Source: The Human Comedy : As Devised and Directed by Mankind Itself (1937), Ch. 1
Context: It is a poor technic when attempting to convert one's neighbor to attack his beliefs directly, especially those of the sacred variety. We may flatter ourselves that we are undermining them by our potent reasoning only to find that we have shored them up so that they are firmer than ever. Often history will work where nothing else will. It very gently modifies one's attitude. Refutations are weak compared with its mild but potent operation. To become historically-minded is to be grown-up.
“Those whose conduct gives room for talk
Are always the first to attack their neighbors.”
Ceux de qui la conduite offre le plus à rire
Sont toujours sur autrui les premiers à médire.
Act I, sc. i
Tartuffe (1664)
The trial of Charles B. Reynolds for blasphemy (1887)
The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), VI Perspective of Colour and Aerial Perspective
Sher Shah Sur (AD 1538-1545) Jodhpur (Rajasthan) Tarikh-i-Da‘udi in Sharma, Sri Ram, Religious Policy of the Mughal Emperors, Bombay, 1962.
Source: Civilization and Its Discontents
National Book Award Acceptance Speech (1957)
Context: It is true that the poet does not directly address his neighbors; but he does address a great congress of persons who dwell at the back of his mind, a congress of all those who have taught him and whom he has admired; that constitute his ideal audience and his better self. To this congress the poet speaks not of peculiar and personal things, but of what in himself is most common, most anonymous, most fundamental, most true of all men. And he speaks not in private grunts and mutterings but in the public language of the dictionary, of literary tradition, and of the street. Writing poetry is talking to oneself; yet it is a mode of talking to oneself in which the self disappears; and the products something that, though it may not be for everybody, is about everybody.
"That what Everybody Says must be True".
Sketches from Life (1846)
“One defends when his strength is inadequate; he attacks when it is abundant.”
Source: The Art of War, Chapter IV · Disposition of the Army
Prologue
Beyond Belief: Islamic Excursions Among the Converted Peoples (1998)
