Quotes about expense
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John Wallis photo

“I did at last overcome the Difficulty; but with so much Paines and Expense of Time as I am not willing to mention; though yet I did not repent of that Labour, when I had discovered thereby, that it was a Businesse, which though with much Difficulty, was yet capable to bee effected.”

John Wallis (1616–1703) English mathematician

An Essay on the Art of Decyphering (1737)
Context: Partly out of my owne Curiosity, partly to satisfy the Gentleman's Importunity that did request it, I resolved to try what I could do in it: And having projected the best Methods I could think of for the effecting it, I found yet so hard a Task, that I did divers Times give it over as desperate: Yet, after some Intermissions, resuming it againe, I did at last overcome the Difficulty; but with so much Paines and Expense of Time as I am not willing to mention; though yet I did not repent of that Labour, when I had discovered thereby, that it was a Businesse, which though with much Difficulty, was yet capable to bee effected.<!--p.13

Germaine Greer photo

“In sex, as in consumption, the nuclear family emphasizes possession and exclusivity at the expense of the kinds of emotional relationships that work for co-operation and solidarity.”

Germaine Greer (1939) Australian feminist author

"Women and power in Cuba" (1985), p. 271
The Madwoman's Underclothes (1986)
Context: In the nuclear family the child is confronted by only two adults contrasted by sex. The tendency towards polarization is unavoidable. The duplication of effort in the nuclear family is directly connected to the family's role as the principal unit of consumption in consumer society. Each household is destined to acquire a complete set of all the consumer durables considered necessary for the good life and per caput consumption is therefore maintained at its highest level. In sex, as in consumption, the nuclear family emphasizes possession and exclusivity at the expense of the kinds of emotional relationships that work for co-operation and solidarity.

Rudolf Rocker photo

“The growth of technology at the expense of human personality, and especially the fatalistic submission with which the great majority surrender to this condition, is the reason why the desire for freedom is less alive among men today and has with many of them given place completely to a desire for economic security.”

Source: Nationalism and Culture (1937), Ch. 15 "Nationalism — A Political Religion"
Context: The growth of technology at the expense of human personality, and especially the fatalistic submission with which the great majority surrender to this condition, is the reason why the desire for freedom is less alive among men today and has with many of them given place completely to a desire for economic security. This phenomenon need not appear so strange, for our whole evolution has reached a stage where nearly every man is either ruler or ruled; sometimes he is both. By this the attitude of dependence has been greatly strengthened, for a truly free man does not like to play the part of either the ruler or the ruled. He is, above all, concerned with making his inner values and personal powers effective in a way as to permit him to use his own judgment in all affairs and to be independent in action. Constant tutelage of our acting and thinking has made us weak and irresponsible; hence, the continued cry for the strong man who is to put an end to our distress. This call for a dictator is not a sign of strength, but a proof of inner lack of assurance and of weakness, even though those who utter it earnestly try to give themselves the appearance of resolution. What man most lacks he most desires. When one feels himself weak he seeks salvation from another's strength; when one is cowardly or too timid to move one's own hands for the forging of one's fate, one entrusts it to another. How right was Seume when he said: "The nation which can only be saved by one man and wants to be saved that way deserves a whipping!"

Buckminster Fuller photo

“Take the initiative. Go to work, and above all co-operate and don't hold back on one another or try to gain at the expense of another. Any success in such lopsidedness will be increasingly short-lived. These are the synergetic rules that evolution is employing and trying to make clear to us.”

Buckminster Fuller (1895–1983) American architect, systems theorist, author, designer, inventor and futurist

1960s, Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth (1963)
Context: Take the initiative. Go to work, and above all co-operate and don't hold back on one another or try to gain at the expense of another. Any success in such lopsidedness will be increasingly short-lived. These are the synergetic rules that evolution is employing and trying to make clear to us. They are not man-made laws. They are the infinitely accommodative laws of the intellectual integrity governing universe.

