Quotes about haste

A collection of quotes on the topic of haste, god, doing, making.

Quotes about haste

Thomas De Quincey photo

“Thou hast the keys of Paradise, oh just, subtle, and mighty opium!”

Pt. II.
Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (1822-1856)

Angelus Silesius photo
Marcus Aurelius photo
Herodotus photo

“Haste in every business brings failures.”

Book 7, Ch. 10.
The Histories

Hazrat Inayat Khan photo

“Go Placidly, Amid the noise and Haste & Remember what peace there may be in silence…”

Max Ehrmann (1872–1945) American writer, poet, and attorney

Source: Desiderata: A Poem for a Way of Life

Aurelius Augustinus photo

“Thou hast made us for Thyself, and the heart never resteth till it findeth rest in Thee.”

Aurelius Augustinus (354–430) early Christian theologian and philosopher

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 515

Dante Alighieri photo

“The sword above here smiteth not in haste
Nor tardily, howe'er it seem to him
Who fearing or desiring waits for it.”

Canto XXII, lines 16–18 (tr. Longfellow).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Paradiso

Livy photo

“All things will be clear and distinct to the man who does not hurry; haste is blind and improvident.”

Livy (-59–17 BC) Roman historian

Book XXII, sec. 39
History of Rome

William Shakespeare photo
William Shakespeare photo
Idries Shah photo
Lois Lowry photo
Friedrich Nietzsche photo
William Shakespeare photo
Christopher Marlowe photo

“Thou hast committed—
Fornication: but that was in another country;
And besides, the wench is dead.”

Friar Barnardine and Barabas, Act IV, scene i
The Jew of Malta (c. 1589)

John Locke photo
William Shakespeare photo
Abraham Lincoln photo
Oliver Herford photo

“Manuscript: something submitted in haste and returned at leisure.”

Oliver Herford (1863–1935) American writer

Speaker's Handbook of Epigrams and Witticisms (1955), p. 187.
Attributed

Marcus Aurelius photo

“Love the little trade which thou hast learned, and be content therewith.”

IV, 31
Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book IV

Lewis Carroll photo

“A sadder vision yet: thine aged sire
Shaming his hoary locks with treacherous wile!
And dost thou now doubt Truth to be a liar?
And wilt thou die, that hast forgot to smile?”

Lewis Carroll (1832–1898) English writer, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer

Four Riddles, no. II
Rhyme? and Reason? (1883)

Louis Sullivan photo
Thomas Malory photo

“With that truncheon thou hast slain a good knight, and now it sticketh in thy body.”

Book II, ch. 14
Le Morte d'Arthur (c. 1469) (first known edition 1485)

Leonardo Da Vinci photo

“O admirable impartiality of Thine, Thou first Mover; Thou hast not permitted that any force should fail of the order or quality of its necessary results.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XIX Philosophical Maxims. Morals. Polemics and Speculations.

John Locke photo
Leonardo Da Vinci photo
Nanak photo
Bahá'u'lláh photo
Abraham Lincoln photo
Abraham Lincoln photo

“Abraham Lincoln is my name
And with my pen I wrote the same
I wrote in both hast and speed
and left it here for fools to read”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

Manuscript poem, as a teenager (ca. 1824–1826), in "Lincoln as Poet" at Library of Congress : Presidents as Poets http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/prespoetry/al.html, as published in The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln (1953) edited by Roy. P. Basler, Vol. 1
1820s

Isaac Newton photo

“Oh, Diamond! Diamond! thou little knowest what mischief thou hast done!”

Isaac Newton (1643–1727) British physicist and mathematician and founder of modern classical physics

This is from an anecdote found in St. Nicholas magazine, Vol. 5, No. 4, (February 1878) http://www.gutenberg.org/files/15331/15331-h/15331-h.htm :
Sir Isaac Newton had on his table a pile of papers upon which were written calculations that had taken him twenty years to make. One evening, he left the room for a few minutes, and when he came back he found that his little dog "Diamond" had overturned a candle and set fire to the precious papers, of which nothing was left but a heap of ashes.

Angelus Silesius photo

“The resurrection is
In spirit done in thee,
As soon as thou from all
Thy sins hast set thee free.”

