“He that to ancient wreaths can bring no more
From his own worth, dies bankrupt on the score.”
John Cleveland (1613–1658) English poet
The Times.
Pt. I, lines 900–901.
Absalom and Achitophel (1681)
“He that to ancient wreaths can bring no more
From his own worth, dies bankrupt on the score.”
John Cleveland (1613–1658) English poet
The Times.
Daniel Abraham (1969) speculative fiction writer from the United States
Source: Caliban's War (2012), Chapter 30 (p. 330)
Francis Galton (1822–1911) British polymath: geographer, statistician, pioneer in eugenics
Inquiries Into Human Faculty and Its Development (1883), p. 80
Inquiries Into Human Faculty and Its Development (1883)
Fulton J. Sheen (1895–1979) Catholic bishop and television presenter
Source: Seven Words of Jesus and Mary: Lessons from Cana and Calvary
Joseph Stalin (1879–1953) General secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
Report to the Seventeenth Party Congress on the Work of the Central Committee of the C.P.S.U. (B.) https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1934/01/26.htm (January 26, 1934) <br class="br">Stalin's speeches, writings and authorised interviews <br class="br">Context: Still others think that war should be organised by a "superior race," say, the German "race," against an "inferior race," primarily against the Slavs; that only such a war can provide a way out of the situation, for it is the mission of the "superior race" to render the "inferior race" fruitful and to rule over it. Let us assume that this queer theory, which is as far removed from science as the sky from the earth, let us assume that this queer theory is put into practice. What may be the result of that? It is well known that ancient Rome looked upon the ancestors of the present-day Germans and French in the same way as the representatives of the "superior race" now look upon the Slav races. It is well known that ancient Rome treated them as an "inferior race," as "barbarians," destined to live in eternal subordination to the "superior race," to "great Rome", and, between ourselves be it said, ancient Rome had some grounds for this, which cannot be said of the representatives of the "superior race" of today. (Thunderous applause.) But what was the upshot of this? The upshot was that the non-Romans, i. e., all the "barbarians," united against the common enemy and brought Rome down with a crash. The question arises: What guarantee is there that the claims of the representatives of the "superior race" of today will not lead to the same lamentable results? What guarantee is there that the fascist literary politicians in Berlin will be more fortunate than the old and experienced conquerors in Rome? Would it not be more correct to assume that the opposite will be the case?
Robert Chambers (publisher, born 1802) book Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation
Source: Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1844), p. 276
Context: Is our race but the initial of the grand crowning type? Are there yet to be species superior to us in organization, purer in feeling, more powerful in device and act, and who shall take a rule over us! There is in this nothing improbable on other grounds. The present race, rude and impulsive as it is, is perhaps the best adapted to the present state of things in the world; but the external world goes through slow and gradual changes, which may leave it in time a much serener field of existence. There may then be occasion for a nobler type of humanity, which shall complete the zoological circle on this planet, and realize some of the dreams of the purest spirits of the present race.
Plutarch (46–127) ancient Greek historian and philosopher
54 Iphicrates
Apophthegms of Kings and Great Commanders
“Welcome to the human race. Nobody controls his own life, Ender.”
Orson Scott Card book Ender's Game
Source: Ender's Game
Margaret Fuller (1810–1850) American feminist, poet, author, and activist
"American Facts" in Life Without and Life Within (1860) edited by Arthur Buckminster Fuller, p. 108.