“There is no greatness where there is not simplicity, goodness, and truth.”
Leo Tolstoy book War and Peace
Source: War and Peace
Bk. XIV, ch. 18
War and Peace (1865–1867; 1869)
“There is no greatness where there is not simplicity, goodness, and truth.”
Leo Tolstoy book War and Peace
Source: War and Peace
Ursula K. Le Guin (1929–2018) American writer
Source: Earthsea Books, The Other Wind (2001), Chapter 5 “Rejoining” (p. 284)
“You are perfect for a female."
"Not where I come from."
"Then they're using the wrong standard.”
Jessica Bird (1969) U.S. novelist
Source: Lover Unleashed
Kirby Page (1890–1957) American clergyman
Source: The Sword or the Cross, Which Should be the Weapon of the Christian Militant? (1921), Ch.4 p. 69-70
Context: None of us believes that rulers are infallible or that their commands should constitute our highest standard of right and wrong. Quite apart from the belief of the ruler, the method of war is either Christian or un-Christian, and his command does not determine whether our participation in it is moral or immoral. Therefore, the Christian citizen must come to his decision on a basis of the spirit and teaching of Jesus, quite independently of the command of the ruler. To say that Jesus and St. Paul recognize the function of the state is not to say that they command the Christian to participate in war when ordered to do so by the ruler of the nation; any more than their recognition of the state meant that they sanctioned human slavery, polygamy, extortion and the other evil practices which were approved by the [Roman] state.
John Lubbock, 1st Baron Avebury book The Use of Life
The Use of Life (1894), ch. VI: National Education <br class="br">Source: The Use of Life http://archive.org/details/uselife02lubbgoog/page/n114/mode/2up on Archive.Org, pages 102—103
Wendell Berry (1934) author
"A Native Hill"
The Long-Legged House (1969)
Context: We have lived by the assumption that what was good for us would be good for the world. We have been wrong. We must change our lives, so that it will be possible to live by the contrary assumption that what is good for the world will be good for us... We must recover the sense of the majesty of the creation and the ability to be worshipful in its presence. For it is only on the condition of humility and reverence before the world that our species will be able to remain in it.
J.C. Ryle (1816–1900) Anglican bishop
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 528.