Angelus Silesius (1624–1677) German writer

The Cherubinic Wanderer

Friedrich Nietzsche photo

“Haste is universal because everyone is in flight from himself.”

trans. Hollingdale (1983), “Schopenhauer as educator,” p. 158
Untimely Meditations (1876)

Leonardo Da Vinci photo

“O mighty and once living instrument of formative nature. Incapable of availing thyself of thy vast strength thou hast to abandon a life of stillness and to obey the law which God and time gave to procreative nature.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

Of the lightning in clouds.
The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XIX Philosophical Maxims. Morals. Polemics and Speculations.

Miguel de Cervantes photo

“Thou hast seen nothing yet.”

Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616) Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright

Source: Don Quixote de la Mancha (1605–1615), Part I, Book III, Ch. 11.

Leonardo Da Vinci photo
Heinrich Heine photo

“My songs, they say, are poisoned.
How else, love, could it be?
Thou hast, with deadly magic,
Poured poison into me.”

Heinrich Heine (1797–1856) German poet, journalist, essayist, and literary critic

Lyrical Intermezzo, 57; in Poems of Heinrich Heine: Three Hundred and Twenty-five Poems (1917) Selected and translated by Louis Untermeyer, p. 73

Edgar Allan Poe photo

“Hast thou not torn the Naiad from her flood,
The Elfin from the green grass, and from me
The summer dream beneath the tamarind tree?”

Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849) American author, poet, editor and literary critic

" Sonnet. To Science http://library.thinkquest.org/11840/Poe/science.html", l. 12-14 (1829).

Thomas Bradwardine photo

“O great and wonderful Lord our God, thou only light of the eyes, open, I implore thee, the eyes of my heart, and of others my fellow-creatures, that we may truly understand and contemplate thy wondrous works. And the more thoroughly we comprehend them, the more may our minds be affected in the contemplation with pious reverence and profound devotion. Who is not struck with awe in beholding thy all-powerful will completely efficacious throughout every part of the creation? It is by this same sovereign and irresistible will, that whom and when thou pleasest thou bringest low and liftest up, killest and makest alive. How intense and how unbounded is thy love to me, O Lord! whereas my love, how feeble and remiss! my gratitude, how cold and inconstant! Far be it from thee that thy love should even resemble mine; for in every kind of excellence thou art consummate. O thou who fillest heaven and earth, why fillest thou not this narrow heart? O human soul, low, abject, and miserable, whoever thou art, if thou be not fully replenished with the love of so great a good, why dost thou not open all thy doors, expand all thy folds, extend all thy capacity, that, by the sweetness of love so great, thou mayest be wholly occupied, satiated, and ravished; especially since, little as thou art, thou canst not be satisfied with the love of any good inferior to the One supreme? Speak the word, that thou mayest become my God and most enviable in mine eyes, and it shall instantly be so, without the possibility of failure. What can be more efficacious to engage the affection than preventing love? Most gracious Lord, by thy love thou hast prevented me, wretch that I am, who had no love for thee, but was at enmity with my Maker and Redeemer. I see, Lord, that it is easy to say and to write these things, but very difficult to execute them. Do thou, therefore, to whom nothing is difficult, grant that I may more easily practise these things with my heart than utter them with my lips. Open thy liberal hand, that nothing may be easier, sweeter, or more delightful to me, than to be employed in these things. Thou, who preventest thy servants with thy gracious love, whom dost thou not elevate with the hope of finding thee?”

Thomas Bradwardine (1300–1349) Theologian; Archbishop of Canterbury

Sample of Bradwardine devotional writing quoted by James Burnes, The Church of England Magazine under the superintendence of clergymen of the United Church of England and Ireland Vol. IV (January to June 1838)

James Macpherson photo
Pope Francis photo
Henry Dunant photo
Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo
Augustus photo

“Make haste slowly.”

Augustus (-63–14 BC) founder of Julio-Claudian dynasty and first emperor of the Roman Empire

As quoted in Houghton, Mifflin, Familiar Short Sayings of Great Men (1882), p. 25
Variant translations: "Hurry slowly"; or, "Hasten slowly." Originally quoted in Greek, in Suetonius, II. Augustus, section 25, but better known in the Latin form, as reported in Chambers Dictionary of Quotations (1997), p. 50

Theodoret photo

“It is related that when Julian had received the wound, he filled his hand with blood, flung it into the air and cried, "Thou hast won, O Galilean."”

