“February: Good Oak”, p. 8.
A Sand County Almanac, 1949, "January Thaw", "February: Good Oak" & "March: The Geese Return"
Source: Facets of a Diamond: Reflections of a Healer (2002), p. 11
“It is like writing history with lightning. And my only regret is that it is all so terribly true.”
Remarks on The Birth of a Nation attributed to Wilson by writer Thomas Dixon, after White House screening of the film, which was based on Dixon's The Clansman. Wilson later said that he disapproved of the "unfortunate film." Wilson aide Joseph Tumulty, in a letter to the Boston branch of the NAACP in response to reports of Wilson's regard for the film wrote: The President was entirely unaware of the nature of the play before it was presented and at no time has expressed his approbation of it.
Misattributed
“Man will do many things to get himself loved; he will do all things to get himself envied.”
Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar, Ch. XXI
Following the Equator (1897)
Variant: Man will do many things to get himself loved, he will do all things to get himself envied.
“The true test of a man’s character is what he does when no one is watching.”
Address to the U.S. House of Representatives (February 18, 1943)
“It's a fine thing to have ability, but the ability to discover ability in others is the true test.”
Essays, On Authorship and Style
Context: The law of simplicity and naïveté applies to all fine art, for it is compatible with what is most sublime.
True brevity of expression consists in a man only saying what is worth saying, while avoiding all diffuse explanations of things which every one can think out for himself; that is, it consists in his correctly distinguishing between what is necessary and what is superfluous. On the other hand, one should never sacrifice clearness, to say nothing of grammar, for the sake of being brief. To impoverish the expression of a thought, or to obscure or spoil the meaning of a period for the sake of using fewer words shows a lamentable want of judgment.
“A man is himself important precisely in proportion that all things seem important to him.”
Source: Sex and Character (1903), p. 127.
The Third Sacred School, Volume 7, Chapter 80
As of a Trumpet, On Eagle's Wings, The Third Sacred School
1870s, Society and Solitude (1870), Civilization
