E.M. Forster (1879–1970) English novelist
Letter 216, to Florence Barger, 11 February 1922
Selected Letters (1983-1985)
Pursuits of Happiness (1984)
E.M. Forster (1879–1970) English novelist
Letter 216, to Florence Barger, 11 February 1922
Selected Letters (1983-1985)
“It is our duty to help those who need help; but it cannot be our duty to make others happy,”
Karl Popper book The Open Society and Its Enemies
Vol. 2, Ch. 24 "Oracular Philosophy and the Revolt against Reason"
The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945)
Context: ... the attempt to make heaven on earth invariably produces hell. It leads to intolerance. It leads to religious wars, and to the saving of souls through the inquisition. And it is, I believe, based on a complete misunderstanding of our moral duties. It is our duty to help those who need help; but it cannot be our duty to make others happy, since this does not depend on us, and since it would only too often mean intruding on the privacy of those towards whom we have such amiable intentions.
Arthur Schopenhauer book Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life
E. Payne, trans. (1974) Vol. 1, p. 346
Parerga and Paralipomena (1851), Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life
Mike Rosen (1944) American political pundit
Exception: social-issues conservatives advocate government intrusion on matters of abortion, drugs and pornography.
Rocky Mountain News column, 2000
Kurt Lewin (1890–1947) German-American psychologist
Source: 1930s, A Dynamic Theory of Personality, 1935, p. 78.
Ayn Rand (1905–1982) Russian-American novelist and philosopher
Source: The Virtue of Selfishness: A New Concept of Egoism
Paul Valéry (1871–1945) French poet, essayist, and philosopher
"Recollection", Collected Works, vol. 1 (1972), as translated by David Paul
Variant translations:
A poem is never finished; it's always an accident that puts a stop to it — i.e. gives it to the public.
As attributed in Susan Ratcliffe, Concise Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (2011), p. 385.
A poem is never finished; it is only abandoned.
Widely quoted, this is a paraphrase of Valéry by W. H. Auden in 1965. See W. H. Auden: Collected Poems (2007), ed. Edward Mendelson, "Author's Forewords", p. xxx.
An artist never finishes a work, he merely abandons it.
A paraphrase by Aaron Copland in the essay "Creativity in America," published in Copland on Music (1944), p. 53
In the eyes of those lovers of perfection, a work is never finished — a word that for them has no sense — but abandoned; and this abandonment, whether to the flames or to the public (and which is the result of weariness or an obligation to deliver) is a kind of an accident to them, like the breaking off of a reflection, which fatigue, irritation, or something similar has made worthless.
Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)
Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) American writer
The Aquarian Conspiracy (1980), Chapter Ten, The Transformation of Values and Vocation