Benjamin Franklin

I cannot conceive otherwise than that He, the Infinite Father, expects or requires no worship or praise from us, but that He is even infinitely above it. -Benjamin Franklin, statesman, author, and inventor (1706-1790)

This deistic belief must have been a great comfort to him, at least some times, as it absolved him from many duties that God has revealed to man. Of course, it precluded him from many joys as well. The truth is that the Infinite Father is a true father, and that he bends down to us in infinite love.

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Daniel Webster

"A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many bad measures." -- Daniel Webster

The panicked observer cries out, "Don't just stand there, do something - anything!!"

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Ethan Allen

In those parts of the world where learning and science have prevailed, miracles have ceased; but in those parts of it as are barbarous and ignorant, miracles are still in vogue. -Ethan Allen, revolutionary (1738-1789)

This is presented as a statement of fact, the kind of judgment that is based on empirical evidence, but it is rather an expression of prejudice typical of the Enlightenment. Allen no doubt expected his readers, children of the Enlightenment like himself, to accept it without even thinking about it, but I would like to see some data.

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Henry Ford

"You can't build a reputation on what you are going to do." -- Henry Ford

Very true. What counts is what you do.
Mt 21:28-31 The Parable of the Two Sons
"What do you think? There was a man who had two sons. He went to the first and said, 'Son, go and work today in the vineyard.'
" 'I will not,' he answered, but later he changed his mind and went.
"Then the father went to the other son and said the same thing. He answered, 'I will, sir,' but he did not go.
"Which of the two did what his father wanted?"
"The first," they answered.

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Gustave Flaubert

Be regular and orderly in your life so that you may be violent and original in your work. -Gustave Flaubert, novelist (1821-1880)

This may be good advice if your work is writing novels, but I'm not sure how widely it can apply. In most lines of work orderliness and regularity are assets, although breakthrough innovation is also highly prized, and it requires a degree of passion and originality. A combination of the two characteristics is ideal, and also uncommon, but I think steadiness must be the basis of character.

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William Lloyd Garrison

"I am in earnest; I will not equivocate; I will not excuse; I will not retreat a single inch; and I will be heard." -- William Lloyd Garrison

The Wikipedia article on Garrison has a longer excerpt from the anti-slavery newspaper in which this sentence first appeared. The typography there reflects better the thunder that Garrison intended:

I am in earnest – I will not equivocate – I will not excuse – I will not retreat a single inch – AND I WILL BE HEARD.

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William Faulkner

"Don't bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself." -- William Faulkner

This is good advice when applied to one's skills, such as writing in Faulkner's case, but even more so to one's inner life.

Col. 3: 1-13 Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. ²Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. ³For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. ⁴When Christ, who is your^[a] life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

⁵Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. ⁶Because of these, the wrath of God is coming.^{[b] 7}You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. ⁸But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. ⁹Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices ¹⁰and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. ¹¹Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.

¹²Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. ¹³Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. ¹⁴And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.

Henry Fielding

Neither great poverty nor great riches will hear reason. -Henry Fielding, author (1707-1754)

I can believe that this is often true, although I haven't had enough exposure to either great riches or great poverty to form my own opinion. I can imagine that someone in truly dire straights might choose a dangerous course that promised relief against all advice to the contrary. On the other side, I would have to suppose that if Fielding is right the cause of this rejection of reason must be pride.

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Bertrand Russell

I've made an odd discovery. Every time I talk to a savant I feel quite sure that happiness is no longer a possibility. Yet when I talk with my gardener, I'm convinced of the opposite. -Bertrand Russell, philosopher, mathematician, and author (1872-1970)

I wonder what lesson Russell drew from this discovery? The savant would probably say that the gardener just isn't equipped to see reality as it is. Personally, I'm with the gardener.

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E. B. White

"People are, if anything, more touchy about being thought silly than they are about being thought unjust." -- E. B. White

When this is true of a person, it reveals a sad self-centeredness.

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John Ruskin

Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces us up, snow is exhilarating; there is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather. -John Ruskin, author, art critic, and social reformer (1819-1900)

I am striving to develop this attitude. I say striving because as I get older, my natural tendency moves in the opposite direction. Sometimes it is easier than others. This week's weather makes me wonder what would be Ruskin's praise for sleet and freezing rain.

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Mohandas K. Gandhi

I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent. -Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869-1948)

This sounds good, but is it true? Or better, is it always true? It would be easy to find instances when it was true, but I question whether it can be raised to the level of a universal principle. Certainly there is one instance when it did not hold. The violence done against Christ resulted in the greatest good, but not the "good" the perpetrators intended. And I think Gandhi himself would say that some of the violence done against him and his followers in the nonviolent struggle for the independence of India brought lasting good, although again, not what the perpetrators intended.

Of course that is Gandhi's point, that violence never accomplishes, in a permanent way, the good that is intended by the perpetrators. But the question remains: is it always true? For example, does violence done in self-defense always ultimately fail, or in defense of another innocent victim? I do believe, however, that it is safe to say that even violence done in response to violence is in danger of being unjust and of failing to achieve its purpose. The bias in our thought should run very strongly against the use of violence in every circumstance.

