diplomat, author
“Recession Economics,” New York Review of Books (4 Feb 1982)