Quotations

During the course of my university career, and in all the time since, I have read a massive amount of material – much of which was written by some of the greatest minds in human history.  From these great people, I have taken quotations and kept them for my own personal enlightenment and guidance. I ought to note that wisdom and inspiration does not always come from “one of the great books” – you will notice that many of the quotes below are from movies, science fiction novels, and people all around us in our everyday lives.  Here are some of my favourites:

Aut mentem parandam, aut laquem.  Plutarch, De stoicorum repugnatia.  (We must procure either understanding or a rope [for hanging ourselves with]) – Antisthenes

Non paupertas dolorem eficit, sed cupiditas. (It is not poverty that pains, but strong desire) – Epictetus.

Ferreum certe tibi cor! (Truly hast thou a heart of iron!) – Homer’s Iliad, xxiv.

Perturbant hominess non res ipsae, sed de rebus opinions. (It is not things that disturb men, but opinions about men) – Epictetus

The only problem with change is that you have something to compare it to. – A.R. Ivany

In order to attain the highest good, that is to say, bliss through peace of mind, one should live in harmony with one’s self. – Zeno

            And in harmony with [all of] nature. – added by Cleanthes

The good die first, and those whose hearts are dry as summer dust/ burn to the socket.

-- William Wordsworth

The child is father of the man. – William Wordsworth

I dropped out of high school and college so I could study. – Jack Dirt

The deep truth is imageless. – Percy Bysshe Shelly (Promethius Unbound, ActII, Sc.IV, line: 116)

Time is the moving image of eternity.  – Plato

From the sublime to the ridiculous is but a step.  – Thomas Paine

The mind is external insofar as it conceives things from the standpoint of eternity.

-- Spinoza

Are not the mountains, waves and skies, a part/ Of me and of my soul, as I am of them?

-- Lord Byron (Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, III, lxxxv)

True poesy is not in words/ But images that thoughts express/ By which the simplest hearts are stirred/ To elevated happiness.  – John Clare (Pastoral Poesy)

Her voice was the voice of his own soul/ Heard in the calm of thought; its music long,/ Like woven sounds of streams and breezes, held/ His inmost sense suspended in its web.

-- Percy Bysshe Shelley (Alastor)

The little creature and the poet become one.  Dr. E. King (speaking on Clare’s Clock A Clay, March 08, 1999).

All good poems are an attempt to capture the sound of a human voice – of someone telling a story.  – Dr. E. King (March 12, 1999)

It defines us all. – Dr. E. King (Speaking on Drama, March 12, 1999)

There has only ever been one bird . . . the symbolic bird.  – Dr. E. King (Speaking on Keats’ Ode to a Nightengale, March 24, 1999)

I know God cannot live a moment without me/ If I should come to nought, He too must cease to be. – Angelus Silesius

One of the old poets said that truth is the daughter of time. – Allus Gellius (Noctes Atticae, xii, II)

Rightly is truth called the daughter of time.  – Francis Bacon (Novum Organum, I, 84)

The proverb will be apt when someone is asked to show on the spot that he can do what he boasts he has done elsewhere.  – G.F.W. Hegel

A half philosophy leads us away from God, while true philosophy leads to God. – G.F.W. Hegel (Quoting Bacon, De Aug.Sc. I,5)

However lofty, however divine, the right of thought may be, it is perverted into wrong if it is only this [opining] which passes for thinking and if thinking knows itself to be free only when it diverges from what is universally recognized and valid and when it has discovered how to invent for itself some particular character.  – G.F.W. Hegel (Philosophy of Right, Preface)

If it is their highest impulse to be intellectual slaves, then slaves they ought to remain. – Charles Saunders Peirce (Speaking on the “Authority method of fixing belief” from The Fixation of Belief)

Philosophers are doomed to find Hegel waiting patiently at the end of whatever road we travel. – Richard Porty (From Hegel, by Raymond Plant)  *NOTE, this is not a spelling error . . . I am quoting Richard Porty here, not Richard Rorty.

It is necessary to try to surpass one’s self always; this occupation ought to last a lifetime. – Christina, Queen of Sweeden.

