Quotes

John Scott photo

“It is better that the law should be certain than that every judge should speculate upon improvements in it.”

John Scott (1751–1838) British barrister and politician, born 1751

Sheldon v. Goodrich, 8 Ves. 481, 497 (1803)

Jay Samit photo

“An average idea enthusiastically embraced will go further than a genius idea no one gets.”

Jay Samit (1961) American businessman

Source: Disrupt You! (2015), p.93

Kurt Gödel photo

“Either mathematics is too big for the human mind, or the human mind is more than a machine.”

Kurt Gödel (1906–1978) logician, mathematician, and philosopher of mathematics

As quoted in Topoi : The Categorial Analysis of Logic (1979) by Robert Goldblatt, p. 13

John Keats photo

“Nothing is finer for the purposes of great productions than a very gradual ripening of the intellectual powers.”

John Keats (1795–1821) English Romantic poet

Letter to his brother, (January 23, 1818)
Letters (1817–1820)

William Cobbett photo

“Perhaps there are none more lazy, or more truly ignorant, than your everlasting readers.”

William Cobbett (1763–1835) English pamphleteer, farmer and journalist

“To a Father,” letter 5.
Advice to Young Men (1829)

Charles James Napier photo

“The human mind is never better disposed to gratitude and attachment than when softened by fear.”

Charles James Napier (1782–1853) Commander-in-Chief in British India

Farwell, Byron: Queen Victoria's Little Wars, p. 27-31

Friedrich Nietzsche photo

“Morality is: the mediocre are worth more than the exceptions … I abhore Christianity with a deadly hatred.”

Sec. 685 (Notebook W II 5. Spring 1888, KGW VIII, 3.95-7, KSA 13.303-5)
The Will to Power (1888)

“If there is something more in a living being than a pure mechanism, Descartes is bound in advance to miss it.”

Étienne Gilson (1884–1978) French historian and philosopher

Methodical Realism

Ben Carson photo

“I realized my obligations to others should be greater than my obligations to myself.”

Ben Carson (1951) 17th and current United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; American neurosurgeon

Source: Take The Risk (2008), p. 152

François de La Rochefoucauld photo

“We would rather speak ill of ourselves than not talk about ourselves at all.”

On aime mieux dire du mal de soi-même que de n'en point parler.
Maxim 138.
Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims (1665–1678)

Edward Young photo

“Their feet through faithless leather met the dirt,
And oftener chang'd their principles than shirt.”

Edward Young (1683–1765) English poet

To Mr. Pope, epistle I, l. 277.

Christine O'Donnell photo

“Psychics exploit the human being's natural desire that longs for something higher than themselves.”

Christine O'Donnell (1969) American Tea Party politician and former Republican Party candidate

TV appearances

George Eliot photo

“It was a room where you had no reason for sitting in one place rather than in another.”

Ch. 54 http://books.google.com/books?id=A2wOAAAAQAAJ&q=%22It+was+a+room+where+you+had+no+reason+for+sitting+in+one+place+rather+than+in+another%22&pg=PA187#v=onepage
Middlemarch (1871)

Tom Stoppard photo

“It seems pointless to be quoted if one isn't going to be quotable … it's better to be quotable than honest.”

Tom Stoppard (1937) British playwright

Interview http://books.google.com/books?id=PubwLmgAcd0C&q="It+seems+pointless+to+be+quoted+if+one+isn't+going+to+be+quotable"+"it's+better+to+be+quotable+than+honest"&pg=PA49#v=onepage with Janet Watts that appeared in The Guardian newspaper 21 March 1973.

Democritus photo

“Making money is not without its value, but nothing is baser than to make it by wrong-doing.”

Democritus Ancient Greek philosopher, pupil of Leucippus, founder of the atomic theory

Source Book in Ancient Philosophy (1907), The Golden Sayings of Democritus

Richard Owen photo

“No naturalist has devoted more painstaking attention to the structure of the barnacles than Mr. Darwin.”

Richard Owen (1804–1892) English biologist

as stated in "Darwin on the Origin of Species", "Edinburgh Review", 3, 1860, pages 487-532.
Quotee

Ludovico Ariosto photo

“To arm a hand more powerful than your own
Is an ill method to maintain the throne.”

Non è la via di dominar, se vuoi
Por l'arme in mano a chi può più di noi.
Canto XX, stanza 52 (tr. W. S. Rose)
Orlando Furioso (1532)

Boris Johnson photo

“I don't see why he's any less of a candidate for the than Barack Obama.”

Boris Johnson (1964) British politician, historian and journalist

Source: Boris Johnson: Why Trump could deserve Nobel Peace Prize http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-us-canada-44034266/boris-johnson-why-trump-could-deserve-nobel-peace-prize (7 May 2018)

Tony Blair photo

“Sometimes it is better to lose and do the right thing than to win and do the wrong thing.”

Tony Blair (1953) former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Hansard http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200506/cmhansrd/vo051109/debtext/51109-03.htm#51109-03_spmin10, House of Commons, 6th series, vol. 439, col. 302.
9 November 2005, responding to Charles Kennedy in the House of Commons during Prime Minister's Questions. Blair was referring to the likely defeat in Parliament of additional powers to detain terror suspects without charge, which happened later that day.
2000s

“A death was more than an ending; it was like pulling a thread from a richly patterned cloth.”

First measure “The Lady Margaret” (p. 17)
Pavane (1968)