The True Believer (1951), Part Three: United Action and Self-Sacrifice
Context: It is easier to hate an enemy with much good in him than one who is all bad. We cannot hate those we despise. The Japanese had an advantage over us in that they admired us more than we admired them. They could hate us more fervently than we could hate them. The Americans are poor haters in international affairs because of their innate feeling of superiority over all foreigners. An American's hatred for a fellow American (for Hoover or Roosevelt) is far more virulent than any antipathy he can work up against foreigners. It is of interest that the backward South shows more xenophobia than the rest of the country. Should Americans begin to hate foreigners wholeheartedly, it will be an indication that they have lost confidence in their own way of life. <!-- p. 96
“We mustn’t complain too much of being comedians—it’s an honourable profession. If only we could be good ones the world might gain at least a sense of style. We have failed—that’s all. We are bad comedians, we aren’t bad men.”
Pt. 1, ch. 5, sct. 2
The Comedians (1966)
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Graham Greene 164
English writer, playwright and literary critic 1904–1991Related quotes
“Men are pigs. Too bad we own everything.”
As quoted in It's A Man's World : 800 Jokes from the Guy's (Warped) Point of View (2005) by Judy Brown, p. 132
“I learned that we are all good and bad instead of good or bad”
Context: Many men, aware of the treatment I received at the hands of Walter Dawson, have asked me why I did not avenge the wrongs he inflicted on me. I am not aware that he did inflict wrong on me … I did some good through being blacklisted. It made me more than determined to perfect an organization that would render blacklisting impossible; it made me mayor of Scranton where I learned that we are all good and bad instead of good or bad. It taught me how to put myself in the place of the vilest, filthiest, lowest-down tramp that comes to me for help. It taught me when men were brought before me for trial how to pierce the veil between cause and effect, between motive and act; it enabled me to come down from the bench as a magistrate, a representative of the law, and before the bar of my own heart, and conscience, place the prisoner then before me on the bench in my stead.
Variant: We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people.
“If we men married the women we deserved, we should have a very bad time of it.”
Lord Goring, Act IV
An Ideal Husband (1895)
Coronavirus task force press briefing, , quoted in * 2020-03-17
The Last Great Pandemic
Jarrett Stepman
The Daily Signal
https://www.dailysignal.com/2020/03/17/the-last-great-pandemic/
2020s, 2020, March
Source: Nature of Man and His Government (1959), p. 81
Trump talked about the 1.59 million confirmed cases of Covid-19, as quoted in * 2020-05-19
Coronavirus: Trump says it’s ‘badge of honour’ for US to lead world in Covid-19 cases
2020s, 2020, May
Source: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-coronavirus-cases-us-covid-death-toll-a9523166.html
Roosevelt to Henry M. Heymann (2 December 1919), as quoted in Roosevelt and Howe (1962), by Alfred B. Rollins, Jr., p. 153
1910s