" Acquainted with the Night http://www.ketzle.com/frost/acquainted.htm" (1928)
General sources
Context: One luminary clock against the sky
Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.
I have been one acquainted with the night.
"Shoaku makusa : Not Doing Wrong Action" as translated by Anzan Hoshin roshi and Yasuda Joshu Dainen roshi (2007)
“You are neither right nor wrong because people agree with you.”
As quoted by Warren Buffett, in an interview in Forbes magazine (1 November 1974)
“It is neither right nor safe to go against my conscience.”
Clocks http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext97/jjclk10.txt.
“One has attained to mastery when one neither goes wrong nor hesitates in the performance.”
537
Daybreak — Thoughts on the Prejudices of Morality (1881)
“I'm like a good clock, I neither gain nor lose. I can strike, too.”
Source: Fated to Be Free: A Novel (1875), Ch. 19, p. 229.
"Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution" (31 March 1968)
1960s
Variant: There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must take it because conscience tells him it is right.
Source: A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches
Context: On some positions, Cowardice asks the question, "Is it safe?" Expediency asks the question, "Is it politic?" And Vanity comes along and asks the question, "Is it popular?" But Conscience asks the question "Is it right?" And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must do it because Conscience tells him it is right.
Context: On some positions, Cowardice asks the question, "Is it safe?" Expediency asks the question, "Is it politic?" And Vanity comes along and asks the question, "Is it popular?" But Conscience asks the question "Is it right?" And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must do it because Conscience tells him it is right. I believe today that there is a need for all people of good will to come together with a massive act of conscience and say in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "We ain't goin' study war no more." This is the challenge facing modern man.
