Source: Letters to Milena
“Man is the only one to whom the torture and death of his fellow creatures is amusing in itself.”
James Anthony Froude (1818–1894) English historian, novelist, biographer, and editor of Fraser's Magazine
Oceana, or, England and Her Colonies (1886) [C. Scribner's Sons, 1972, 396 pages], p. 67
Context: Wild animals never kill for sport. Man is the only one to whom the torture and death of his fellow creatures is amusing in itself.
“It's only when a man tames his own demons that he becomes the king of himself if not of the world.”
Joseph Campbell (1904–1987) American mythologist, writer and lecturer
Comments on a passage in Where the Wild Things Are (1963) by Maurice Sendak, as quoted by Bill Moyers in "NOW with Bill Moyers", PBS (12 March 2004) http://www.pbs.org/now/arts/sendak.html <br class="br">Source: The Hero With a Thousand Faces
Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer
Source: The Liberty of Man, Woman and Child (1877)
Context: Only a few years ago there was a great awakening of the human mind. Men began to inquire by what right a crowned robber made them work for him? The man who asked this question was called a traitor. Others asked by what right does a robed hypocrite rule my thought? Such men were called infidels. The priest said, and the king said, where is this spirit of investigation to stop? They said then and they say now, that it is dangerous for man to be free. I deny it. Out on the intellectual sea there is room enough for every sail. In the intellectual air there is space enough for every wing.
The man who does not do his own thinking is a slave, and is a traitor to himself and to his fellow-men.
Sydney Smith (1771–1845) English writer and clergyman
Referring to the lack of established culture and the established institution of slavery in the United States, in "Review of Seybert’s Annals of the United States", published in The Edinburgh Review (1820)
Context: In the four quarters of the globe, who reads an American book? Or goes to an American play? or looks at an American picture or statue? What does the world yet owe to American physicians or surgeons? What new substances have their chemists discovered? Or what old ones have they advanced? What new constellations have been discovered by the telescopes of Americans? Who drinks out of American glasses? Or eats from American plates? Or wears American coats or gowns? or sleeps in American blankets? Finally, under which of the old tyrannical governments of Europe is every sixth man a slave, whom his fellow-creatures may buy and sell and torture?
Edward Steichen (1879–1973) American photographer, artist and curator
Edward Steichen (1967),, cited in: National Portrait Gallery (Smithsonian Institution), Carolyn Kinder Carr, National Portrait Gallery (Great Britain) (2003). Americans: paintings and photographs from the National Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC, Deel 3. p. 207
“Man's knowledge, save before his fellow man,
Is ignorance—his widest wisdom folly.”
Theodore Watts-Dunton (1832–1914) English literary critic and poet
The Coming of Love and Other Poems (1897)
Source: "Prophetic Pictures at Venice VII: New Year's Morning, 1867", p. 207.
William Morris book A Dream of John Ball
Source: A Dream of John Ball (1886), Ch. 4: The Voice of John Ball
Context: Forsooth, he that waketh in hell and feeleth his heart fail him, shall have memory of the merry days of earth, and how that when his heart failed him there, he cried on his fellow, were it his wife or his son or his brother or his gossip or his brother sworn in arms, and how that his fellow heard him and came and they mourned together under the sun, till again they laughed together and were but half sorry between them. This shall he think on in hell, and cry on his fellow to help him, and shall find that therein is no help because there is no fellowship, but every man for himself.
