Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States
The Wilderness Hunter, p. 270 (1893)
1890s
Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States
The Wilderness Hunter, p. 270 (1893)
1890s
Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1964) Indian lawyer, statesman, and writer, first Prime Minister of India
Autobiography (1936; 1949; 1958)
Napoleon I of France (1769–1821) French general, First Consul and later Emperor of the French
Hippolyte Taine in Napoleon's views on religion. <br class="br">About, Other <br class="br">Source: Archive https://archive.org/stream/jstor-25102177/25102177_djvu.txt
Jacque Fresco (1916–2017) American futurist and self-described social engineer
Source: The Best That Money Can't Buy: Beyond Politics, Poverty, & War (2002), p. 72
Voltaire (1694–1778) French writer, historian, and philosopher
Variants:
No oaths, no seals, no official mummeries were used; the treaty was ratified on both sides with a yea, yea — the only one, says Voltaire, that the world has known, never sworn to and never broken.
As quoted in William Penn : An Historical Biography (1851) by William Hepworth Dixon
William Penn began by making a league with the Americans, his neighbors. It is the only one between those natives and the Christians which was never sworn to, and the only one that was never broken.
As quoted in American Pioneers (1905), by William Augustus Mowry and Blanche Swett Mowry, p. 80
It was the only treaty made by the settlers with the Indians that was never sworn to, and the only one that was never broken.
As quoted in A History of the American Peace Movement (2008) by Charles F. Howlett, and Robbie Lieberman, p. 33
The History of the Quakers (1762)
David Lane (white nationalist) (1938–2007) American white supremacist, convicted felon
Crossing the Rubicon
Focus Fourteen
David Lane (white nationalist) (1938–2007) American white supremacist, convicted felon
Crossing the Rubicon
Focus Fourteen
Philip Larkin (1922–1985) English poet, novelist, jazz critic and librarian
Source: Philip Larkin: Letters to Monica
“She wanted to exist only as a conscious flower, prolonging and preserving herself”
F. Scott Fitzgerald book The Beautiful and Damned
Source: The Beautiful and Damned
“In wildness is the preservation of the world.”
Henry David Thoreau book Walking
Source: Walking (June 1862)
“A lie preserved in stained glass doesn't make it more true.”
Saul Williams (1972) American singer, musician, poet, writer, and actor
Source: The Dead Emcee Scrolls: The Lost Teachings of Hip-Hop
“He had preserved the best part of her and made it his own: the principle of her scent.”
Patrick Süskind (1949) German writer and screenwriter
Source: Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
“I am not interested in preserving the status quo; I want to overthrow it.”
Niccolo Machiavelli (1469–1527) Italian politician, Writer and Author
This is a quote by Newt Gingrich, first appearing in an article in the Los Angeles Times in 1991. http://articles.latimes.com/1991-08-25/magazine/tm-2004_1_newt-gingrich/2 <br class="br">Misattributed
Philip Larkin (1922–1985) English poet, novelist, jazz critic and librarian
Source: Philip Larkin: Letters to Monica
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797–1851) English novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist, biographer, and travel writer
Source: Mary Shelley's Frankenstein
“No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.”
James Madison (1751–1836) 4th president of the United States (1809 to 1817)
"Political Observations" (1795-04-20); also in Letters and Other Writings of James Madison http://archive.org/stream/lettersandotherw04madiiala#page/490/mode/2up (1865), Vol. IV, p. 491 <br class="br">1790s <br class="br">Context: Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people. The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war, and in the degeneracy of manners and of morals engendered by both. No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.
Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher
1840s, Heroes and Hero-Worship (1840), The Hero as Man of Letters
“Each contact with a human being is so rare, so precious, one should preserve it.”
Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica
Michael Pollan (1955) American author, journalist, activist, and professor of journalism
Source: Second Nature: A Gardener's Education
John Quincy Adams (1767–1848) American politician, 6th president of the United States (in office from 1825 to 1829)
Attributed in The Rebirth of a Nation : With a Bill of Rights for America's Third Century (1978) by Robert S. Minor, p. 10; this is a paraphrase of a statement by his father John Adams in a letter to his mother Abigail Adams (27 April 1777): "Posterity! you will never know how much it cost the present generation to preserve your freedom! I hope you will make a good use of it. If you do not, I shall repent in Heaven that I ever took half the pains to preserve it".
Misattributed
“When you're surrounded by stupidity, self-preservation isn't a sin.”
Meljean Brook (1977)
Source: Riveted
John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America
1963, Speech at Amherst College
John Adams (1735–1826) 2nd President of the United States
1760s, A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law (1765)
Source: The Works Of John Adams, Second President Of The United States
Context: Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people, who have a right, from the frame of their nature, to knowledge, as their great Creator, who does nothing in vain, has given them understandings, and a desire to know; but besides this, they have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge, I mean, of the characters and conduct of their rulers. Rulers are no more than attorneys, agents, and trustees, of the people; and if the cause, the interest, and trust, is insidiously betrayed, or wantonly trifled away, the people have a right to revoke the authority that they themselves have deputed, and to constitute other and better agents, attorneys and trustees.
John Stuart Mill book On Liberty
Source: On Liberty (1859), Ch. III: Of Individuality, As One of the Elements of Well-Being
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement
Source: Letter from the Birmingham Jail
Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity
"My Credo", a speech to the German League of Human Rights, Berlin (Autumn 1932), as published in Einstein: A Life in Science (1994) by Michael White and John Gribbin, p. 262.
1930s
“Memory chooses to preserve what desire cannot hope to sustain.”
Rabih Alameddine book An Unnecessary Woman
Source: An Unnecessary Woman
John Adams (1735–1826) 2nd President of the United States
1770s
Source: Letter to Abigail Adams (27 April 1777), published as Letter CXI in Letters of John Adams, Addressed to His Wife (1841) edited by Charles Francis Adams, p. 218
Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer
Source: Suddenly You
Jessica Bird (1969) U.S. novelist
Source: Lover Mine
Wallace Stegner (1909–1993) American historian, writer, and environmentalist
Wilderness Letter http://wilderness.org/bios/former-council-members/wallace-stegner (1960) <br class="br">Source: The Sound of Mountain Water
“The world may need fixing, but it's worth preserving.”
Rick Riordan book The Throne of Fire
Source: The Throne of Fire
Niccolo Machiavelli book The Prince
Source: The Prince (1513), Ch. 15
Context: Many have imagined republics and principalities which have never been seen or known to exist in reality; for how we live is so far removed from how we ought to live, that he who abandons what is done for what ought to be done, will rather bring about his own ruin than his preservation.
“A lady, without a family, was the very best preserver of furniture in the world.”
Jane Austen book Persuasion
Source: Persuasion (1817)
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement
1960s, Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence (1967)
Context: A genuine revolution of values means in the final analysis that our loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. Every nation must now develop an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole in order to preserve the best in their individual societies. This call for a worldwide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one's tribe, race, class, and nation is in reality a call for an all-embracing and unconditional love for all mankind. This oft misunderstood, this oft misinterpreted concept, so readily dismissed by the Nietzsches of the world as a weak and cowardly force, has now become an absolute necessity for the survival of man. When I speak of love I am not speaking of some sentimental and weak response. I am not speaking of that force which is just emotional bosh. I am speaking of that force which all of the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life. Love is somehow the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality.
“it is just as wrong, or even perhaps more so, to use moral means to preserve immoral ends.”
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement
1960s, Letter from a Birmingham Jail (1963)
Variant: I must affirm that it is just as wrong, or perhaps even more so, to use moral means to preserve immoral ends.
Context: I have consistently preached that nonviolence demands that the means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek. I have tried to make clear that it is wrong to use immoral means to attain moral ends. But now I must affirm that it is just as wrong, or perhaps even more so, to use moral means to preserve immoral ends.
Judith Lewis Herman (1942) American psychiatrist
Source: Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror
“To keep something wild is far more difficult than to preserve it.”