Theodoret (393–458) Syrian bishop

Ecclesiastical History, Book III, Ch. 20 (c. 429); this is usually accepted as the origin of the spurious tradition of the last words of Julian being "Thou hast won, O Galilean." No mention of such a declaration occurs in the accounts of any earlier writers, even those most hostile to Julian.
Context: Julian’s folly was yet more clearly manifested by his death. He crossed the river that separates the Roman Empire from the Persian, brought over his army, and then forthwith burnt his boats, so making his men fight not in willing but in forced obedience. The best generals are wont to fill their troops with enthusiasm, and, if they see them growing discouraged, to cheer them and raise their hopes; but Julian by burning the bridge of retreat cut off all good hope. A further proof of his incompetence was his failure to fulfil the duty of foraging in all directions and providing his troops with supplies. Julian had neither ordered supplies to be brought from Rome, nor did he make any bountiful provision by ravaging the enemy’s country. He left the inhabited world behind him, and persisted in marching through the wilderness. His soldiers had not enough to eat and drink; they were without guides; they were marching astray in a desert land. Thus they saw the folly of their most wise emperor. In the midst of their murmuring and grumbling they suddenly found him who had struggled in mad rage against his Maker wounded to death. Ares who raises the war-din had never come to help him as he promised; Loxias had given lying divination; he who glads him in the thunderbolts had hurled no bolt on the man who dealt the fatal blow; the boasting of his threats was dashed to the ground. The name of the man who dealt that righteous stroke no one knows to this day. Some say that he was wounded by an invisible being, others by one of the Nomads who were called Ishmaelites; others by a trooper who could not endure the pains of famine in the wilderness. But whether it were man or angel who plied the steel, without doubt the doer of the deed was the minister of the will of God. It is related that when Julian had received the wound, he filled his hand with blood, flung it into the air and cried, "Thou hast won, O Galilean." Thus he gave utterance at once to a confession of the victory and to a blasphemy. So infatuated was he.

Joseph Addison photo

“Mysterious love, uncertain treasure,
Hast thou more of pain or pleasure!
Chill'd with tears,
Kill'd with fears,
Endless torments dwell about thee:
Yet who would live, and live without thee!”

Joseph Addison (1672–1719) politician, writer and playwright

Queen Elinor in Rosamond (c. 1707), Act III, sc. ii.
Context: Every star, and every pow'r,
Look down on this important hour:
Lend your protection and defence
Every guard of innocence!
Help me my Henry to assuage,
To gain his love or bear his rage.
Mysterious love, uncertain treasure,
Hast thou more of pain or pleasure!
Chill'd with tears,
Kill'd with fears,
Endless torments dwell about thee:
Yet who would live, and live without thee!

John of the Cross photo

“Since Thou hast regarded me,
Grace and beauty hast Thou given me.”

John of the Cross (1542–1591) Spanish mystic and Roman Catholic saint

Spiritual Canticle of The Soul and The Bridegroom
Context: Despise me not,
For if I was swarthy once
Thou canst regard me now;
Since Thou hast regarded me,
Grace and beauty hast Thou given me. ~ 33

John of the Cross photo

“A thousand graces diffusing
He passed through the groves in haste,
And merely regarding them
As He passed
Clothed them with His beauty. ~ 5”

John of the Cross (1542–1591) Spanish mystic and Roman Catholic saint

Spiritual Canticle of The Soul and The Bridegroom

William Congreve photo

“Thus grief still treads upon the heels of pleasure;
Married in haste, we may repent at leisure.”

