Timothy > Timothy's Quotes

“The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true.”
― James Branch Cabell, The Silver Stallion

“There is not any memory with less satisfaction than the memory of some temptation we resisted.”
― James Branch Cabell

“For although this was a very heroic war, with a parade of every sort of high moral principle, and with the most sonorous language employed upon both sides, it somehow failed to bring about either the reformation or the ruin of humankind: and after the conclusion of the murdering and general breakage, the world went on pretty much as it has done after all other wars, with a vague notion that a deal of time and effort had been unprofitably invested, and a conviction that it would be inglorious to say so.”
― James Branch Cabell, Figures of Earth

“He who laughs at himself never runs out of things to laugh at.”
― Epictetus

“Only the educated are free.”
― Epictetus

“Nature hath given men one tongue but two ears, that we may hear from others twice as much as we speak.”
― Epictetus, The Golden Sayings of Epictetus

“To accuse others for one's own misfortune is a sign of want of education. To accuse oneself shows that one's education has begun. To accuse neither oneself nor others shows that one's education is complete.”
― Epictetus

“First learn the meaning of what you say, and then speak.”
― Epictetus

“It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows.”
― Epictetus

“If anyone tells you that a certain person speaks ill of you, do not make excuses about what is said of you but answer, "He was ignorant of my other faults, else he would not have mentioned these alone.”
― Epictetus

“O, brave new world
that has such people in't!”
― William Shakespeare, The Tempest

“The state — or, to make matters more concrete, the government — consists of a gang of men exactly like you and me. They have, taking one with another, no special talent for the business of government; they have only a talent for getting and holding office. Their principal device to that end is to search out groups who pant and pine for something they can’t get, and to promise to give it to them. Nine times out of ten that promise is worth nothing. The tenth time it is made good by looting ‘A’ to satisfy ‘B’. In other words, government is a broker in pillage, and every election is a sort of advanced auction on stolen goods.”
― H.L. Mencken

“You have never seen ugliness in a happy face.”
― William J. Locke, The Belovéd Vagabond

“Don't be a genius, my son, it isn't good for anybody.”
― William J. Locke, The Beloved Vagabond

“The surest way to work up a crusade in favor of some good cause is to promise people they will have a chance of maltreating someone. To be able to destroy with good conscience, to be able to behave badly and call your bad behavior 'righteous indignation' — this is the height of psychological luxury, the most delicious of moral treats.”
― Aldous Huxley, Crome Yellow

“At the turn of the twentieth century, the first wave of academic political scientists attacked some of their theoretical predecessors for the supposed mistake of assuming that human beings were entirely rational. This mistake had allegedly been made by politicians and theorists who had tried to appeal to voters in terms of purely rational argument. The new political scientists triumphantly pointed out that image, stereotype, the emotions arising in crowds, family background, and many other irrational factors were actually the main determinants of political behaviour.”
― Kenneth Minogue, Politics: A Very Short Introduction

“Politics is the activity by which the framework of human life is sustained; it is not life itself.”
― Kenneth Minogue, Politics: A Very Short Introduction

“In a world in which the personal is widely believed to be the political, the sheep of toleration soon turns into the wolf that demands acceptance, indeed, admiration.”
― Kenneth Minogue

“It is said that the price of freedom is vigilance, and an important form of vigilance is attention to political rhetoric, which often reveals how things are going.”
― Kenneth Minogue, Politics: A Very Short Introduction

“As Hobbes remarked, in war, force and fraud are the cardinal virtues, and he regarded international relations as always potentially a condition of war. Cavour, one of the creators of a united Italy in the nineteenth century, is reported as remarking: ‘What scoundrels we would be if we had done for ourselves what we have done for our country.”
― Kenneth Minogue, Politics: A Very Short Introduction

“No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—
Almost, at times, the Fool.”
― T.S. Eliot.

“-Why do you live in hotels?

-It simplifies postal matters, it eliminates the nuisance of private ownership, it confirms me in my favorite habit-- the habit of freedom.”
― Vladimir Nabokov

“All are lunatics, but he who can analyze his delusion is called a philosopher.”
― Ambrose Bierce, The Collected Writings Of Ambrose Bierce

“Selfish, adj. Devoid of consideration for the selfishness of others.”
― Ambrose Bierce, The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary

“Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum -- "I think that I think, therefore I think that I am;" as close an approach to certainty as any philosopher has yet made.”
― Ambrose Bierce, The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary

“O dark dark dark. They all go into the dark,
The vacant interstellar spaces, the vacant into the vacant”
― T. S. Eliot

“I quite fixedly believe the Wardens of Earth sometimes unbar strange windows, that face on other worlds than ours. And some of us, I think, once in a while get a peep through these windows. But we are not permitted to get a long peep, or an unobstructed peep, nor very certainly, are we permitted to see all there is — out yonder. The fatal fault, sir, of your theorizing is that it is too complete. It aims to throw light upon the universe, and therefore is self-evidently moonshine. The Wardens of Earth do not desire that we should understand the universe, Mr. Kennaston; it is part of Their appointed task to insure that we never do; and because of Their efficiency every notion that any man, dead, living, or unborn, might form as to the universe will necessarily prove wrong.”
― James Branch Cabell, The Cream of the Jest