“I found that but to glean after this man, is better than to be in at the harvest of others.”
Herman Melville (1818–1891) American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet
Hawthorne and His Mosses (1850)
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Quotes
“Nothing can be more contemptible than to suppose Public RECORDS to be True.”
William Blake (1757–1827) English Romantic poet and artist
Annotations to An Apology for the Bible by R. Watson
1790s
“Better make a weak man your enemy than your friend.”
Josh Billings (1818–1885) American humorist
Affurisms. From Josh Billings: His Sayings (1865)
“To be a Christian without prayer is no more possible than to be alive without breathing”
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement
As quoted by George Sweeting (senior pastor at Moody Church and former President of the Moody Bible Institute), in Talking it over http://books.google.es/books?id=3U47r8goSvwC&q=%22To+be+a+Christian+without+prayer+is+no+more+possible+than+to+be+alive+without+breathing%22&dq=%22To+be+a+Christian+without+prayer+is+no+more+possible+than+to+be+alive+without+breathing%22&hl=es&sa=X&ei=zJ47UubGKKasyAHvuoDoCA&ved=0CDgQ6AEwATgK (Sep. 1, 1979), p. 88. and The Basics of the Christian Life (Aug 1, 1983), p. 83. No earlier sources are pointed out. <br class="br">Disputed
“There is little less trouble in governing a private family than a whole kingdom.”
Michel De Montaigne (1533–1592) (1533-1592) French-Occitan author, humanistic philosopher, statesman
Book I, Ch. 39
Attributed
Variant: There is not much less vexation in the government of a private family than in the managing of an entire state.
“Two paradoxes are better than one; they may even suggest a solution.”
Edward Teller (1908–2003) Hungarian-American nuclear physicist
Conversations on the Dark Secrets of Physics (1991) by Edward Teller, Wendy Teller and Wilson Talley, Ch. 9, p. 135 footnote
“Nothing is more false than the axiom that governments are belligerent and peoples are pacific.”
Jacques Bainville (1879–1936) French historian and journalist
Action Française (3 July 1913), quoted in William R. Keylor, Jacques Bainville and the Renaissance of Royalist History in Twentieth-Century France (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1979), p. 65.
“It is better that ten guilty persons escape, than that one innocent suffer.”
William Blackstone book Commentaries on the Laws of England
Book IV, ch. 27.
Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765–1769)
“Ruling hell might be better than being a subject in hell, but not by much.”
Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology
Other
“Democracy is on trial in the world, on a more colossal scale than ever before.”
Charles Fletcher Dole (1845–1927) Unitarian minister, speaker, and writer
The Spirit of Democracy (1906).
“To follow foolish precedents, and wink with both eyes, is easier than to think.”
John Allen Paulos (1945) American mathematician
Source: Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and its Consequences (1988), Chapter 3, “Pseudoscience” (p. 67; quoting William Cowper)
“Don't forget that some things count more than other things.”
William Saroyan The Time of Your Life
The Time of Your Life (1939)
“There is more to be gained by producing more opportunities than by optimizing existing ones.”
Kevin Kelly (1952) American author and editor
Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World (1995), New Rules for the New Economy: 10 Radical Strategies for a Connected World (1999)
“The major incentive to productivity and efficiency are social and moral rather than financial.”
Peter F. Drucker (1909–2005) American business consultant
1930s- 1950s, The New Society (1950)
“Religion has no more place in science than science has in religion.”
Louis Pasteur (1822–1895) French chemist and microbiologist
Answer from Pasteur to his disciple Elie Metchnikoff when was questioned whether his approach to spontaneous generation was bound to a religious ideal. According to Patrice Debré's Luis Pasteur, 2000 https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=RzOcl-FLw30C&lpg=PP1&pg=PA176#v=onepage&q&f=false,, p. 176. <br class="br">Disputed
The quote is mistakenly attributed to the author
“Want to know what’s more destructive than a nuclear bomb? Words.”
Kim Jong-un (1984) 3rd Supreme Leader of North Korea
Source: This is cannot be attributes to Kim Jong-un, this quote comes from movie The Interview (II) (2014)
Why was he incensed? A prolonged exchange failed to illuminate me. No godless person can comprehend those minute distinctions in doctrine that provide true believers excuse for mayhem. It is hard enough to accept the fact that they really believe the nonsense of their faiths. I always wonder if they are pulling my leg with a straight face.
Source: Dreams of Steel (1990), Chapter 58 (pp. 414-415)
“I see myself as sort-of the left’s ‘immune system’; no more than that.”
ContraPoints, Miscellaneous, Contrapoints Is De-Radicalizing Young, Right-Wing Men https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Nrz4-FZx6k (Vice News, 2019)
“If a man had no more to do with God than to be thankful, that would suffice.”
Meister Eckhart (1260–1328) German theologian
However a quote very similar to this one can actually be found in his works. In Sermon XXVII (Walshe translation/in Quint Sermon XXXIV) we can read:
Middle High German: Haete der mensche niht me ze tuonne mit gote, dan daz er dankbaere ist, ez waere genuoc.
Disputed
“Timely silence, then, is precious, for it is nothing less than the mother of the wisest thoughts.”
Diadochos of Photiki (400–486) Byzantine saint
§ 70
On Spiritual Knowledge and Discrimination (480 AD)