Great minds have purposes, others have wishes. – Washington Irving

We must always change, renew, rejuvenate ourselves; otherwise we harden.  – Johan Wolfgang Von Goethe

Success is good fortune that comes from aspiration, desperation, perspiration, and inspiration.  – Evan Esar

Pain is temporary, Pride is Forever.  – Anon (Wisdom from bathroom walls)

If a man speaks in the wood, and there is no woman around to hear him, is he still wrong? – Anon

The ability to speak does not make you intelligent. – Quai gon Jin (Phantom Menace)

Doubting everything or believing everything are two equally convenient solutions, both of which save us from reflection. – Jules Henri Poincare

Truth crushed to earth shall rise again.  – Charles Saunders Peirce (from How to Make our Ideas Clear)

Some people worship problems, others try to solve them.  – Charles Saunders Peirce

Justice without force is impotent; force without justice is tyranny.  – Blaise Pascal

The world is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those that feel. – Horace Walpole

One must pay dearly for immortality: one has to die several times while still alive.  – Frederich Nietche

If you’re going to tell a lie, make it a good one.  – Dr. R. Clarke

Not only can it be said that there is no longer a need for skilled, or qualified labor, but that there is a need for unskilled, or unqualified labor, for a dequalification of labor. – Gilles Deluze and Felix Guattari (Nomadology: The War Machine)

Life is not a problem to be solved but a mystery to be enjoyed.  – Dr. T. Lai (quoting Anon. Re: logical positivism)

Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now.  – Goethe

Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man. – Lord Bacon

Do not attempt to do a thing unless you are sure of yourself; but do not relinquish it simply because someone else is unsure of you.  – Steward E. White

The greatest reward for doing is the opportunity to do more. – Jonas Salk

Mere longevity is a good thing for those who watch life from the sidelines.  For those who play the game, an hour may be a year, a single day’s work an achievement for eternity. – Gabriel Heatter

As I grow older, I pay less attention to what men say.  I just watch what they do. – Andrew Carnegie

We can only judge of a man by his works. – Spinoza

The secret of joy in work is contained in one word – excellence.  To know how to do something well is to enjoy it. – Pearl Buck

It has been my observation that most people get ahead during the time that others waste. – Henry Ford

Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go. –T.S. Eliot

Doing what can’t be done is the glory of living.  – Samuel C. Armstrong

The ultimate aim of government is . . . liberty. – Spinoza (from A Theological-Political Treatise)

It is far from possible to impose uniformity of speech, for the more rulers strive to curtail freedom, the more obstinately they are resisted; not indeed by the avaricious, the flatterers, and other numskulls, who think supreme salvation consists in filling their stomachs and gloating over their money-bags, but by those whom good education, sound morality, and virtue have rendered more free.  – Spinoza (ibid).

How dull it is to pause, to make an end/ To rust unburnish’d, not to shine in use!  --(from Ulysses)

To Strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield!  (ibid).

If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door. – Anon.

I have no opinion, . . . No, none at all.  Opinion is politics, and politics is an evil which has caused many a fellow to be hung while he is still young and pretty.  – Cuthbert Allgood (From Wizard and Glass)

The kingdom of God is nothing that one expects; it has no yesterday and no day after tomorrow; it will not come in a thousand years – it is an experience of the heart; it is everywhere, it is nowhere. – Nietzche

We do not say that a man who shows no interests in politics is a man who minds his own business; we say that he has no business here at all.  – Pericles

For an individual, there can be no question that a few clear ideas are worth more than many confused ones. – Charles Saunders Peirce (from How to Make our Ideas Clear)

Thought is a thread of melody running though the succession of our sensations.  – Charles Saunders Peirce (ibid)

 . . . For a fool may be almost as liable to happiness or unhappiness as a wise man.  – Spinoza

 . . . for the ends of every social organization and commonwealth are . . . security and comfort; a commonwealth can only exist by the laws being binding on all. – Spinoza

Look at a day when you are supremely satisfied at the end.  It’s not a day when you lounge around doing nothing; it’s when you’ve had everything to do, and done it. – Margaret Thatcher

If your work speaks for itself, don’t interrupt it. – Henry J. Kaiser.

If you want to get a job done, give it to a busy man.  The other kind has no time. – Edward Gibbon

Knowledge is not power by itself.  It becomes power only when it is applied.  Martin S. Dangler

To love what you do and feel it matters.  – How could anything be more fun?  -- Katharine Granam

The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall. – Nelson Mandella

When I was little, my grandfather used to make me stand in a closet for five minutes without moving.  He said it was elevator practice.  – Steven Wright

The great individual is the one who does a thing for the first time.                     -- Alexander Smith.

What we hope ever to do with ease, we must learn first to do with diligence.         -- Samuel Johnson

The hardest victory is victory over self.  --Aristotle

In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is. -- Yogi Berra
 

Great minds have purpose, others have wishes.  -- Washington Irving

That which we persist in doing becomes easier --- not that the nature of the task has changed, but our ability has increased.  --Emerson.

The greatest test of courage on earth is to bear defeat without losing heart.         -- Robert Green Ingersoll

Perceive that which cannot be seen with the eye. -- Musashi Miaymoto

Baseball is ninety percent mental. The other half is physical. -- Yogi Berra

The shortest and surest way to live with honor in the world is to be in reality what we appear to be.  -- Socrates

I'm not going to buy my kids an encyclopedia. Let them walk to school like I did. -- Yogi Berra

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