“We should never say anything with an air of authority, nor show any superiority of mind. We should avoid far-fetched expressions, expressions hard or forced, and never let the words be grander than the matter.”

Reflections on Various Subjects (1665–1678), V. On Conversation

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François de La Rochefoucauld 156
French author of maxims and memoirs 1613–1680

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“As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words but to live by them.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

"Proclamation 3560 — Thanksgiving Day, 1963" (5 November 1963) http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=9511<!-- Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project -->
1963
Context: Today we give our thanks, most of all, for the ideals of honor and faith we inherit from our forefathers —  for the decency of purpose, steadfastness of resolve and strength of will, for the courage and the humility, which they possessed and which we must seek every day to emulate. As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words but to live by them.
Let us therefore proclaim our gratitude to Providence for manifold blessings — let us be humbly thankful for inherited ideals — and let us resolve to share those blessings and those ideals with our fellow human beings throughout the world.

George Santayana photo

“Matters of religion should never be matters of controversy. We neither argue with a lover about his taste, nor condemn him, if we are just, for knowing so human a passion.”

George Santayana (1863–1952) 20th-century Spanish-American philosopher associated with Pragmatism

Source: The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress (1905-1906), Vol. III, Reason in Religion, Ch. VI

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“Any author who uses mathematics should always express in ordinary language the meaning of the assumptions he admits”

Maurice Allais (1911–2010) French economist; 1988 winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics

in La formation scientifique, Une communication du Prix Nobel d’économie, Maurice Allais http://www.canalacademie.com/Maurice-Allais-la-formation.html, address to the Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques (1997).
Context: Any author who uses mathematics should always express in ordinary language the meaning of the assumptions he admits, as well as the significance of the results obtained. The more abstract his theory, the more imperative this obligation.
In fact, mathematics are and can only be a tool to explore reality. In this exploration, mathematics do not constitute an end in itself, they are and can only be a means.

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“We have little understanding, but we should never be afraid of anything.”

Source: https://books.google.ru/books/about/%D0%A7%D1%82%D0%BE_%D1%82%D0%BE_%D0%BD%D0%B5%D0%BB%D0%B0%D0%B4%D0%BD%D0%BE%D0%B5.html?id=b-0TEAAAQBAJ&source=kp_book_description&redir_esc=y

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“If black lives matter, then it should matter all the time. You should never let somebody get killed. That's somebody's son, That's somebody's brother; that's somebody's friend. So you should always keep that in mind”

Richard Sherman (American football) (1988) American football player

Press conference (16 September 2015), as quoted in "Video: Richard Sherman speaks passionately on Black Lives Matter" https://web.archive.org/web/20150917000340/http://www.seattletimes.com/sports/seahawks/video-richard-sherman-speaks-passionately-on-black-lives-matter/ (16 September 2015), by Bob Condotta, The Seattle Times, Seattle, Washington
Press conference (16 September 2015)
Context: And I think that's the point we need to get to is that we need to deal with our own internal issues before we move forward and start pointing fingers and start attacking other people. We need to solidify ourselves as people and deal with our issues, because I think as long as we have black-on-black crime and, you know, one black man killing another. If black lives matter, then it should matter all the time. You should never let somebody get killed. That's somebody's son, That's somebody's brother; that's somebody's friend. So you should always keep that in mind.

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“The various languages placed side by side show that with words it is never a question of truth, never a question of adequate expression; otherwise, there would not be so many languages.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense (1873)
Context: The various languages placed side by side show that with words it is never a question of truth, never a question of adequate expression; otherwise, there would not be so many languages. The "thing in itself" (which is precisely what the pure truth, apart from any of its consequences, would be) is likewise something quite incomprehensible to the creator of language and something not in the least worth striving for. This creator only designates the relations of things to men, and for expressing these relations he lays hold of the boldest metaphors.' To begin with, a nerve stimulus is transferred into an image: first metaphor. The image, in turn, is imitated in a sound: second metaphor. And each time there is a complete overleaping of one sphere, right into the middle of an entirely new and different one.

“The qualities we possess should never be a matter for satisfaction, but the qualities we have discarded.”

Wei Wu Wei (1895–1986) writer

Fingers Pointing Towards The Moon (1958)

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