Mt. 5:38-48 "You have heard that it was said, 'Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.'^{[g] 39}But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. ⁴⁰And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. ⁴¹If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. ⁴²Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.

⁴³"You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor^[h] and hate your enemy.' ⁴⁴But I tell you: Love your enemies^[i] and pray for those who persecute you, ⁴⁵that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. ⁴⁶If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? ⁴⁷And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? ⁴⁸Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

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Mark Twain

"The holy passion of Friendship is of so sweet and steady and loyal and enduring a nature that it will last through a whole lifetime, if not asked to lend money." -- Mark Twain

The structure of this one liner reminds me of Dave Barry. Is this where Dave learned it, or did he come up with it independently?

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W. H. Auden

A real book is not one that we read, but one that reads us. -W.H. Auden, poet (1907-1973)

A brief explication: A book worthy of the name is one that in the reading reveals something of the reader to himself.

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Antoine De Saint-Exupery

Page Forty-Six

"Transport of the mails, transport of the human voice, transport of flickering pictures -- in this century, as in others, our highest accomplishments still have the single aim of bringing men together." -- Antoine De Saint-Exupery

A lovely thought, but someone with a different disposition might see it differently. A militarist, for example, might say that our highest accomplishments have the single purpose of perfecting the art of war, and could cite any number of notable twentieth century achievements. Perhaps we have to say that human accomplishment, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.

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James Freeman Clarke

A politician is a man who thinks of the next election, while the statesman thinks of the next generation. -James Freeman Clarke, preacher and author (1810-1888)

Guess which we have most of these days?

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George Orwell

"On the whole, human beings want to be good, but not too good, and not quite all the time." -- George Orwell

Poignant wry humor, poignant because it seems to be very true. But why is this so? The truth is that the Good is attractive, and so human beings want to be good. But why not too good, and not all the time? Evil, the Un-good, is ugly in itself, so human beings never, in their right minds anyway, desire it directly. The explanation is that the Evil One insinuates the lie that seeking the Good is hard or tedious or uncool, or odious in some other way, and that a little vacation would be pleasant. Unfortunately, the tendency of sin is to increase, and so the common course of things is for one who gives in to sin to become more and more sinful, less and less good. And indeed we see that this is very often the case. It is a sign of God's grace that humanity did not destroy itself long ago.

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James Thurber

"It is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers." -- James Thurber

I can't say whether it really is better or not, but at least it is possible!

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Aldous Huxley

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, novelist (1894-1963)

A typical muddled usage. What do the words mean when an action is done with "good conscience" and yet is named "bad behavior"? (This "most delicious of moral treats" makes me think of the witch's magic candy in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.) There are two possible scenarios. Society calls my destructive action "bad behavior," but I know it is actually good, so I do it in good conscience. This cannot be what Huxley has in mind, or he wouldn't have called it "the most delicious of moral treats." The other scenario is that the action really is bad behavior, but I excuse myself by calling it "righteous indignation."

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James Kern Feibleman

That some good can be derived from every event is a better proposition than that everything happens for the best, which it assuredly does not. –James Kern Feibleman, philosopher and psychiatrist (1904-1987)

I agree. To say that everything happens for the best seems to deny the reality of sin. One must say that a hug is better than a knife in the back, for the giver if not for the receiver, even though, in the view from eternity, God can bring good out of both.

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Sir William Osler

"Look wise, say nothing, and grunt. Speech was given to conceal thought." -- Sir William Osler

I'm a bit puzzled by this epigram. The first sentence is advice that says "Be silent." The second sentence, however, seems to imply that one should rather speak in order to obscure your views. I have seen the first applied in numerous meetings, where one or more participants are attentive and give the appearance of being quite sagacious by not putting their thoughts out where others can criticize them. As I think about it, I remember other meetings in which the second was, no doubt, in play. Perhaps the great physician's intent is to give guidance for participating in meetings where the greatest need is to be on guard: Keep your own counsel, and don't be deceived by the contributions of others.

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Tom Clancy on winning

"We cannot fail to win unless we fail to try."-- Tom Clancy
Clancy must have a different definition of "win" than most people, especially most sports writers. I am sure the Colorado Rockies tried to win the World Series, but everything I read said they failed.

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Elbert Hubbard on friendship

Friendship, like credit, is highest where it is not used. -Elbert Hubbard, author, editor, printer (1856-1915)
This reflects a rather cynical view of friendship, a view that considers friendship as simply what someone is willing to do for me; the less I call on a friend's help, the stronger the friendship. Here is a richer perspective: Friendship is a living thing that lasts only as long as it is nourished with kindness, empathy and understanding. (Author unknown)

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Sam Harris

Imagine a world in which generations of human beings come to believe that certain films were made by God or that specific software was coded by him. Imagine a future in which millions of our descendants murder each other over rival interpretations of Star Wars or Windows 98. Could anything -- anything -- be more ridiculous? And yet, this would be no more ridiculous than the world we are living in. -Sam Harris, author (1967- )
This is outrageously false! It equates the Bible and Christian tradition with Star Wars and Windows 98. It is, however, a pretty fair summary of Harris main point in his new book, The End of Faith. Unfortunately the book is likely to pretty influential.