Source: Anecdotes of Samuel Johnson (1786), p. 111
“Wisdom comes from experience. Experience is often a result of lack of wisdom.”
1990s, Inaugural celebration address (1994)
Context: Your Majesties, Your Highnesses, Distinguished Guests, Comrades and Friends. Today, all of us do, by our presence here, and by our celebrations in other parts of our country and the world, confer glory and hope to newborn liberty. Out of the experience of an extraordinary human disaster that lasted too long, must be born a society of which all humanity will be proud.
Source: "The Utility and Futility of Aphorisms," 1863, p. 178.
Second Speech on Conciliation with America (1775), Works of Edmund Burke Volume ii, p. 169
We boast of the freedom enjoyed by our people above all other peoples. But it is difficult to reconcile that boast with a state of the law which, practically, puts the brand of servitude and degradation upon a large class of our fellow-citizens, our equals before the law. The thin disguise of "equal" accommodations for passengers in railroad coaches will not mislead anyone, nor atone for the wrong this day done.
1890s, Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)
“Publicity, discussion, and agitation are necessary to accomplish any work of lasting benefit.”
Spoken in Evansville, IN (July 7, 1906), As quoted in Unreasonable Men: Theodore Roosevelt and the Republican Rebels Who Created Progressive Politics, Michael Wolraich (2014)
From 1980s onwards, Critical Path (1981)
Context: I am convinced that human continuance depends entirely upon: the intuitive wisdom of each and every individual... the individual's integrity of speaking and acting only on the individual's own within-self-intuited and reasoned initiative... the individual's never joining action with others as motivated only by crowd-engendered-emotionalism, or a sense of the crowd's power to overwhelm, or in fear of holding to the course indicated by one's own intellectual convictions.
Credo (1965)
Context: I believe that love is the main key to open the doors to the "growth" of man. Love and union with someone or something outside of oneself, union that allows one to put oneself into relationship with others, to feel one with others, without limiting the sense of integrity and independence. Love is a productive orientation for which it is essential that there be present at the same time: concern, responsibility, and respect for and knowledge of the object of the union.
I believe that the experience of love is the most human and humanizing act that it is given to man to enjoy and that it, like reason, makes no sense if conceived in a partial way.
p. 26 https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.$b325850;view=1up;seq=32
Six Essays on Johnson (1910)
