“It does not matter much what a man hates provided he hates something.”
Samuel Butler (1835–1902) novelist
Hating
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part XIV - Higgledy-Piggledy
Source: Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage
“It does not matter much what a man hates provided he hates something.”
Samuel Butler (1835–1902) novelist
Hating
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part XIV - Higgledy-Piggledy
George Lois (1931) American art director, designer and author
Will Rogers (1879–1935) American humorist and entertainer
"A Skinny Dakota Kid Who Made Good"
The Illiterate Digest (1924)
Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor
"Radio Power Will Revolutionize the World" in Modern Mechanics and Inventions (July 1934)
Anatole France book The Revolt of the Angels
Variant: For the majority of people, though they do not know what to do with this life, long for another that shall have no end.
Source: The Revolt of the Angels (1914), Ch. XXI
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist
Letter to Harrison Blake (20 May 1860); published in Familiar Letters (1865)
Context: Men and boys are learning all kinds of trades but how to make men of themselves. They learn to make houses; but they are not so well housed, they are not so contented in their houses, as the woodchucks in their holes. What is the use of a house if you haven't got a tolerable planet to put it on? — If you cannot tolerate the planet that it is on? Grade the ground first. If a man believes and expects great things of himself, it makes no odds where you put him, or what you show him … he will be surrounded by grandeur. He is in the condition of a healthy and hungry man, who says to himself, — How sweet this crust is!
“What a man knows hardly matters. It is what he does.”
Gene Wolfe (1931–2019) American science fiction and fantasy writer
Source: The Wizard