Source: Jacob's Room (1922), Ch. 8
Context: The strange thing about life is that though the nature of it must have been apparent to every one for hundreds of years, no one has left any adequate account of it. The streets of London have their map; but our passions are uncharted. What are you going to meet if you turn this corner?
The Unnamable (1954)
Context: What they were most determined for me to swallow was my fellow creatures. In this they were without mercy. I remember little or nothing of these lectures. I cannot have understood a great deal. But I seem to have retained certain descriptions, in spite of myself. They gave me courses on love, on intelligence, most precious, most precious. They also taught me to count, and even to reason. Some of this rubbish has come in handy on occasions, I don’t deny it, on occasions which would never have arisen if they had left me in peace. I use it still, to scratch my arse with.
“There is a simple test. Those who are left in possession of the battlefield have won”
Context: The Treaty is already vindicating itself. The English Die-hards said to Mr. Lloyd George and his Cabinet: "You have surrendered". Our own Die-hards said to us: "You have surrendered". There is a simple test. Those who are left in possession of the battlefield have won.
As quoted in U.S. News & World Report, Vol. 110, Issues 5 (1991 Feb 11), p. 32
Context: A professional soldier understands that war means killing people, war means maiming people, war means families left without fathers and mothers. All you have to do is hold your first dying soldier in your arms, and have that terribly futile feeling that his life is flowing out and you can’t do anything about it. Then you understand the horror of war.
Any soldier worth his salt should be antiwar. And still there are things worth fighting for.
"April", in Poems (1859)
Context: Awakener, come!
Fiing wide the gate of an eternal year,
The April of that glad new heavens and earth
Which shall grow out of these, as spring-tide grows
Slow out of winter's breast.
Let Thy wide hand
Gather us all — with none left out (O God!
Leave Thou out none!) from the east and from the west.
Loose Thou our burdens: heal our sicknesses;
Give us one heart, one tongue, one faith, one love.
In Thy great Oneness made complete and strong —
To do Thy work throughout the happy world —
Thy world, All-merciful, Thy perfect world.
TIME interview (1991)
Context: I love the idea of a left conservative because it gets rid of political cant. We're stifling in it. One of the diseases of the right is self-righteousness. I do believe that America's deepest political sickness is that it is a self-righteous nation.
One of the diseases of the left is political correctness. If you're out of power for too long, then you just get worse and worse about how important your own ideas are.
Nītiśataka 8; translation of K.M. Joglekar
Śatakatraya
1910s, Principles of Research (1918)
Context: In the temple of science are many mansions, and various indeed are they that dwell therein and the motives that have led them thither. Many take to science out of a joyful sense of superior intellectual power; science is their own special sport to which they look for vivid experience and the satisfaction of ambition; many others are to be found in the temple who have offered the products of their brains on this altar for purely utilitarian purposes. Were an angel of the Lord to come and drive all the people belonging to these two categories out of the temple, the assemblage would be seriously depleted, but there would still be some men, of both present and past times, left inside. Our Planck is one of them, and that is why we love him.
I am quite aware that we have just now lightheartedly expelled in imagination many excellent men who are largely, perhaps chiefly, responsible for the buildings of the temple of science; and in many cases our angel would find it a pretty ticklish job to decide. But of one thing I feel sure: if the types we have just expelled were the only types there were, the temple would never have come to be, any more than a forest can grow which consists of nothing but creepers. For these people any sphere of human activity will do, if it comes to a point; whether they become engineers, officers, tradesmen, or scientists depends on circumstances.
Now let us have another look at those who have found favor with the angel. Most of them are somewhat odd, uncommunicative, solitary fellows, really less like each other, in spite of these common characteristics, than the hosts of the rejected. What has brought them to the temple? That is a difficult question and no single answer will cover it.
2016, DNC Address (July 2016)
Context: I think it's fair to say, this is not your typical election. It’s not just a choice between parties or policies; the usual debates between left and right. This is a more fundamental choice — about who we are as a people, and whether we stay true to this great American experiment in self-government.