Agatha Christie book Hallowe'en Party
Source: Hallowe'en Party
“The joy of writing.
The power of preserving.
Revenge of a mortal hand.”
Wisława Szymborska (1923–2012) Polish writer
“the best contacts are when one knows the obstacles and still wants to preserve a relation.”
F. Scott Fitzgerald book Tender Is the Night
Source: Tender Is the Night
“You kidding? So many preservatives in these things, I'll live forever.”
Rick Riordan book The Blood of Olympus
Source: The Blood of Olympus
Wendell Berry (1934) author
"A Poem of Difficult Hope".
Source: What Are People For? (1990)
Context: Much protest is naive; it expects quick, visible improvement and despairs and gives up when such improvement does not come. Protesters who hold out for longer have perhaps understood that success is not the proper goal. If protest depended on success, there would be little protest of any durability or significance. History simply affords too little evidence that anyone's individual protest is of any use. Protest that endures, I think, is moved by a hope far more modest than that of public success: namely, the hope of preserving qualities in one's own heart and spirit that would be destroyed by acquiescence.
Vincent Massey (1887–1967) Governor General of Canada
Address to the Canadian Club of Vancouver, October 14, 1952
Speaking Of Canada - (1959)
Anthony Giddens (1938) British sociologist
Source: Capitalism and Modern Social Theory (1971), pp. 230-231.
Elizabeth Rowe (1674–1737) poet and writer
Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 272.
John Dickinson (1732–1808) American politician
From The Declaration upon taking up Arms, before Congress, July 6th, 1775: as cited in A Conspectus of American Biography, Volume 1, ed. George Derby, J. T. White (1906), p. 239
A.J.P. Taylor (1906–1990) Historian
English History 1914 – 1945 ([1965] 1975), "Revised Bibliography", p. 729
Arthur Quiller-Couch (1863–1944) British writer and literary critic
Oxford Book of English Verse, Introduction
“Do you love your country? […] This man, with his life, has preserved it. Bear him with honor.”
Steven Pressfield Gates of Fire
Orontes (Handing over Xeones' corpse to Athenian civilians) p. 430
Gates of Fire (1998)
George Howard Earle, Jr. (1856–1928) American lawyer
From Does Price Fixing Destroy Liberty? (1920) by George H. Earle, Jr.
Antonio Cocchi (1695–1758) Italian physician and naturalist
The Pythagorean Diet: for the Use of the Medical Faculty
Daniel J. Boorstin (1914–2004) American historian
Source: The Lost World of Thomas Jefferson (1948), Ch. 4, part 6: The American Destiny, p. 229.
“We abandoned the appearance of power to preserve the essence of it.”
Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …
Source: The Foundation series (1951–1993), Foundation’s Edge (1982), Chapter 20 “Conclusion” section 1, p. 408
John Muir (1838–1914) Scottish-born American naturalist and author
pages 271-284 (at pages 282-283)
1890s, The National Parks and Forest Reservations, 1895
Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America
Letter to J. Dickinson (19 December 1801)
1800s, First Presidential Administration (1801–1805)
Benoît Mandelbrot (1924–2010) Polish-born, French and American mathematician
New Scientist interview (2004)
Ulysses S. Grant (1822–1885) 18th President of the United States
1870s, Second State of the Union Address (1870)
Adam Smith book The Theory of Moral Sentiments
Section I, Chap. III.
The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), Part I
“Preserving your health by too strict a diet is a tedious illness.”
François de La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680) French author of maxims and memoirs
C'est une ennuyeuse maladie que de conserver sa santé par un trop grand régime.
Maxim 72 of the Maximes supprimées.
Later Additions to the Maxims
George F. Kennan (1904–2005) American advisor, diplomat, political scientist and historian
In a 1993 letter to Thomas Naylor, on the idea of the secession of Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont from the US, as quoted in "Most Likely to Secede" by Christopher Ketcham in Good magazine (10 January 2008) http://www.goodmagazine.com/section/Features/most_likely_to_secede