Letter to William Cabell (6 May 1783)
“If the preservation of our freedom depends upon the courts then we are, indeed, lost,”
Henry Steele Commager (1902–1998) American historian
Source: Freedom, Loyalty, Dissent (1954), p. 6
Context: If the preservation of our freedom depends upon the courts then we are, indeed, lost, for in the long run neither courts nor Constitution can save us from our own errors, follies, or wickedness.
John Buchan (1875–1940) British politician
"A University's Bequest to Youth" (10 October 1936)
Canadian Occasions (1940)
Frederick William Robertson (1816–1853) British writer and theologian
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 440.
“We have within reach, now, the attainment of almost every dream of mankind.”
Gene Roddenberry (1921–1991) American television screenwriter and producer
William Mountford (1816–1885) English Unitarian preacher and author
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 616.
Maimónides book The Guide for the Perplexed
Source: Guide for the Perplexed (c. 1190), Part III, Ch.13
Nathaniel Cotton (1707–1788) British writer
The Fireside, stanza 3, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist
"The Science to Save Us from Science," The New York Times Magazine (19 March 1950)
1950s
Context: All who are not lunatics are agreed about certain things. That it is better to be alive than dead, better to be adequately fed than starved, better to be free than a slave. Many people desire those things only for themselves and their friends; they are quite content that their enemies should suffer. These people can only be refuted by science: Humankind has become so much one family that we cannot ensure our own prosperity except by ensuring that of everyone else. If you wish to be happy yourself, you must resign yourself to seeing others also happy.