John F. Kennedy photo

“Our goal is not victory of might but the vindication of right — not peace at the expense of freedom, but both peace and freedom, here in this hemisphere and, we hope, around the world.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

1962, Cuban Missile Crisis speech
Context: The path we have chosen for the present is full of hazards, as all paths are; but it is one of the most consistent with our character and our courage as a nation and our commitments around the world. The cost of freedom is always high — but Americans have always paid it. And one path we shall never choose, and this is the path of surrender or submission. Our goal is not victory of might but the vindication of right — not peace at the expense of freedom, but both peace and freedom, here in this hemisphere and, we hope, around the world. God willing, that goal will be achieved. Thank you, and good night.

E. B. White photo

“Americans are willing to go to enormous trouble and expense defending their principles with arms, very little trouble and expense advocating them with words.”

E. B. White (1899–1985) American writer

"The Thud of Ideas," The New Yorker (23 September 1950)
Context: Americans are willing to go to enormous trouble and expense defending their principles with arms, very little trouble and expense advocating them with words. Temperamentally we are ready to die for certain principles (or, in the case of overripe adults, send youngsters to die), but we show little inclination to advertise the reasons for dying.

Randy Pausch photo

“Avoiding Procrastination: Doing things at the last minute is much more expensive than just before the last minute. Deadlines are really important: establish them yourself!”

Randy Pausch (1960–2008) American professor of computer science, human-computer interaction and design

Time Management (2007)

Edmund Burke photo

“These few have the passions of the one; and they unite to strengthen themselves, and to secure the gratification of their lawless passions at the expense of the general good.”

A Vindication of Natural Society (1756)
Context: I need not excuse myself to your Lordship, nor, I think, to any honest man, for the zeal I have shown in this cause; for it is an honest zeal, and in a good cause. I have defended natural religion against a confederacy of atheists and divines. I now plead for natural society against politicians, and for natural reason against all three. When the world is in a fitter temper than it is at present to hear truth, or when I shall be more indifferent about its temper, my thoughts may become more public. In the mean time, let them repose in my own bosom, and in the bosoms of such men as are fit to be initiated in the sober mysteries of truth and reason. My antagonists have already done as much as I could desire. Parties in religion and politics make sufficient discoveries concerning each other, to give a sober man a proper caution against them all. The monarchic, and aristocratical, and popular partisans have been jointly laying their axes to the root of all government, and have in their turns proved each other absurd and inconvenient. In vain you tell me that artificial government is good, but that I fall out only with the abuse. The thing! the thing itself is the abuse! Observe, my Lord, I pray you, that grand error upon which all artificial legislative power is founded. It was observed that men had ungovernable passions, which made it necessary to guard against the violence they might offer to each other. They appointed governors over them for this reason! But a worse and more perplexing difficulty arises, how to be defended against the governors? Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? In vain they change from a single person to a few. These few have the passions of the one; and they unite to strengthen themselves, and to secure the gratification of their lawless passions at the expense of the general good. In vain do we fly to the many. The case is worse; their passions are less under the government of reason, they are augmented by the contagion, and defended against all attacks by their multitude.

“So the question we have to ask ourselves in 2017 is: Why does North Korea risk its long-enjoyed security by developing long-range nukes? Why is it doing the one thing that might force America to attack, to accept even the likelihood of South Korean civilian casualties? The only plausible goal big enough to warrant the growing risk and expense is the goal North Korea has been pursuing from day one of its existence: the unification of the peninsula.”

Brian Reynolds Myers (1963) American professor of international studies

More concretely, North Korea wants to force Washington into a grand bargain linking de-nuclearization to the withdrawal of U.S. troops. South Korea would then be pressured into a North-South confederation, which is a concept the South Korean left has flirted with for years, and which the North has always seen as a transition to unification under its own control.
2010s, Interview with the Reuters War College (April 2017)

Ulysses S. Grant photo

“The war was expensive to the South as well as to the North, both in blood and treasure, but it was worth all it cost.”

