Thomas Robert Malthus Principles of Political Economy
Book I, Introduction, p. 8
Principles of Political Economy (Second Edition 1836)
As quoted in Bharathiar's 125th anniversary tribute "The People's Poet" by N. Nandhivarman in TamilSydney (7 January 2008) http://www.sangam.org/2008/01/Bharathiar.php?uid=2727 <br class="br">Context: Fools! Do you argue, that things ancient ought, on that account, to be true and noble! Fallacies and Falsehoods there were from time immemorial, and dare you argue that because these are ancient these should prevail?<br>In ancient times, do you think that there was not the ignorant, and the shallow minded? And why after all should you embrace so fondly a carcass of dead thoughts. Live in the present and shape the future, do not be casting lingering looks to the distant past for the past has passed away, never again to return.
Thomas Robert Malthus Principles of Political Economy
Book I, Introduction, p. 8
Principles of Political Economy (Second Edition 1836)
Edmund Burke (1729–1797) Anglo-Irish statesman
Final Speech at the Trial of Warren Hastings, 28 May 1794; in The Works of the Rt. Hon. Edmund Burke, vol. 8 (1877) 5th edition, p. 51
On the Impeachment of Warren Hastings (1788-1794)
Context: On one side, your lordships have the prisoner declaring that the people have no laws, no rights, no usages, no distinctions of rank, no sense of honor, no property; in short that they are nothing but a herd of slaves to be governed by the arbitrary will of a master. On the other side, we assert that the direct contrary of this is true. And to prove our assertion we have referred you to the institutes of Ghinges Khân and of Tamerlane: we have referred you to the Mahomedan law, which is binding upon all, from the crowned head to the meanest subject; a law interwoven with a system of the wisest, the most learned, and most enlightened jurisprudence that perhaps ever existed in the world. We have shown you, that if these parties are to be compared together, it is not the rights of the people which are nothing, but rather the rights of the sovereign which are so. The rights of the people are every thing, as they ought to be in the true and natural order of things.
“I argue with lots of things, but I do not argue with my ears.”
Dave Marsh (1950) American music critic, author, editor and radio talk show host
Interview with rockcritics.com http://rockcriticsarchives.com/interviews/davemarsh/01.html
“I am giving an account of what was, not of what ought or ought not to be.”
Daniel Defoe book Moll Flanders
Source: Moll Flanders
Tiffanie DeBartolo (1970) American writer
Source: How to Kill a Rock Star
Randall Jarrell (1914–1965) poet, critic, novelist, essayist
“Poets: Old, New, and Aging”, p. 44
Kipling, Auden & Co: Essays and Reviews 1935-1964 (1980)
Richard Feynman book The Meaning of It All
lecture III: "This Unscientific Age"
The Meaning of It All (1999)
“Never argue with a fool, onlookers may not be able to tell the difference.”
Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist
Billy Joel (1949) American singer-songwriter and pianist
The Longest Time.
Song lyrics, An Innocent Man (1983)