Act V, scene viii. Compare: "Who wooed in haste, and means to wed at leisure", William Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew, Act iii, scene 2
The Old Bachelor (1693)

Thucydides photo
Abraham Lincoln photo

“The Union must be preserved, and hence all indispensable means must be employed. We should not be in haste to determine that radical and extreme measures, which may reach the loyal as well as the disloyal, are indispensable.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

1860s, First State of the Union address (1861)
Context: The war continues. In considering the policy to be adopted for suppressing the insurrection I have been anxious and careful that the inevitable conflict for this purpose shall not degenerate into a violent and remorseless revolutionary struggle. I have therefore in every case thought it proper to keep the integrity of the Union prominent as the primary object of the contest on our pan, leaving all questions which are not of vital military importance to the more deliberate action of the Legislature. In the exercise of my best discretion I have adhered to the blockade of the ports held by the insurgents, instead of putting in force by proclamation the law of Congress enacted. at the late session for closing those ports. So also, obeying the dictates of prudence, as well as the obligations of law, instead of transcending I have adhered to the act of Congress to confiscate property used for insurrectionary purposes. If a new law upon the same subject shall be proposed, its propriety will be duly considered. The Union must be preserved, and hence all indispensable means must be employed. We should not be in haste to determine that radical and extreme measures, which may reach the loyal as well as the disloyal, are indispensable.

Edgar Allan Poe photo
Johann Gottlieb Fichte photo
Voltaire photo

“This new patriarch Fox said one day to a justice of peace, before a large assembly of people. "Friend, take care what thou dost; God will soon punish thee for persecuting his saints." This magistrate, being one who besotted himself every day with bad beer and brandy, died of apoplexy two days after; just as he had signed a mittimus for imprisoning some Quakers. The sudden death of this justice was not ascribed to his intemperance; but was universally looked upon as the effect of the holy man's predictions; so that this accident made more Quakers than a thousand sermons and as many shaking fits would have done. Cromwell, finding them increase daily, was willing to bring them over to his party, and for that purpose tried bribery; however, he found them incorruptible, which made him one day declare that this was the only religion he had ever met with that could resist the charms of gold.
The Quakers suffered several persecutions under Charles II; not upon a religious account, but for refusing to pay the tithes, for "theeing" and "thouing" the magistrates, and for refusing to take the oaths enacted by the laws.
At length Robert Barclay, a native of Scotland, presented to the king, in 1675, his "Apology for the Quakers"; a work as well drawn up as the subject could possibly admit. The dedication to Charles II, instead of being filled with mean, flattering encomiums, abounds with bold truths and the wisest counsels. "Thou hast tasted," says he to the king, at the close of his "Epistle Dedicatory," "of prosperity and adversity: thou hast been driven out of the country over which thou now reignest, and from the throne on which thou sittest: thou hast groaned beneath the yoke of oppression; therefore hast thou reason to know how hateful the oppressor is both to God and man. If, after all these warnings and advertisements, thou dost not turn unto the Lord, with all thy heart; but forget Him who remembered thee in thy distress, and give thyself up to follow lust and vanity, surely great will be thy guilt, and bitter thy condemnation. Instead of listening to the flatterers about thee, hearken only to the voice that is within thee, which never flatters. I am thy faithful friend and servant, Robert Barclay."”

Voltaire (1694–1778) French writer, historian, and philosopher

The most surprising circumstance is that this letter, though written by an obscure person, was so happy in its effect as to put a stop to the persecution.
The History of the Quakers (1762)

Nikola Tesla photo

“One afternoon, which is ever present in my recollection, I was enjoying a walk with my friend in the city park and reciting poetry. At that age I knew entire books by heart, word for word. One of these was Goethe's Faust. The sun was just setting and reminded me of a glorious passage:
Sie rückt und weicht, der Tag ist überlebt,
Dort eilt sie hin und fördert neues Leben.
O! daß kein Flügel mich vom Boden hebt,
Ihr nach und immer nach zu streben!
Ein schöner Traum, indessen sie entweicht.
Ach! zu des Geistes Flügeln wird so leicht
Kein körperlicher Flügel sich gesellen![The glow retreats, done is the day of toil;
It yonder hastes, new fields of life exploring;
Ah, that no wing can lift me from the soil
Upon its track to follow, follow soaring!
A glorious dream! though now the glories fade.
Alas! the wings that lift the mind no aid
Of wings to lift the body can bequeath me.
(tr. Bayard Taylor)
As I uttered these inspiring words the idea came like a flash of lightning and in an instant the truth was revealed. I drew with a stick on the sand the diagram shown six years later in my address before the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, and my companion understood them perfectly. The images I saw were wonderfully sharp and clear and had the solidity of metal and stone, so much so that I told him, "See my motor here; watch me reverse it."”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