Ulysses S. Grant (1822–1885) 18th President of the United States

Source: 1880s, Personal Memoirs of General U. S. Grant (1885), Ch. 41.
Context: There was no time during the rebellion when I did not think, and often say, that the South was more to be benefited by its defeat than the North. The latter had the people, the institutions, and the territory to make a great and prosperous nation. The former was burdened with an institution abhorrent to all civilized people not brought up under it, and one which degraded labor, kept it in ignorance, and enervated the governing class. With the outside world at war with this institution, they could not have extended their territory. The labor of the country was not skilled, nor allowed to become so. The whites could not toil without becoming degraded, and those who did were denominated 'poor white trash.' The system of labor would have soon exhausted the soil and left the people poor. The non-slaveholders would have left the country, and the small slaveholder must have sold out to his more fortunate neighbor. Soon the slaves would have outnumbered the masters, and, not being in sympathy with them, would have risen in their might and exterminated them. The war was expensive to the South as well as to the North, both in blood and treasure, but it was worth all it cost.

Jim Gaffigan photo

“I never want to do material that makes people laugh at the expense of making other people feel bad - not to say I'm not guilty of that at times. …”

Jim Gaffigan (1966) comedian, actor, author

Stephanie Bouchard (February 15, 2007) "Pasty-faced and proud of it - Comedian Jim Gaffigan brings his 'Beyond the Pale Tour' to Merrill Auditorium", Portland Press Herald, Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc., D10.
Context: I do kind of aspire to do comedy that appeals to a wide range of audiences and doesn't divide people. I never want to do material that makes people laugh at the expense of making other people feel bad - not to say I'm not guilty of that at times.... I try and make humor out of the really important issues of the day, like Hot Pockets and elevators and not wanting to get out of bed.

Davy Crockett photo

“It was expected of me that I was to bow to the name of Andrew Jackson, and follow him in all his motions, and windings, and turnings, even at the expense of my consciences and judgment. Such a thing was new to me, and a total stranger to my principles.”

Davy Crockett (1786–1836) American politician

On President Jackson and the Indian Removal Act, in Ch. 17
A Narrative of the Life of David Crockett (1834)
Context: It was expected of me that I was to bow to the name of Andrew Jackson, and follow him in all his motions, and windings, and turnings, even at the expense of my consciences and judgment. Such a thing was new to me, and a total stranger to my principles. … His famous, or rather I should say infamous Indian bill was brought forward and, and I opposed it from the purest motives in the world. Several of my colleagues got around me, and told me how well they loved me, and that I was ruining myself. They said it was a favorite measure of the President, and I ought to go for it. I told them I believed it was a wicked unjust measure, and that I should go against it, let the cost to myself be what it might; that I was willing to go with General Jackson in everything that I believed was honest and right; but further than this, I wouldn't go for him, or any other man in the whole creation.

Ernest Flagg photo

“Low walls are much less expensive to build than high ones”

Ernest Flagg (1857–1947) American architect

Small Houses: Their Economic Design and Construction (1922)
Context: Low walls are much less expensive to build than high ones... it is possible to use forms without the usual waste of lumber... when waste is avoided, forms greatly reduce the cost of stonework... much can be saved in the construction of foundations by methods described...<!-- Introduction

Gideon Welles photo

“The President objected unequivocally to compulsion. The emigration must be voluntary and without expense to themselves”

Gideon Welles (1802–1878) United States Secretary of the Navy

As quoted in Diary of Gideon Wells http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/2713705.pdf?acceptTC=true (1861&ndash;1864), Volume I, p. 152.
Context: Mr. Bates was for compulsory deportation. 'The Negro would not', he said, 'go voluntary'. He had great local attachment but no enterprise or persistency. The President objected unequivocally to compulsion. The emigration must be voluntary and without expense to themselves. Great Britain, Denmark and perhaps other powers would take them. I remarked there was no necessity for a treaty which had been suggested. Any person who desired to leave the country could do so now, whether white or black, and it was best to have it so-a voluntary system; the emigrant who chose to leave our shores could and would go where there were the best inducements.