Look, we Democrats have always had plenty of differences with the Republican Party, and there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s precisely this contest of idea that pushes our country forward. But what we heard in Cleveland last week wasn’t particularly Republican — and it sure wasn’t conservative. What we heard was a deeply pessimistic vision of a country where we turn against each other, and turn away from the rest of the world. There were no serious solutions to pressing problems — just the fanning of resentment, and blame, and anger, and hate.
And that is not the America I know. The America I know is full of courage, and optimism, and ingenuity. The America I know is decent and generous.
Vol. I, Ch. 12: Of the Prophecy of the Scripture of Truth
Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel, and the Apocalypse of St. John (1733)
Context: In the same year that Antiochus by the command of the Romans retired out of Egypt, and set up the worship of the Greeks in Judea; the Romans conquered the kingdom of Macedon, the fundamental kingdom of the Empire of the Greeks, and reduced it into a Roman Province; and thereby began to put an end to the reign of Daniel's third Beast. This is thus expressed by Daniel. And after him Arms, that is the Romans, shall stand up. As ממלך signifies after the King, Dan. xi. 8; so ממנו may signify after him. Arms are every where in this Prophecy of Daniel put for the military power of a kingdom: and they stand up when they conquer and grow powerful. Hitherto Daniel described the actions of the Kings of the North and South; but upon the conquest of Macedon by the Romans, he left off describing the actions of the Greeks, and began to describe those of the Romans in Greece. They conquered Macedon, Illyricum and Epirus, in the year of Nabonassar 580. 35 years after, by the last will and testament of Attalus the last King of Pergamus, they inherited that rich and flourishing kingdom, that is, all Asia westward of mount Taurus; 69 years after they conquered the kingdom of Syria, and reduced it into a Province, and 34 years after they did the like to Egypt. By all these steps the Roman Arms stood up over the Greeks: and after 95 years more, by making war upon the Jews, they polluted the sanctuary of strength, and took away the daily sacrifice, and then placed the abomination of desolation. For this abomination was placed after the days of Christ, Math. xxiv. 15. In the 16th year of the Emperor Adrian, A. C. 132, they placed this abomination by building a Temple to Jupiter Capitolinus, where the Temple of God in Jerusalem had stood. Thereupon the Jews under the conduct of Barchochab rose up in arms against the Romans, and in the war had 50 cities demolished, 985 of their best towns destroyed, and 580,000 men slain by the sword; and in the end of the war, A. C. 136, were banished Judea upon pain of death, and thenceforward the land remained desolate of its old inhabitants.
Golden Sayings of Epictetus
Context: Canst thou judge men?... then make us imitators of thyself, as Socrates did. Do this, do not do that, else will I cast thee into prison; this is not governing men like reasonable creatures. Say rather, As God hath ordained, so do; else thou wilt suffer chastisement and loss. Askest thou what loss? None other than this: To have left undone what thou shouldst have done: to have lost the faithfulness, the reverence, the modesty that is in thee! Greater loss than this seek not to find! (91).
"Robert Anton Wilson: Searching For Cosmic Intelligence" - interview by Jeffrey Elliot (1980)
Context: My early work is politically anarchist fiction, in that I was an anarchist for a long period of time. I'm not an anarchist any longer, because I've concluded that anarchism is an impractical ideal. Nowadays, I regard myself as a libertarian. I suppose an anarchist would say, paraphrasing what Marx said about agnostics being "frightened atheists," that libertarians are simply frightened anarchists. Having just stated the case for the opposition, I will go along and agree with them: yes, I am frightened. I'm a libertarian because I don't trust the people as much as anarchists do. I want to see government limited as much as possible; I would like to see it reduced back to where it was in Jefferson's time, or even smaller. But I would not like to see it abolished. I think the average American, if left totally free, would act exactly like Idi Amin. I don't trust the people any more than I trust the government.