I cannot begin to describe my emotions. Pygmalion seeing his statue come to life could not have been more deeply moved. A thousand secrets of nature which I might have stumbled upon accidentally, I would have given for that one which I had wrested from her against all odds and at the peril of my existence …

On the Invention of the Induction Motor
My Inventions (1919)

Sören Kierkegaard photo

“Most men pursue pleasure with such breathless haste that they hurry past it.”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

Swenson, 1959, p. 28
1840s, Either/Or (1843)

John Wesley photo

“I am always in haste, but never in a hurry.”

John Wesley (1703–1791) Christian theologian

As quoted in the "Saturday Review" (28 November 1874)
General sources
Source: John Wesley's Sermons: An Anthology

Cinda Williams Chima photo
George Gordon Byron photo
Harriet Beecher Stowe photo
Emily Dickinson photo
Agatha Christie photo

“Never do I deceive you, Hastings. I only permit you to deceive yourself.”

Hercule Poirot’s Early Cases (1974)
Source: The Mysterious Affair at Styles

John Keats photo
Alexandre Dumas photo
Henry David Thoreau photo

“Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed, and in such desperate enterprises? If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.”

Walden (1854)
Context: A living dog is better than a dead lion. Shall a man go and hang himself because he belongs to the race of pygmies, and not be the biggest pygmy that he can? Let every one mind his own business, and endeavor to be what he was made. Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed, and in such desperate enterprises? If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.<!--pp.366-367

Alexandre Dumas photo

“Haste is a poor counselor”

Source: The Count of Monte Cristo

“Art is the means we have of undoing the damage of haste. It's what everything else isn't.”

Theodore Roethke (1908–1963) American poet

Poetry and Craft (1965)
Source: On Poetry and Craft: Selected Prose

Homér photo

“Be still my heart; thou hast known worse than this.”

Variant: Be strong, saith my heart; I am a soldier;
I have seen worse sights than this.
Source: The Odyssey

Agatha Christie photo
Richard Baxter photo

“All are making haste towards hell, until by conviction, Christ brings them to a halt, and then, by conversion, turns their hearts and lives sincerely to himself.”

Richard Baxter (1615–1691) English Puritan church leader, poet, and hymn-writer

The Saints' Everlasting Rest (1650), "The Nature of the Saints' Rest"

Samuel Butler (poet) photo

“Friend Ralph, thou hast
Outrun the constable at last.”

Samuel Butler (poet) (1612–1680) poet and satirist

Canto III, line 1367
Source: Hudibras, Part I (1663–1664)

Nicholas Rowe photo
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner photo
William Henry Davies photo
Torquato Tasso photo
F. Anstey photo

““Thou hast heard of her incomparable charms, and verily the ear may love before the eye.”
”It may,” admitted Horace, “but neither of my ears is the least in love at present.””

F. Anstey (1856–1934) English novelist and journalist

Source: The Brass Bottle (1900), Chapter 14, “Since There’s No Help, Come, Let Us Kiss and Part!”

Thomas Bradwardine photo
Leigh Brackett photo

““Better to make haste slowly than not at all,” said Amnir sententiously.”

Leigh Brackett (1915–1978) American novelist and screenwriter

Source: The Ginger Star (1974), Chapter 11 (p. 74)

Percy Bysshe Shelley photo

“Sun-girt City, thou hast been
Ocean's child, and then his queen;
Now is come a darker day,
And thou soon must be his prey.”

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) English Romantic poet

Lines Written among the Euganean Hills (1818)

Thomas Henry Huxley photo
Thomas Carlyle photo

“… I must say, it [the Koran] is as toilsome reading as I ever undertook. A wearisome confused jumble, crude, incondite; endless iterations, long-windedness, entanglement; most crude, incondite; — insupportable stupidity, in short! Nothing but a sense of duty could carry any European through the Koran … It is the confused ferment of a great rude human soul; rude, untutored, that cannot even read; but fervent, earnest, struggling vehemently to utter itself in words … We said "stupid:" yet natural stupidity is by no means the character of Mahomet's Book; it is natural uncultivation rather. The man has not studied speaking; in the haste and pressure of continual fighting, has not time to mature himself into fit speech … The man was an uncultured semi-barbarous Son of Nature, much of the Bedouin still clinging to him: we must take him for that. But for a wretched Simulacrum, a hungry Impostor without eyes or heart … we will not and cannot take him. Sincerity, in all senses, seems to me the merit of the Koran; what had rendered it precious to the wild Arab men … Curiously, through these incondite masses of tradition, vituperation, complaint, ejaculation in the Koran, a vein of true direct insight, of what we might almost call poetry, is found straggling.”