George William Curtis photo

“What advantages has the 'Good Fight of Man' gained in the war? We have shown, first, that a popular government, under which the poorest and the most ignorant of every race but one are equal voters with the richest and most intelligent, is the most powerful and flexible in history. It is proved to be neither violent nor cruel nor impatient, but fixed in purpose, faithful to its own officers, tolerant of vast expense, of enormous losses, of torturing delays, and strongest at the very points where fatal weakness was most suspected”

George William Curtis (1824–1892) American writer

1860s, The Good Fight (1865)
Context: What is our reckoning, then? How far are we towards Cathay? What advantages has the 'Good Fight of Man' gained in the war? We have shown, first, that a popular government, under which the poorest and the most ignorant of every race but one are equal voters with the richest and most intelligent, is the most powerful and flexible in history. It is proved to be neither violent nor cruel nor impatient, but fixed in purpose, faithful to its own officers, tolerant of vast expense, of enormous losses, of torturing delays, and strongest at the very points where fatal weakness was most suspected. 'If you put a million of men under arms you will inevitably end in a military despotism', said Europe. 'The re-absorption of an army is the most perilous problem of any nation'. And within six months of the surrender of Lee an English gentleman, Sir Morton Peto, found himself in a huge business office in Chicago, surrounded by scores of clerks quietly engaged with merchandise and ledgers. 'Did you go on so during the war?' he asked. 'Oh, no, Sir Morton. That young man was a corporal, that was a lieutenant, that was a major, that was a colonel. Twenty-seven of us were officers in the army'. 'Indeed!', said the English gentleman. And all Europe, looking across the sea at the same spectacle, magnified by hundreds of thousands, of citizens quietly re-engaged in their various pursuits, echoes the astonished exclamation, 'Indeed!' for it sees that a million of men were in arms for the very purpose of returning to their offices and warehouses to sell their merchandise and post their ledgers in tranquility. Yes, the great army that for four years shook this continent was only the Yankee constable going his rounds.

Hugo Black photo

“The guarding of military and diplomatic secrets at the expense of informed representative government provides no real security”

Hugo Black (1886–1971) U.S. Supreme Court justice

Concurring in New York Times Co. v. United States, 403 U.S. 713 (1971).
Context: The word 'security' is a broad, vague generality whose contours should not be invoked to abrogate the fundamental law embodied in the First Amendment. The guarding of military and diplomatic secrets at the expense of informed representative government provides no real security ….

Benjamin Franklin photo

“All Wars are Follies, very expensive, and very mischievous ones.”

Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) American author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, inventor, civic activist, …

When will Mankind be convinced of this, and agree to settle their Differences by Arbitration? Were they to do it, even by the Cast of a Dye, it would be better than by Fighting and destroying each other.
Letter to Mary Hewson (27 January 1783) http://franklinpapers.org/franklin/yale?vol=38&page=668.
Epistles

Denis Papin photo

“If any one now will consider the magnitude of the forces to be obtained in this way, and the trifling expense at which a sufficient quantity of fuel can be procured, he will certainly admit that this my method is far preferable to the use of gunpowder”

Denis Papin (1647–1713) French physicist, mathematician and inventor

"A New Method of Obtaining Very Great Moving Powers at Small Cost" (1690)
Context: AA is a tube of uniform diameter throughout, close shut at the bottom; BB is a piston fitted to the tube; DD a handle fixed to the piston; EE an iron rod moveable round an axis in F; G a spring, pressing the cross rod EE, so that the said rod must be forced into the groove H as soon as the piston with the handle has arrived at such a height as that the said groove H appears above the lid II; L is a little hole in the piston, through which the air can escape from the bottom of the tube AA, when first the piston is forced into it. The use of this instrument is as follows: A small quantity of water is poured into the tube AA; to the depth of 3 or 4 lines; then the piston is inserted, and forced down to the bottom, till a portion of the water previously poured in comes through the hole L; then the said hole is closed by the rod MM. Next the lid II, pierced with the apertures requisite for that purpose, is put on, and a moderate fire being applied, the tube AA soon grows warm, (being made of thin metal), and the water within it, being turned into steam, exerts a pressure so powerful as to overcome the weight of the atmosphere and force up the piston BB, till the groove H of the handle DD appears above the lid II, and the rod EE is forced, with some noise, into the said groove by the spring G. Then forthwith the fire is to be removed, and the steam in the thin metal tube is soon resolved into water, and leaves the tube entirely void of air. Next, the rod EE being turned round so far as to come out of the groove H, and allow the handle DD to descend, the piston BB is forthwith pressed down by the whole weight of the atmosphere, and causes the intended movement, which is of an energy great in proportion to the size of the tube. Nor is it to be doubted that the whole weight of the atmosphere exerts its force in tubes so constructed; for I have established by experiment, that a piston, raised to the top of the tube by the force of heat, shortly afterwards descends again to the bottom, and so on alternately for a number of times, so that no suspicion can arise of air pressing beneath. Now my tube, the diameter of which does not exceed 2 &#189; inches, yet raises sixty lbs. aloft with the same velocity as the piston is forced down into the tube, and the tube itself scarcely weighs five ounces. I therefore have little doubt but that tubes may be manufactured, the weight of each of which would scarcely amount to 40 lbs., and yet which could raise, at each operation, two thousand lbs. to a height of four feet.... If any one now will consider the magnitude of the forces to be obtained in this way, and the trifling expense at which a sufficient quantity of fuel can be procured, he will certainly admit that this my method is far preferable to the use of gunpowder above spoken of, especially as in this way a perfect vacuum is obtained, and so the inconveniences above recounted are avoided.

