
Source: Souls of Black Folk & Era of Franklin D. Roosevelt 1933-1945 & Movements of the New Left 1950-1975
Written by Frank Woodworth Pine in his introduction to the 1916 publication of The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin https://www.gutenberg.org/files/20203/20203-h/20203-h.htm. Pine, F.W. (editor). Henry Holt and Company via Gutenberg Press. (1916). Introduction.
The Autobiography (1818), The Autobiography (1916)
Source: Souls of Black Folk & Era of Franklin D. Roosevelt 1933-1945 & Movements of the New Left 1950-1975
The Kasîdah of Hâjî Abdû El-Yezdî (1870)
Context: Do what thy manhood bids thee do, from none but self expect applause;
He noblest lives and noblest dies who makes and keeps his self-made laws.
All other Life is living Death, a world where none but Phantoms dwell,
A breath, a wind, a sound, a voice, a tinkling of the camel-bell.
That is the true genius of America—a faith in simple dreams, an insistence on small miracles.
2004, Democratic National Convention speech (July 2004)
“The most remarkable discovery made by scientists is science itself.”
Source: The Creative Process, 1958, p. 97 Partly cited in: Daniel C. Schlenof. " 50 Years Ago: Greatest Scientific Discovery is Science Itself http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/50-100-150-scientific-creativity/," in Scientific American, Aug. 18, 2008.
Context: The most remarkable discovery made by scientists is science itself. The discovery must be compared in importance with the invention of cave-painting and of writing. Like these earlier human creations, science is an attempt to control our surroundings by entering into them and understanding them from inside. And like them, science has surely made a critical step in human development which cannot be reversed. We cannot conceive a future society without science. I have used three words to describe these far - reaching changes : discovery, invention and creation. There are contexts in which one of these words is more appropriate than the others.
Source: The Outsider (1956), Chapter Eight, The Outsider as a Visionary
Source: Self-Consciousness : Memoirs (1989), Ch. 6
Variant: Self-importance is our greatest enemy. Think about it - what weakens us is feeling offended by the deeds and misdeeds of our fellowmen. Our self-importance requires that we spend most of our lives offended by someone.
Source: Fire from Within
The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table (1858)
On Boswell’s Life of Johnson (1831)