H. G. Wells book The Island of Doctor Moreau
Source: The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896), Ch. 21: The Reversion of the Beast Folk
“Accident, he wondered, or a way of hiding? Trapped or planned? He had no way of knowing and further speculation was ridiculous, based as it necessarily must be upon earlier assumptions that were entirely without support.”
“The Thing in the Stone” (pp. 211-212); originally published in Worlds of If, March 1970
Short Fiction, Skirmish (1977)
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Clifford D. Simak137
American writer, journalist 1904–1988Related quotes
Josef Pieper (1904–1997) German philosopher
Source: Leisure, the Basis of Culture (1948), The Philosophical Act, p. 106
“In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens you can bet it was planned that way.”
Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945) 32nd President of the United States
There are no records of Roosevelt having made such a statement, and this is most likely a misquotation of the widely reported comment he made in a speech at the Citadel (23 October 1935):
: Yes, we are on our way back — not just by pure chance, my friends, not just by a turn of the wheel, of the cycle. We are coming back more soundly than ever before because we are planning it that way. Don't let anybody tell you differently.
Misattributed
Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936) 19th-20th century Spanish writer and philosopher
The Tragic Sense of Life (1913), XI : The Practical Problem
Context: He who bases or thinks he bases his conduct — his inward or his outward conduct, his feeling or his action — upon a dogma or a principle which he deems incontrovertible, runs the risk of becoming a fanatic, and moreover, the moment that this dogma is weakened or shattered, the morality based upon it gives way. If the earth that he thought firm begins to rock, he himself trembles at the earthquake, for we do not all come up to the standard of the ideal Stoic who remains undaunted among the ruins of a world shattered into atoms. Happily the stuff that is underneath a man's ideas will save him. For if a man should tell you that he does not defraud or cuckold his best friend only because he is afraid of hell, you may depend upon it that neither would he do so even if he were to cease to believe in hell, but that he would invent some other excuse instead. And this is all to the honor of the human race.
William Cowper (1731–1800) (1731–1800) English poet and hymnodist
The opening statement is often paraphrased: God moves in mysterious ways his wonders to perform.
No. 35, "Light Shining out of Darkness".
Olney Hymns (1779)
Carlos Castaneda book The Wheel of Time
Source: The Wheel of Time: Shamans of Ancient Mexico, Their Thoughts About Life, Death and the Universe], (1998), Quotations from "Journey to Ixtlan" (Chapter 8)
Philippa Foot (1920–2010) British philosopher
"Moral Beliefs"