Thomas Carlyle, "On Heroes, Hero-Worship and the Heroic in History" (1841), pg. 64-67
1840s

Hastings Banda photo

“Douglas Brown: Dr Banda, what is the purpose of your visit?
Hastings Banda: Well, I've been asked by the Secretary of State to come here.
Brown: Have you come here to ask the Secretary of State a firm date for Nyasaland's independence?
Banda: I won't tell you that.
Brown: When do you hope to get independence?
Banda: I won't tell you that.
Brown: Dr Banda, when you get independence, are you as determined as ever to break away from the Central African Federation?
Banda: Need you ask me that question at this stage?
Brown: Well, this stage is as good as any other stage. Why do you ask me why I shouldn't ask you this question at this stage?
Banda: Haven't I said that enough for everybody to be convinced that I mean just that?
Brown: Dr Banda, if you break with the Central African Federation, how will you make out economically? After all, your country isn't really a rich country.
Banda: Don't ask me that, leave that to me.
Brown: In which way is your mind working?
Banda: Which way? I won't tell you that.
Brown: Where do you hope to get economic aid from?
Banda: I won't tell you that.
Brown: Are you going to tell me anything?
Banda: Nothing.
Brown: Are you going to tell me why you've been to Portugal?
Banda: That's my business.
Brown: In fact you're going to tell me nothing at all.
Banda: Nothing at all.
Brown: So it's a singularly fruitless interview?
Banda: Well, it's up to you.
Brown: Thank you very much.”

Hastings Banda (1898–1997) First president of Malawi

BBC Training "Interviews from hell" http://www.bbctraining.com/modules/2604/hell2.html. BBC INFAX http://open.bbc.co.uk/catalogue/infax/programme/SX+28015_9
BBC Interview, 21 June 1962

Thomas Fuller (writer) photo

“1887. Think thyself happy if thou hast one true Friend; never think of finding another.”

Thomas Fuller (writer) (1654–1734) British physician, preacher, and intellectual

Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727)

Elizabeth Barrett Browning photo
Julian of Norwich photo
John Napier photo

“Here then (belove reader) thou hast this work devided into two treatises, the first is the said introduction and reasoning, for investigation of the true sense of every cheife Theological tearme and date contained in the Revelation, whereby, not onely is it opened, explained and interpreted, but also that same explanation and interpretation is proved, confirmed and demonstrated, by evidente proofe and coherence of scriptures, agreeable with the event of histories. The seconde is, the principall treatise, in which the whole Apocalyps, Chapter by chapter, Verse by verse, and Sentence by sentence, is both Paraphrastically expounded and Historically applyed. …And because this whole work of Revelation concerneth most the discoverie of the Antichristian and Papisticall kingdome, I have therefore (for removing of all suspition) in al histories and prophane matters, taken my authorities and cited my places either out of Ethnick auctors, or then papistical writers, whose testimonies by no reason can be refuted against themselves. But in matters of divinitie, doctrine & interpretation of mysteries (leaving all opinions of men) I take me onely to the interpretation and discoverie thereof, by coherence of scripture, and godly reasons following thereupon; which also not only no Papist, but even no Christian may justly refuse. And forasmuch as our scripturs herein are of two fortes, the one our ordinary text, the other extraordinary citations; In our ordinary text, I follow not altogether the vulgar English translation, but the best learned in the Greek tong, so that (for satisfying the Papists) I differ nothing from their vulgar text of S. Jerome, as they cal it, except is such places, where I prove by good reasons, that hee differeth from the Original Greek. In the extraordinary texts of other scriptures cited by me, I followe ever Jeromes latine translation, where any controverse stands betwixt us and the Papists, and that moveth me in divers places to insert his very latine text, for their cause, with the just English thereof, for supply of the unlearned.”

