Source: Thoughts Selected from the Writings of Horace Mann (1872), p. 199
Context: Just in proportion as a man becomes good, divine, Christ-like, he passes out of the region of theorizing, of system-building, and hireling service, into the region of beneficent activities. It is well to think well. It is divine to act well.
Source: The Magic Mountain (1924), Ch. 4
Context: Writing well was almost the same as thinking well, and thinking well was the next thing to acting well. All moral discipline, all moral perfection derived from the soul of literature, from the soul of human dignity, which was the moving spirit of both humanity and politics. Yes, they were all one, one and the same force, one and the same idea, and all of them could be comprehended in one single word... The word was — civilization!
Attributed to Orwell by John H. Bunzel, president of San Jose State University, as reported in Phyllis Schlafly, The Power of the Positive Woman (1977), p. 151; but not found in Orwell's works or in reports contemporaneous with his life. Possibly a paraphrase of Orwell's description of the rationale behind Newspeak in 1984.
Disputed
“One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.”
Source: A Room of One's Own (1929), Ch. 1, p. 18
Context: The human frame being what it is, heart, body and brain all mixed together, and not contained in separate compartments as they will be no doubt in another million years, a good dinner is of great importance to good talk. One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.
Source: The Sorrows of Satan or The Strange Experience of One Geoffrey Tempest, Millionaire
“Bakunin: Act first! The ideas will follow, and if not — well, it's progress”
The Coast of Utopia: Shipwreck (2002)
“Do you wish people to think well of you? Don't speak well of yourself.”
“I can sing as well as Fred Astaire can act.”
Attributed to Reynolds in: Colin Jarman (1993). The Book of Poisonous Quotes. p. 129
