“I have got so far as to lose the distinction between right and wrong. Isn't that the first step in politics?”

— Henry Adams , book Democracy: An American Novel

Madeleine Lee in Ch. VIII
Democracy: An American Novel (1880)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Henry Adams 311

journalist, historian, academic, novelist 1838–1918

Dermot Healy (1947–2014) Irish writer

Small talk: Dermot Healy, 2011

“This isn't right. This isn't even wrong.”

Wolfgang Pauli (1900–1958) Austrian physicist, Nobel prize winner

Response after reading a colleague's paper, quoted in The Successful Toastmaster: A Treasure Chest of Introductions, Epigrams, Humor, and Quotations (1966) by Herbert Victor Prochnow, p. 350, and in Mathematical Apocrypha Redux : More Stories and Anecdotes of Mathematicians and the Mathematical (2005) by Steven George Krantz, p. 194
This paper is so bad it is not even wrong.
As quoted in Comic Sections : The Book of Mathematical Jokes, Humour, Wit, and Wisdom (1993) by Des MacHale
Das is nicht einmal falsch.
It is not even wrong.
As quoted in Not Even Wrong : The Failure Of String Theory and the Search for Unity in Physical Law (2006) by Peter Woit (2006), Preface, p. xii

“In the most inalienable of such rights a distinction must be made between possession of a right and its exercise. The first is fixed and the latter controlled by justice and necessity.”

Mohammad Hidayatullah (1905–1992) 11th Chief Justice of India

His further views on Fundamental Rights
Full Court Reference in Memory of The Late Justice M. Hidayatullah

“The first step… shall be to lose the way.”

Galway Kinnell (1927–2014) Poet

“Today, not starting is far, far worse than being wrong. If you start, you've got a shot at evolving and adjusting to turn your wrong into a right. But if you don't start, you never get a chance.”

Seth Godin (1960) American entrepreneur, author and public speaker

Source: Poke the Box

“And a step backward, after making a wrong turn, is a step in the right direction.”

Kurt Vonnegut book Player Piano

Source: Player Piano (1952), Chapter 32 (p. 295)

“Every step is a first step if it's a step in the right direction.”

Terry Pratchett book I Shall Wear Midnight

Source: I Shall Wear Midnight

“The crucial questions in politics are not questions of right and wrong, but of obedience and disobedience. If you do not submit to political authority, then "If I say you're wrong, you're wrong, even if you're right."”

Jiang Shigong (1967) Chinese legal and political theorist

《乌克兰转型中的宪政权威》 ["The authority of the constitution in a Ukraine in transition"] (2004), translated by David Ownby in Rethinking China's Rise https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=761eDwAAQBAJ, p. 27

“I love love. I love having a lover and being one. The insularity of passion. I love it. I love the way it blurs the distinction between everyone who isn't one's lover.”

Tom Stoppard The Real Thing

Source: The Real Thing

“The specific political distinction to which political actions and motives can be reduced is that between friend and enemy.”

Carl Schmitt book The Concept of the Political

The Concept of the Political (1927)

“I have got so far as to lose the distinction between right and wrong. Isn't that the first step in politics?”

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Henry Adams 311

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