“Starting in a hollowed log of wood — some thousand miles up a river, with an infinitesimal prospect of returning! I ask myself 'Why?' and the only echo is 'damned fool!… the Devil drives'.”

—  Richard Francis Burton

Burton to Lord Houghton as quoted in The Devil Drives: A life of Sir Richard Burton (1984) by Fawn Brodie.

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Richard Francis Burton78
British explorer, geographer, translator, writer, soldier, … 1821–1890

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Richard Francis Burton photo

“Starting in a hollowed log of wood — some thousand miles up a river, with an infinitesimal prospect of returning! I ask myself 'Why?”

Richard Francis Burton (1821–1890) British explorer, geographer, translator, writer, soldier, orientalist, cartographer, ethnologist, spy, lin…

and the only echo is 'damned fool!... the Devil drives'.
Burton to Lord Houghton as quoted in The Devil Drives: A life of Sir Richard Burton (1984) by Fawn Brodie.

Samuel Goldwyn photo

“The next time I send a damn fool for something, I go myself.”

Samuel Goldwyn (1879–1974) American film producer (1879-1974).

Reported in Paul F. Boller, John George, They Never Said It (1990), p. 41-42.
Misattributed

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“Down a path worn into the woods, past a stream and a hollowed-out log full of pill bugs and termites, was a glass coffin. It rested right on the ground, and in it slept a boy with horns on his head and ears as pointed as knives.”

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“Now it stands to reason, mister, any damn fool stares into the sun long enough, he'll end up seeing exactly what some other damn fool tells him he's going to see.”

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“I am twelve thousand miles wiser, twelve thousand miles more resilient, and I have twelve thousand miles more faith in God.”

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“Any damn fool can beg up some kind of job; it takes a wise man to make it without working.”

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“It is as well to be born in the first chapter as elsewhere, and though I have only secondary evidence as to the fact, believe it happened as related to me afterwards by my mother, who said the doctor found me in an old hollow log and, as our house happened to be nearest to the log in question, he wrapped me up in his cloak, carried me to the house and left me with mother.”

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[Powderly, Terence, 'The Path I Trod: The Autobiography of Terence V. Powderly, 1940, Columbia University Press, 9781163178164, https://archive.org/stream/pathitrodautobio00powdrich, 8]

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“A cannonball travels only two thousand miles an hour; light travels two hundred thousand miles a second. Such is the superiority of Jesus Christ over Napoleon.”

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“The Devil is an echo
Of search unsatisfied.”

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“If something knocks you five degrees out of whack, the journey of a thousand miles that begins with a single step ends up thousands of miles away from its intended destination.”

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http://cerebusfangirl.com/artists/0805talk.php

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