“Treat people as if they were what they ought to be and you help them to become what they are capable of being.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, quoted in J.W. Marriott Jr. and Kathi Ann Brown, The Spirit to Serve: Marriott’s Way.
“Vaguely in the course of time (and more especially in our Protestant countries) the Reformation has come to stand for the idea of ‘liberty of thought.’ Martin Luther is represented as the vanguard of progress. But when history is something more than a series of flattering speeches addressed to our own glorious ancestors, when to use the words of the German historian Ranke, we try to discover what ‘actually happened,’ then much of the past is seen in a very different light. Few things in human life are either entirely good or entirely bad. Few things are either black or white.”
Hendrik Van Loon The Story of Mankind
“When a politician says the debate is over, you can be sure of two things: the debate is raging, and he’s losing it.”
“George Will, political commentator” as “Quote of the Week” “Weekly Climate and Energy News Roundup #499” from Watts Up With That 11/4/22 [https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/04/11/weekly-climate-and-energy-news-roundup-499/] with “H/t Ron Clutz]”
In my latest Epoch Times column I say the arrogance behind the Prime Minister’s sneering refusal to admit he’s the one who stayed in that $6k/night London hotel suite is a major problem in Canadian public affairs.
“The kid, meantime, is frozen, like a rabbit frozen by the eyebeams of a cougar. He knows it is time to split, but he can’t move. He is stricken stiff and fascinated by his own impending destruction.”
Tom Wolfe The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (regarding a hapless young man being tormented by a Hells Angel)
“Keep on going, and the chances are that you will stumble on something, perhaps when you are least expecting it. I have never heard of anyone ever stumbling on something sitting down.”
Charles F. Kettering, quoted by Jeff Hayden on Inc. online (www.inc.com/jeff-haden/top-350-inspiring-motivational-quotes-to-tweet-and-share.html
“If we stand still, we shall be frozen to death. If we take the wrong road, we shall be dashed to pieces. We do not certainly know whether there is any right one. What must we do? ‘Be strong and of a good courage.’ Act for the best, hope for the best, and take what comes. Above all, let us dream no dreams, and tell no lies, but go our way, wherever it may lead, with our eyes open and our heads erect. If death ends all, we cannot meet it better. If not, let us enter whatever may be the next scene like honest men, with no sophistry in our mouths and no masks on our faces.”
End of James Fitzjames Stephen, Liberty Equality Fraternity (as the footnote in my copy notes, the quotation is from Deuteronomy XXXI:6-7)
“It starts off like a Hungarian omelette: First, steal one egg.”
David Niven’s character Col. W.H. Grice in the 1980 movie The Sea Wolves.