Munich - Speech of April 12, 1922 https://archive.org/stream/TheSpeechesOfAdolfHitler19211941/hitler-speeches-collection_djvu.txt
1920s
Context: There are only two possibilities in Germany; do not imagine that the people will forever go with the middle party, the party of compromises; one day it will turn to those who have most consistently foretold the coming ruin and have sought to dissociate themselves from it. And that party is either the Left: and then God help us! for it will lead us to complete destruction - to Bolshevism, or else it is a party of the Right which at the last, when the people is in utter despair, when it has lost all its spirit and has no longer any faith in anything, is determined for its part ruthlessly to seize the reins of power - that is the beginning of resistance of which I spoke a few minutes ago. Here, too, there can be no compromise - there are only two possibilities: either victory of the Aryan, or annihilation of the Aryan and the victory of the Jew.
Vol. I, Ch. 7: Of the Eleventh Horn of Daniel's Fourth Beast
Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel, and the Apocalypse of St. John (1733)
Context: In a small book printed at Paris A. C. 1689, entitled, An historical dissertation upon some coins of Charles the great, Ludovicus Pius, Lotharius, and their successors stamped at Rome, it is recorded, that in the days of Pope Leo X, there was remaining in the Vatican, and till those days exposed to public view, an inscription in honour of Pipin the father of Charles the great, in these words... "That Pipin the pious was the first who opened a way to the grandeur of the Church of Rome, conferring upon her the Exarchate of Ravenna and many other oblations." …the Pope [Stephen II] sent letters to Pipin, wherein he told him that if he came not speedily against the Lombards, pro data sibi potentia, alienandum fore à regno Dei & vita æterna, he should be excommunicated. Pipin therefore, fearing a revolt of his subjects, and being indebted to the Church of Rome, came speedily with an army into Italy, raised the siege, besieged the Lombards in Pavia, and forced them to surrender the Exarchate and region of Pentapolis to the Pope for a perpetual possession. Thus the Pope became Lord of Ravenna, and the Exarchate, some few cities excepted; and the keys were sent to Rome, and laid upon the confession of St. Peter, that is, upon his tomb at the high Altar, in signum veri perpetuique dominii, sed pietate Regis gratuita, as the inscription of a coin of Pipin hath it. This was in the year of Christ 755. And henceforward the Popes being temporal Princes, left off in their Epistles and Bulls to note the years of the Greek Emperors, as they had hitherto done.
And both epithets will be false. After all this, is life worth the trouble? And yet we live - out of curiosity! We expect something new... How absurd, and yet how vexatious!
A Hero of Our Time (1840; rev. 1841)
2016, DNC Address (July 2016)
Context: Hillary has got her share of critics. She has been caricatured by the right and by some on the left. She has been accused of everything you can imagine — and some things that you cannot. But she knows that’s what happens when you’re under a microscope for 40 years. She knows that sometimes during those 40 years she’s made mistakes — just like I have; just like we all do. That’s what happens when we try. That’s what happens when you’re the kind of citizen Teddy Roosevelt once described — not the timid souls who criticize from the sidelines, but someone “who is actually in the arena…who strives valiantly; who errs…but who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement.”
Hillary Clinton is that woman in the arena. She’s been there for us — even if we haven’t always noticed. And if you’re serious about our democracy, you can’t afford to stay home just because she might not align with you on every issue. You’ve got to get in the arena with her, because democracy isn’t a spectator sport. America isn’t about “yes, he will.” It’s about “yes, we can.” And we’re going to carry Hillary to victory this fall, because that’s what the moment demands. [Audience: Yes, we can! Yes, we can! Yes, we can! ] Yes, we can. Not "yes, she can." Not "yes, I can." "Yes, we can."
