Faith, ii
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part XXI - Rebelliousness
“The greatest of all mistakes is to do nothing because you think you can only do a little.”
“It is the greatest of all mistakes to do nothing because you can only do little.”
Lecture XIX : On the Conduct of the Understanding, Part II
Elementary Sketches of Moral Philosophy (1849)
“If you can think of nothing that wouldn't do harm, then do nothing.”
Panel with Edward Said at Columbia University, New York, April 1999 http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/04/07/042214
Quotes 1990s, 1995-1999
Context: Let me just put the whole thing in a kind of mundane level. Like, suppose you walk out in the street, this evening, and you see a crime being committed, you know, somebody is robbing someone else. Well, you have three choices. One choice is to try to stop it, maybe you call 911 or something. Another choice is to do nothing. A third choice is to pick up an assault rifle and kill 'em both, and kill a bystander at the same time. Well, suppose you do that, and somebody says, "Well, you know, why did you do that?" And you say, "Look, I couldn't stand by and do nothing." I mean, is that a response? If you can think of nothing that wouldn't do harm, then do nothing. And the same is true, magnified, in international affairs. Apart from the fact that there were things that could have been done.
Un Art de Vivre (The Art of Living) (1939), The Art of Family Life
“You can do something with talent, but nothing with genius….”
Quoted in Jack Fishman's My Darling Clementine, the biography of Winston Churchill's wife. (p. 131).