T. E. Lawrence photo

“Freedom is enjoyed when you are so well armed, or so turbulent, or inhabit a country so thorny that the expense of your neighbour's occupying you is greater than the profit.”

T. E. Lawrence (1888–1935) British archaeologist, military officer, and diplomat

"Letter to the Editor" The Times (22 July 1920) http://www.telstudies.org/writings/letters/1919-20/200722_the_times.shtml
Context: Whether they are fit for independence or not remains to be tried. Merit is no qualification for freedom. Bulgars, Afghans, and Tahitans have it. Freedom is enjoyed when you are so well armed, or so turbulent, or inhabit a country so thorny that the expense of your neighbour's occupying you is greater than the profit.

Wendell Berry photo

“Professional standards, the standards of ambition and selfishness, are always sliding downward toward expense, ostentation, and mediocrity. They tend always to narrow the ground of judgment.”

Wendell Berry (1934) author

"The Responsibility of the Poet".
What Are People For? (1990)
Context: Professional standards, the standards of ambition and selfishness, are always sliding downward toward expense, ostentation, and mediocrity. They tend always to narrow the ground of judgment. But amateur standards, the standards of love, are always straining upward toward the humble and the best. They enlarge the ground of judgment. The context of love is the world.

John F. Kennedy photo

“I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

1961, Speech to Special Joint Session of Congress
Context: I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish. We propose to accelerate the development of the appropriate lunar space craft. We propose to develop alternate liquid and solid fuel boosters, much larger than any now being developed, until certain which is superior. We propose additional funds for other engine development and for unmanned explorations — explorations which are particularly important for one purpose which this nation will never overlook: the survival of the man who first makes this daring flight. But in a very real sense, it will not be one man going to the moon — if we make this judgment affirmatively, it will be an entire nation. For all of us must work to put him there.

William James photo

“Modern war is so expensive that we feel trade to be a better avenue to plunder; but modern man inherits all the innate pugnacity and all the love of glory of his ancestors.”

William James (1842–1910) American philosopher, psychologist, and pragmatist

1900s, The Moral Equivalent of War (1906)
Context: In modern eyes, precious though wars may be they must not be waged solely for the sake of the ideal harvest. Only when forced upon one, is a war now thought permissible.
It was not thus in ancient times. The earlier men were hunting men, and to hunt a neighboring tribe, kill the males, loot the village and possess the females, was the most profitable, as well as the most exciting, way of living. Thus were the more martial tribes selected, and in chiefs and peoples a pure pugnacity and love of glory came to mingle with the more fundamental appetite for plunder.
Modern war is so expensive that we feel trade to be a better avenue to plunder; but modern man inherits all the innate pugnacity and all the love of glory of his ancestors. Showing war's irrationality and horror is of no effect on him. The horrors make the fascination. War is the strong life; it is life in extremis; war taxes are the only ones men never hesitate to pay, as the budgets of all nations show us.

Jeffrey D. Sachs photo

“Basic Survival goods are cheap, whereas narcissistic self-stimulation and social-display products are expensive. Living doesn’t cost much, but showing off does.”