Introducing "Who by Fire"
Warsaw concert (1985)
Context: I come from a country where we do not have the same struggles as you have. I respect your struggles. And it may surprise you, but I respect both sides of this struggle. It seems to be that in Europe there needs to be a left foot and a right foot to move forward. I wish that both feet move forward and the body moves towards its proper destiny. This is an intense country; the people are heroic, the spirit is independent. It is a difficult country to govern, it needs a strong government and a strong union. … I would like to say to you, to the leaders of the left, and the leaders of the right, I sing... I sing for everyone. My song has no flag, my song has no party. And I say the prayer, that we said in our synagogue, I say it for the leader of your union and the leader of your party. May the Lord put a spirit, a wisdom and understanding into the hearts of your leaders and into the hearts of all their counsellors.
Go Rin No Sho (1645), The Fire Book
Source: Bend Sinister (1963), p. vi.
Context: The term "bend sinister" means a heraldic bar or band drawn from the left side (and popularly, but incorrectly, supposed to denote bastardy). This choice of title was an attempt to suggest an outline broken by refraction, a distortion in the mirror of being, a wrong turn taken by life, a sinistral and sinister world. The title's drawback is that a solemn reader looking for "general ideas" or "human interest" (which is much the same thing) in a novel may be led to look for them in this one.
From a review of Malcolm Muggeridge's The Thirties, in New English Weekly (25 April 1940)
Context: It is all very well to be "advanced" and "enlightened," to snigger at Colonel Blimp and proclaim your emancipation from all traditional loyalties, but a time comes when the sand of the desert is sodden red and what have I done for thee, England, my England? As I was brought up in this tradition myself I can recognise it under strange disguises, and also sympathise with it, for even at its stupidest and most sentimental it is a comelier thing than the shallow self-righteousness of the left-wing intelligentsia.
Powell v. Alabama, 287 U.S. 45, 53 (1932)
Taking Rights Seriously (1978), p. 31
Context: Discretion, like the hole in a doughnut, does not exist except as an area left open by a surrounding belt of restriction. It is therefore a relative concept. It always makes sense to ask, "Discretion under which standards?" or "Discretion as to which authority?"
Cities of the Red Night (1981)
Context: There is simply no room left for 'freedom from the tyranny of government' since city dwellers depend on it for food, power, water, transportation, protection, and welfare. Your right to live where you want, with companions of your choosing, under laws to which you agree, died in the eighteenth century with Captain Mission. Only a miracle or a disaster could restore it.
2013, Commencement Address at Ohio State University (May 2013)
Context: That’s precisely what the founders left us: the power to adapt to changing times. They left us the keys to a system of self-government – the tool to do big and important things together that we could not possibly do alone. To stretch railroads and electricity and a highway system across a sprawling continent. To educate our people with a system of public schools and land grant colleges, including Ohio State. To care for the sick and the vulnerable, and provide a basic level of protection from falling into abject poverty in the wealthiest nation on Earth. To conquer fascism and disease; to visit the Moon and Mars; to gradually secure our God-given rights for all our citizens, regardless of who they are, what they look like, or who they love.
We, the people, chose to do these things together. Because we know this country cannot accomplish great things if we pursue nothing greater than our own individual ambition.
Still, you’ll hear voices that incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity that’s the root of all our problems, even as they do their best to gum up the works; or that tyranny always lurks just around the corner. You should reject these voices. Because what they suggest is that our brave, creative, unique experiment in self-rule is just a sham with which we can’t be trusted.
We have never been a people who place all our faith in government to solve our problems, nor do we want it to. But we don’t think the government is the source of all our problems, either. Because we understand that this democracy is ours. As citizens, we understand that America is not about what can be done for us. It’s about what can be done by us, together, through the hard and frustrating but absolutely necessary work of self-government.
The founders trusted us with this awesome authority. We should trust ourselves with it, too. Because when we don’t, when we turn away and get discouraged and abdicate that authority, we grant our silent consent to someone who’ll gladly claim it.
“What I spent I lost; what I possessed is left to others; what I gave away remains with me.”
No. 177 (22 September 1711).
The Spectator (1711–1714)
Context: I have somewhere met with the epitaph of a charitable man, which has very much pleased me. I cannot recollect the words, but the sense of it is to this purpose; What I spent I lost; what I possessed is left to others; what I gave away remains with me.
up to a man's age-old dream; the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with law and order — or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism, and regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would trade our freedom for security have embarked on this downward course.
