“What could I do! Facts are such horrid things!”
Jane Austen book Lady Susan
Source: "Lady Susan", Letter XXXII (1871)
Source: Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852), Ch. 20 Topsy
Context: The horrid cruelties and outrages that once and a while find their way into the papers — such cases as Prue's, for example — what do they come from? In many cases, it is a gradual hardening process on both sides — the owner growing more and more cruel, as the servant more and more callous. Whipping and abuse are like laudanum; you have to double the dose as the sensibilities decline.
“What could I do! Facts are such horrid things!”
Jane Austen book Lady Susan
Source: "Lady Susan", Letter XXXII (1871)
Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) Bengali polymath
Sādhanā : The Realisation of Life http://www.spiritualbee.com/spiritual-book-by-tagore/ (1916) <br class="br">Context: Of course man is useful to man, because his body is a marvellous machine and his mind an organ of wonderful efficiency. But he is a spirit as well, and this spirit is truly known only by love. When we define a man by the market value of the service we can expect of him, we know him imperfectly. With this limited knowledge of him it becomes easy for us to be unjust to him and to entertain feelings of triumphant self-congratulation when, on account of some cruel advantage on our side, we can get out of him much more than we have paid for. But when we know him as a spirit we know him as our own. We at once feel that cruelty to him is cruelty to ourselves, to make him small is stealing from our own humanity...
Warren E. Burger (1907–1995) Chief Justice of the United States from 1969 to 1986
" Excerpts From Interview With Chief Justice Burger on Role of the Supreme Court http://www.nytimes.com/1971/07/04/archives/excerpts-from-interview-with-chief-justice-burger-on-role-of-the.html", The New York Times (July 4, 1971).
“It's not what we do once in a while that shapes our lives. It's what we do consistently.”
Anthony Robbins (1960) Author, actor, professional speaker
“What you do every day matters more than what you do once in a while.”
Gretchen Rubin (1966) American writer
Source: The Happiness Project: Or Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun
Alex Salmond (1954) Scottish National Party politician and former First Minister of Scotland
Citizens Advice Bureaux (August 15, 2007)
Thomas Paine book The Age of Reason
Source: 1790s, The Age of Reason, Part II (1795), Chapter III: Conclusion.
Douglas Crockford (1955) American computer programmer
In response to David Winer http://scripting.wordpress.com/2006/12/21/scripting-news-for-12212006/