Jeffrey D. Sachs (1954) American economist

The Price of Civilization: Reawakening American Virtue and Prosperity" The Price of Civilization, 2011
Context: Though the United States is one of the world’s richest economies by per capita income, it ranks only around seventeenth in reported life satisfaction. It is superseded not only by the likely candidates of Finland, Norway, and Sweden, which all rank above the United States but also by less likely candidates such as Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic. Indeed, one might surmise that it is health and longevity rather than income that give the biggest boost to reported life satisfaction. Since good health and longevity can be achieved at per capita income levels well below those of the United States, so too can life satisfaction. One marketing expert put it this way, with only slight exaggeration: Basic Survival goods are cheap, whereas narcissistic self-stimulation and social-display products are expensive. Living doesn’t cost much, but showing off does.

Robert T. Kiyosaki photo

“Doubt is expensive.”

Robert T. Kiyosaki (1947) American finance author , investor

Rich Dad Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money-That the Poor and the Middle Class Do Not!

Bono photo

“It's a fact, the economists confirm it. It's an expensive fact but, cheaper than say the Marshall Plan that saved Europe from communism and fascism. And cheaper I would argue than fighting wave after wave of terrorism's new recruits.”

Bono (1960) Irish rock musician, singer of U2

PENN Address (2004)
Context: This is the straight truth, the righteous truth. It's not a theory, it's a fact. The fact is that this generation — yours, my generation — that can look at the poverty, we're the first generation that can look at poverty and disease, look across the ocean to Africa and say with a straight face, we can be the first to end this sort of stupid extreme poverty, where in the world of plenty, a child can die for lack of food in it's belly. We can be the first generation. It might take a while, but we can be that generation that says no to stupid poverty. It's a fact, the economists confirm it. It's an expensive fact but, cheaper than say the Marshall Plan that saved Europe from communism and fascism. And cheaper I would argue than fighting wave after wave of terrorism's new recruits.

Robert H. Jackson photo
Reza Pahlavi photo
Hippolytus of Rome photo
Donald J. Trump photo

“I never understood wind. I know windmills very much, I have studied it better than anybody. I know it is very expensive. They are made in China and Germany mostly, very few made here, almost none, but they are manufactured, tremendous — if you are into this — tremendous fumes and gases are spewing into the atmosphere. You know we have a world, right?”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

Turning Point USA conference, , quoted in * Connor Mannion
Trump Attacks Windmills in Speech to Conservative Group: ‘I Never Understood Wind’
Mediaite
2019-12-22
https://www.mediaite.com/trump/trump-attacks-windmills-in-speech-to-conservative-group-i-never-understood-wind/
2010s, 2019, December

George Adamski photo
Milton Friedman photo
Milton Friedman photo
Thomas Jefferson photo

“About to enter, fellow-citizens, on the exercise of duties which comprehend everything dear and valuable to you, it is proper you should understand what I deem the essential principles of our Government, and consequently those which ought to shape its Administration. I will compress them within the narrowest compass they will bear, stating the general principle, but not all its limitations. Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political; peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none; the support of the State governments in all their rights, as the most competent administrations for our domestic concerns and the surest bulwarks against antirepublican tendencies; the preservation of the General Government in its whole constitutional vigor, as the sheet anchor of our peace at home and safety abroad; a jealous care of the right of election by the people -- a mild and safe corrective of abuses which are lopped by the sword of revolution where peaceable remedies are unprovided; absolute acquiescence in the decisions of the majority, the vital principle of republics, from which is no appeal but to force, the vital principle and immediate parent of despotism; a well-disciplined militia, our best reliance in peace and for the first moments of war till regulars may relieve them; the supremacy of the civil over the military authority; economy in the public expense, that labor may be lightly burthened; the honest payment of our debts and sacred preservation of the public faith; encouragement of agriculture, and of commerce as its handmaid; the diffusion of information and arraignment of all abuses at the bar of the public reason; freedom of religion; freedom of the press, and freedom of person under the protection of the habeas corpus, and trial by juries impartially selected. These principles form the bright constellation which has gone before us and guided our steps through an age of revolution and reformation. The wisdom of our sages and blood of our heroes have been devoted to their attainment. They should be the creed of our political faith, the text of civic instruction, the touchstone by which to try the services of those we trust; and should we wander from them in moments of error or of alarm, let us hasten to retrace our steps and to regain the road which alone leads to peace, liberty, and safety.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