1960s, A Time for Choosing (1964)
“There are also animals which are called elks [alces "moose" in Am. Engl.; elk "wapiti"]. The shape of these, and the varied colour of their skins, is much like roes, but in size they surpass them a little and are destitute of horns, and have legs without joints and ligatures; nor do they lie down for the purpose of rest, nor, if they have been thrown down by any accident, can they raise or lift themselves up. Trees serve as beds to them; they lean themselves against them, and thus reclining only slightly, they take their rest; when the huntsmen have discovered from the footsteps of these animals whither they are accustomed to betake themselves, they either undermine all the trees at the roots, or cut into them so far that the upper part of the trees may appear to be left standing. When they have leant upon them, according to their habit, they knock down by their weight the unsupported trees, and fall down themselves along with them.”
Sunt item, quae appellantur alces. Harum est consimilis capris figura et varietas pellium, sed magnitudine paulo antecedunt mutilaeque sunt cornibus et crura sine nodis articulisque habent neque quietis causa procumbunt neque, si quo adflictae casu conciderunt, erigere sese aut sublevare possunt. His sunt arbores pro cubilibus: ad eas se applicant atque ita paulum modo reclinatae quietem capiunt. Quarum ex vestigiis cum est animadversum a venatoribus, quo se recipere consuerint, omnes eo loco aut ab radicibus subruunt aut accidunt arbores, tantum ut summa species earum stantium relinquatur. Huc cum se consuetudine reclinaverunt, infirmas arbores pondere adfligunt atque una ipsae concidunt.
Book VI
De Bello Gallico
“I leave before being left. I decide.”
2010, Weekly Address (May 29, 2010)
“He could boast that he inherited it brick and left it marble.”
Suetonius, of Augustus and the city of Rome, in Lives of the Caesars, Divus Augustus, XXVIII, 3.
“I found Rome a city of bricks and left it a city of marble.”
Marmoream relinquo, quam latericiam accepi.
Quoted in Svetonius, Lives of the Cesars, Aug., XXVIII, 3
Glimpses of World History (1949)
Glimpses of World History (1949)
Oriana Fallaci. Interview with Indira Gandhi in New Delhi, February 1972
[Barr, Michael D., Lee Kuan Yew: Race, Culture and Genes, Journal of Contemporary Asia, 1999, 29 2, 147, https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/5058/d1bc358fe18944e8aaa399e422f74d0fed75.pdf]
1980s
Ch. XXXVIII http://www.gutenberg.org/files/5811/5811-h/5811-h.htm
Following the Equator (1897)
Ch. LVII http://www.gutenberg.org/files/2895/2895-h/p6.htm
Following the Equator (1897)
What I've Learned (July 2002)
“I came here on Concorde today… and I arrived before I fucking left!”
"Conservation" (c. 1938); Published in Round River, Luna B. Leopold (ed.), Oxford University Press, 1966, p. 145-146.
1930s
As quoted in LIFE magazine (22 April 1957), p. 152; also in Letters and Papers from Prison (1967), p. 47
The viceadmiral thought his son crazy; but soon discovered he was a Quaker. He then employed every method that prudence could suggest to engage him to behave and act like other people. The youth answered his father only with repeated exhortations to turn Quaker also. After much altercation, his father confined himself to this single request, that he would wait on the king and the duke of York with his hat under his arm, and that he would not "thee" and "thou" them. William answered that his conscience would not permit him to do these things. This exasperated his father to such a degree that he turned him out of doors. Young Penn gave God thanks that he permitted him to suffer so early in His cause, and went into the city, where he held forth, and made a great number of converts; and being young, handsome, and of a graceful figure, both court and city ladies flocked very devoutly to hear him. The patriarch Fox, hearing of his great reputation, came to London — notwithstanding the length of the journey — purposely to see and converse with him. They both agreed to go upon missions into foreign countries; and accordingly they embarked for Holland, after having left a sufficient number of laborers to take care of the London vineyard.
