Quotes
Quotes about Age
Equality, in a social sense, may be divided into that of condition, and that of rights. Equality of condition is incompatible with civilization, and is found only to exist in those communities that are but slightly removed from the savage state. In practice, it can only mean a common misery.
The essential characteristic of Western civilization that distinguishes it from the arrested and petrified civilizations of the East was and is its concern for freedom from the state. The history of the West, from the age of the Greek polis down to the present-day resistance to socialism, is essentially the history of the fight for liberty against the encroachments of the officeholders.
...it may fairly be doubted if any political tyranny ever imposed on its people such a fear, such a longing for freedom, such a paralysis of the spirit, as disease. I doubt if the average Englishman felt himself as much oppressed by Charles I as by the plague; or if any colonial American was as much in dread of taxation without representation as of smallpox. And it may reasonably be contended that Walter Reed and William Crawford Gorgas brought to man freedom in a more happy sense and in a larger measure than any military or political leader.
An ambassador is not simply an agent; he is also a spectacle.
The most successful career must show a waste of strength that might have removed mountains, and the most unsuccessful is not that of the man who is taken unprepared, but of him who has prepared and is never taken. On a tragedy of that kind our national morality is duly silent.
The feelings, sentiments, values and responses of our children, or of any citizen, are none of the government's damned business. That we must support a government agency that gives itself to the emotional and ideological manipulation of citizens is infamous.
The State always moves slowly and grudgingly towards any purpose that accrues to society's advantage, but moves rapidly and with alacrity towards one that accrues to its own advantage; nor does it ever move towards social purposes on its own initiative, but only under heavy pressure, while its motion towards anti-social purposes is self-sprung.
Much of the social history of the Western world, over the past three decades, has been a history of replacing what has worked with what sounded good. In area after area- crime, education, housing, race relations- the situation has gotten worse after the bright new theories were put into operation. The amazing thing is that this history of failure and disaster has neither discouraged the social engineers nor discredited them.
If the small minority of enlightened citizens who are able to conceive sound principles of political management do not succeed in winning the support of their fellow citizens and converting them to the endorsement of policies that bring and preserve prosperity, the cause of mankind and civilization is hopeless. There is no other means to safeguard a propitious development of human affairs than to make the masses of inferior people adopt the ideas of the elite. This has to be achieved by convincing them. It cannot be accomplished by a despotic regime that instead of enlightening the masses beats them into submission. In the long run the ideas of the majority, however detrimental they may be, will carry on. The future of mankind depends on the ability of the elite to influence public opinion in the right direction.
...one of the most notable characteristics of any Age of Conflict is the effort to achieve economic expansion by political rather than by economic means.
When I behold what pleasure is Pursuit, What life, what glorious eagerness it is, Then mark how full Possession falls from this, How fairer seems the blossom than the fruit,-- I am perplext, and often stricken mute. Wondering which attained the higher bliss, The wing'd insect, or the chrysalis It thrust aside with unreluctant foot.
For what one has in black and white, One can carry home in comfort. [Ger., Denn was man schwarz auf weiss besitzt, Kann man getrost nach Hause tragen.]
Cleon hath ten thousand acres,-- Ne'er a one have I; Cleon dwelleth in a place,-- In a cottage I.
Kind messages, that pass from land to land; Kind letters, that betray the heart's deep history, In which we feel the pressure of a hand,-- One touch of fire,--and all the rest is mystery!
I will touch My mouth unto the leaves, caressingly; And so wilt thou. Thus, from these lips of mine My message will go kissingly to thine, With more than Fancy's load of luxury, And prove a true love-letter.
He only half dies who leaves an image of himself in his sons. [It., Muore per meta chi lascia un' immagine di se stesso nei figi.]
Chill penury repress'd their noble rage, And froze the genial current of the soul.
My parents put skates on me at age 2, the way it should be if you're serious, and I've always liked it.
Praise enough To fill the ambition of a private man, That Chatham's language was his mother-tongue.
That is fine, and I would have praised you more had you praised me less. [Fr., Cela est beau, et je vous louerais davantage si vous m'aviez loue moins.]
Would I describe a preacher, . . . . I would express him simple, grave, sincere; In doctrine uncorrupt; in language plain, And plain in manner; decent, solemn, chaste, And natural in gesture; much impress'd Himself, as conscious of his awful charge, And anxious mainly that the flock he feeds May feel it too; affectionate in look, And tender in address, as well becomes A messenger of grace to guilty men.
He to whom the present is the only thing that is present, knows nothing of the age in which he lives.
Under pressure, people admit to murder, setting fire to the village church or robbing a bank, but never to being bores.
Thus unlamented pass the proud away, The gaze of fools and pageant of a day; So perish all, whose breast ne'er learn'd to glow For others' good, or melt at others' woe.
Pride is seldom delicate; it will please itself with very mean advantages.