1800s, First Inaugural Address (1801)

Thomas Jefferson photo
Charles Stross photo
John Updike photo
J. Howard Moore photo
Albert Einstein photo
Boris Johnson photo

“We will be informed by our most important ally that it is in our interests to stay in the EU, no matter how flawed we may feel that organisation to be. Never mind the loss of sovereignty; never mind the expense and the bureaucracy and the uncontrolled immigration. The American view is very clear.”

Boris Johnson (1964) British politician, historian and journalist

Boris Johnson urges Obama not to intervene in EU debate https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-35800232 BBC News (14 March 2016)
2010s, 2016

C. L. R. James photo
Edward Bellamy photo
Edward Bellamy photo

“Sounds impressive. And expensive.”

“Not at all.” Danziger shook his head firmly. “It will cost, all told, only a little over three million dollars, less than the cost of two hours of war, and a better buy.”
Source: Time and Again (1970), Chapter 4 (p. 65)

George Stephenson photo
Philip Schaff photo

“He adapted the words to the capacity of the Germans, often at the expense of accuracy. He cared more for the substance than the form. He turned the Hebrew shekel into a Silberling, the Greek drachma and Roman denarius into a German Groschen, the quadrans into a Heller, the Hebrew measures into Scheffel, Malter, Tonne, Centner, and the Roman centurion into a Hauptmann. He substituted even undeutsch (!) for barbarian in 1 Cor. 14:11. Still greater liberties he allowed himself in the Apocrypha, to make them more easy and pleasant reading. He used popular alliterative phrases as Geld und Gut, Land und Leute, Rath und That, Stecken und Stab, Dornen und Disteln, matt und müde, gäng und gäbe.”

Philip Schaff (1819–1893) American Calvinist theologian

He avoided foreign terms which rushed in like a flood with the revival of learning, especially in proper names (as Melanchthon for Schwarzerd, Aurifaber for Goldschmid, Oecolampadius for Hausschein, Camerarius for Kammermeister). He enriched the vocabulary with such beautiful words as holdselig, Gottseligkeit.
Erasmus Alber, a contemporary of Luther, called him the German Cicero, who not only reformed religion, but also the German language.
Luther's version is an idiomatic reproduction of the Bible in the very spirit of the Bible. It brings out the whole wealth, force, and beauty of the German language. It is the first German classic, as King James's version is the first English classic. It anticipated the golden age of German literature as represented by Klopstock, Lessing, Herder, Goethe, Schiller,—all of them Protestants, and more or less indebted to the Luther-Bible for their style. The best authority in Teutonic philology pronounces his language to be the foundation of the new High German dialect on account of its purity and influence, and the Protestant dialect on account of its freedom which conquered even Roman Catholic authors.
Notable examples of Luther's renderings of Hebrew and Greek words
Source: The same word silverling occurs once in the English version, Isa. 7:23, and is retained in the R. V. of 1885. The German Probebibel retains it in this and other passages, as Gen. 20:16; Judg. 9:4, etc.
Source: See Grimm, Luther's Uebersetzung der Apocryphen, in the "Studien und Kritiken" for 1883, pp. 376-400. He judges that Luther's version of Ecclesiasticus (Jesus Sirach) is by no means a faithful translation, but a model of a free and happy reproduction from a combination of the Greek and Latin texts.

John Gay photo
Robert Greene photo
Will Durant photo

“Here and everywhere is the struggle for existence, life inextricably enmeshed with war. All life living at the expense of life, every organism eating other organisms forever.”

Will Durant (1885–1981) American historian, philosopher and writer

Source: Fallen Leaves (2014), Ch. 4 : On Old Age

James P. Gray photo
James P. Gray photo
Fidel Castro photo
Muhammad al-Baqir photo

“The believer does not spend an expense more lovable with Allah than saying the truth during consent and anger.”