The History of the Quakers (1762)
1930s, Die verfluchten Hakenkreuzler. Etwas zum Nachdenken (1932)
“The last administration left us nothing. We started off with bad, broken tests, and obsolete tests”
Trump explains the lack of tests for the novel coronavirus, as quoted by * 2020-04-30
Trump is blaming Obama for leaving him with “broken tests” for a virus that didn’t exist. Yes, really.
Aaron Rupar
VOX
2020s, 2020, April
Source: https://www.vox.com/2020/4/30/21243117/trump-blames-obama-coronavirus-broken-tests-jim-acosta
Original: (de) Des Ritters Lied und Weise,
sie fand ich neu, doch nicht verwirrt;
verliess er unsre Gleise,
schritt er doch fest und unbeirrt.
Wollt ihr nach Regeln messen,
was nicht nach eurer Regeln Lauf,
der eignen Spur vergessen,
sucht davon erst die Regeln auf!
Source: Quotes from his operas, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Hans Sachs, Act 1, Scene 3
“Two wrongs don’t make a right, but three lefts do.”
Ron English's Fauxlosophy (2016)
“In a strong sense, the Old Right and the New Left are morally and politically coordinate.”
Containment and Change (1967)
Will Eric Zemmour become France's Trump? https://www.wyniasweek.nl/wordt-eric-zemmour-de-franse-trump/
“Medical science has made such tremendous progress that there is hardly a healthy human left.”
It appears in multiple anti-vaccination books, all by Trung Nguyen and a co-writer, circa 2018. In September 2021 it is echoed everywhere, including medical-journal articles (on various subjects), with no source given. Right above the Aldous Huxley "quote", these books quote a much earlier anti-vax author. Coincidentally, that author says (elsewhere in his book) this:
Let us admire all-powerful Nature, which is not so easily brought into this serious and lasting disorder by our perverse intrusions; for otherwise, there would hardly have remained a human being alive.
Misattributed
Source: Christian Charles Schieferdecker, in Dr. C. G. G. Nittinger's EVILS OF VACCINATION https://www.google.com/books/edition/Dr_C_G_G_Nittinger_s_Evils_of_Vaccinatio/6CUaAAAAYAAJ, 1856, p.40
As quoted, Antony and Cleopatra by William Shakespeare, Act III, (1623)
Variant: you might not understand but i gave you the best of me...
Source: The Best of Me
"For the Fallen" (1914), fourth verse
'Condemn' is sometimes quoted as 'Contemn'. Both make sense in the context, but it was 'condemn' which was included in the first printing of the poem on page 9 of The Times of 21 September 1914. Binyon did not change it to 'contemn' when shown the proof of a later printing.
Source: Walden (1854)
Variant: If I might make a suggestion,” said Will. “About twenty paces behind us, in the Council room, is Benedict. If you’d like to go back in there and try kicking him, I recommend aiming upward and a bit to the left—
Source: Clockwork Prince
Source: The Birth of the Clinic: An Archaeology of Medical Perception
“One could argue that there exist certain questions that are best left unanswered.”
Source: The Sky Is Not the Limit: Adventures of an Urban Astrophysicist
Variant: Love was worth sacrificing for, he thought as he left his room. Even if it wasn't yours.
Source: Lover Unbound
Source: The Guns of August
“The trick was forgetting about what she had lost… and learning to go on with what she had left.”
Source: Love in the Afternoon
Source: Conquest of the Useless: Reflections from the Making of Fitzcarraldo
“A crossbow?” Pigeon asked.
I left my battle-ax in my other jeans,” the man said.”
Source: The Candy Shop War
“Seth told us good night and left.
I watched him go wistfully. “Anyone else here feel like swooning?”
Source: Succubus Blues
“I am suddenly left alone again on the sunny path, with a memory of the rain.”
Source: Reading Lolita in Tehran