John Napier (1550–1617) Scottish mathematician

A Plaine Discovery of the Whole Revelation of St. John (1593)

Thomas Carlyle photo
Abraham Cowley photo
Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo
Thomas Campbell photo

“O star-eyed Science! hast thou wandered there,
To waft us home the message of despair?”

Thomas Campbell (1777–1844) British writer

Part II, line 325
Pleasures of Hope (1799)

“The party that negotiates in haste is often at a disadvantage.”

Howard Raiffa (1924–2016) American academic

Part I, Chapter 1, Some organizing Questions, p. 16.
The Art and Science of Negotiation (1982)

Vladimir Lenin photo

“We must pursue the removal of church property by any means necessary in order to secure for ourselves a fund of several hundred million gold rubles (do not forget the immense wealth of some monasteries and lauras). Without this fund any government work in general, any economic build-up in particular, and any upholding of soviet principles in Genoa especially is completely unthinkable. In order to get our hands on this fund of several hundred million gold rubles (and perhaps even several hundred billion), we must do whatever is necessary. But to do this successfully is possible only now. All considerations indicate that later on we will fail to do this, for no other time, besides that of desperate famine, will give us such a mood among the general mass of peasants that would ensure us the sympathy of this group, or, at least, would ensure us the neutralization of this group in the sense that victory in the struggle for the removal of church property unquestionably and completely will be on our side.
One clever writer on statecraft correctly said that if it is necessary for the realization of a well-known political goal to perform a series of brutal actions then it is necessary to do them in the most energetic manner and in the shortest time, because masses of people will not tolerate the protracted use of brutality. … Now victory over the reactionary clergy is assured us completely. In addition, it will be more difficult for the major part of our foreign adversaries among the Russian emigres abroad, i. e., the Socialist-Revolutionaries and the Milyukovites, to fight against us if we, precisely at this time, precisely in connection with the famine, suppress the reactionary clergy with utmost haste and ruthlessness.
Therefore, I come to the indisputable conclusion that we must precisely now smash the Black Hundreds clergy most decisively and ruthlessly and put down all resistance with such brutality that they will not forget it for several decades. … The greater the number of representatives of the reactionary clergy and the reactionary bourgeoisie that we succeed in shooting on this occasion, the better because this "audience" must precisely now be taught a lesson in such a way that they will not dare to think about any resistance whatsoever for several decades.”

Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) Russian politician, led the October Revolution

Letter to Comrade Molotov for the Politburo (19 March 1922) http://www.ibiblio.org/expo/soviet.exhibit/ae2bkhun.html
Variant translation:
It is precisely now and only now, when in the starving regions people are eating human flesh, and hundreds if not thousands of corpses are littering the roads, that we can (and therefore must) carry out the confiscation of church valuables. … I come to the categorical conclusion that precisely at this moment we must give battle to the Black Hundred clergy in the most decisive and merciless manner and crush its resistance with such brutality that it will not forget it for decades to come. The greater the number of representatives of the reactionary clergy and reactionary bourgeoisie we succeed in executing for this reason, the better.
As translated in The Unknown Lenin : From the Secret Archive (1996) edited by Richard Pipes, pp. 152-4
1920s

Pierre Trudeau photo

“I don't know if the member of Prince Edward-Hastings thinks he's on camera, but he's not.”

Pierre Trudeau (1919–2000) 15th Prime Minister of Canada

Comment in the House of Commons in response to the heckling of George Hees, October 17, 1977 (this particular Question Period was the first to be televised, prompting Trudeau's remark. In actuality, John Raymond Ellis was the Prince Edward-Hastings MP.) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2kRv0kW5Oc#t=6m51s

Báb photo
Ralph Waldo Emerson photo

“Hast thou named all the birds without a gun;
Loved the wood-rose, and left it on its stalk.”

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

Forbearance http://www.emersoncentral.com/poems/forebearance.htm
1840s, Poems (1847)

Matthew Arnold photo

“Thou hast no right to bliss.”

Act I, sc. ii
Empedocles on Etna (1852)