Muhammad al-Baqir (677–733) fifth of the Twelve Shia Imams

Al-Khisal, p. 60
[Baqir Shareef al-Qurashi, Jasim al-Rasheed, The Life of Imam Muhammad ibn 'Ali al-Baqir, His traditions from the Prophet, 1999]

Charles James Napier photo
Antoinette Brown Blackwell photo
Dylan Moran photo
Richard D. Wolff photo
Wendell Berry photo
Wendell Berry photo
William Slim, 1st Viscount Slim photo

“Private armies, and for that matter private air forces- are expensive, wasteful, and unnecessary.”

William Slim, 1st Viscount Slim (1891–1970) former Governor-General of Australia

Source: Defeat Into Victory (1961), p. 457

Newton Lee photo
Maria Weston Chapman photo

“Grudge no expense — yield to no opposition — forget fatigue — till, by the strength of prayer and sacrifice, the spirit of love have overcome.”

Maria Weston Chapman (1806–1885) American abolitionist

In Liberator, August 13, 1836, as quoted in [Thomsett, Michael C., Thomsett, Linda Rose, A Speaker's Treasury of Quotations: Maxims, Witticisms and Quips for Speeches and Presentations, https://books.google.com/books?id=igYyBgAAQBAJ, 17 March 2009, McFarland, 978-0-7864-2945-5, 75]

Milton Friedman photo
Alice Meynell photo
William Ewart Gladstone photo
Mary Ruwart photo

“[M]ost poverty in the world today is caused by aggression, not ignorance. The illusion that aggression-through-government benefits the poor at the expensive of the rich is just that, an illusion.”

Mary Ruwart (1949) American scientist and libertarian activist

Source: Healing Our World: In An Age of Aggression, (2003), p. 92

Ralph Waldo Emerson photo

“Our distrust is very expensive.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

“The best wedding is that upon which the least trouble and expense is bestowed.”

Thomas Hughes (priest) (1838–1911) British missionary

sayings of Muhammad on the subject of marriage, quoted from T.P. Hughes: Dictionary of Islam.
Dictionary of Islam

Armen Sarkissian photo

“Moreover, nobody gave us independence. We tried, we fought, and we achieved. We achieved it not only at the cost of our will and devotion but also at the expense of the lives of many of our compatriots.”

Armen Sarkissian (1953) 4th President of Armenia, Member of the Global Leadership Foundation, one of the directors of Eurasia House, phy…

"Address on Armenia's Independence Day" https://www.president.am/en/statements-and-messages/item/2021/09/21/President-Armen-Sarkissians-congratulatory-message-on-the-occasion-of-Armenias-Independence-Day-/ (21 September 2021)

Joe Biden photo

“Look, I don’t want to punish anyone’s success, but the wealthy have been getting a free ride at the expense of the middle class for too long.”

Joe Biden (1942) 47th Vice President of the United States (in office from 2009 to 2017)

I intend to pass one of the biggest middle class tax cuts ever — paid for by making those at the top pay their fair share.
Source: https://whdh.com/news/democrats-look-to-tax-people-earning-more-than-400k-no-one-else-for-3-5-trillion-bill/ Democrats look to tax people earning more than $400K, no one else for $3.5 trillion bill (September 14, 2021)

“An action is morally good which aids or promotes this unfolding of self and it is morally bad if it inhibits or destroys the process. It, of course, goes without saying that this does not include one's own rise at the expense of another.”

Leonard E. Read (1898–1983) American academic

Leonard Read Journals, October 24, 1951 https://history.fee.org/leonard-read-journal/1951/leonard-e-read-journal-october-1951/

Scott Adams photo
William Augustus Muhlenberg photo

“The head should not be furnished at the expense of the heart.”

William Augustus Muhlenberg (1796–1877) United States Anglican Episcopal clergyman

AN ADDRESS, Delivered by WM. AUGUSTUS MUHLENBERG, after a public examination of the Students of the Institute at Flushing, L.I., July 28, 1831.

Frank Lloyd Wright photo

“If you demand the collective to pay for your medical expenses, then be prepared for the collective to demand to make your medical decisions for you.”

Source: H.H. LAUGHLIN: American Scientist. American Progressive. Nazi Collaborator.