Quotes about private
page 5

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Jonathan Edwards photo

“If Adam had finished his course of perfect obedience, he would have been justified: and certainly his justification would have implied something more than what is merely negative; he would have been approved of, as having fulfilled the righteousness of the law, and accordingly would have been adjudged to the reward of it. So Christ, our second surety, (in whose justification all whose surety he is, are virtually justified,) was not justified till he had done the work the Father had appointed him, and kept the Father’s commandments through all trials; and then in his resurrection he was justified. When he had been put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the spirit, 1 Pet. iii. 18. then he that was manifest in the flesh was justified in the spirit, 1 Tim. iii. 16.; but God, when he justified him in raising him from the dead, did not only release him from his humiliation for sin, and acquit him from any further suffering or abasement for it, but admitted him to that eternal and immortal life, and to the beginning of that exaltation that was the reward of what he had done. And indeed the justification of a believer is no other than his being admitted to communion in the justification of this head and surety of all believers; for as Christ suffered the punishment of sin, not as a private person, but as our surety; so when after this suffering he was raised from the dead, he was therein justified, not as a private person, but as the surety and representative of all that should believe in him. So that he was raised again not only for his own, but also for our justification, according to the apostle, Rom. iv. 25. “Who was delivered for our offences, and raised again for our justification.””

Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758) Christian preacher, philosopher, and theologian

And therefore it is that the apostle says, as he does in Rom. viii. 34. “Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again.
Justification By Faith Alone (1738)

Calvin Coolidge photo

“We are obliged to conclude that the Declaration of Independence represented the movement of a people. It was not, of course, a movement from the top. Revolutions do not come from that direction. It was not without the support of many of the most respectable people in the Colonies, who were entitled to all the consideration that is given to breeding, education, and possessions. It had the support of another element of great significance and importance to which I shall later refer. But the preponderance of all those who occupied a position which took on the aspect of aristocracy did not approve of the Revolution and held toward it an attitude either of neutrality or open hostility. It was in no sense a rising of the oppressed and downtrodden. It brought no scum to the surface, for the reason that colonial society had developed no scum. The great body of the people were accustomed to privations, but they were free from depravity. If they had poverty, it was not of the hopeless kind that afflicts great cities, but the inspiring kind that marks the spirit of the pioneer. The American Revolution represented the informed and mature convictions of a great mass of independent, liberty-loving, God-fearing people who knew their rights, and possessed the courage to dare to maintain them.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, Speech on the Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence (1926)

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Muhammad Yunus photo
Marshall McLuhan photo

“Prose is private drama; poetry is corporate drama.”

Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar-- a professor of English literature, a literary critic, and a …

Source: 1990s and beyond, The Book of Probes : Marshall McLuhan (2011), p. 275

Vitruvius photo

“If our designs for private houses are to be correct, we must at the outset take note of the countries and climates in which they are built.”

Source: De architectura (The Ten Books On Architecture) (~ 15BC), Book VI, Chapter I, Sec. 1

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Ken Thompson photo

“grep was a private command of mine for quite a while before i made it public.”

Ken Thompson (1943) American computer scientist, creator of the Unix operating system

Source: The history of grep, the 40 years old Unix command, Benjamin Rualthanzauva, 5 Feb 2014 https://medium.com/@rualthanzauva/grep-was-a-private-command-of-mine-for-quite-a-while-before-i-made-it-public-ken-thompson-a40e24a5ef48,

Herbert Spencer photo
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Jim Clyburn photo

“I have no problems with private schools. I graduated from one and so did my mother.”

Jim Clyburn (1940) American politician

[27 February 2005, http://clyburn.house.gov/statements/050227voucherplan.html, "Governor's Plan Seems Unconstitutional and Unconscionable", Representative Jim Clyburn, United States House of Representatives, 2007-07-24]

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Horace Greeley photo

“If any young man is about to commence the world, we say to him, publicly and privately, Go to the West.”

Horace Greeley (1811–1872) American politician and publisher

As quoted in New Yorker (25 August 1838); often paraphrased as "Go west, young man, and grow up with the country", sometimes misattributed to John L. Soule https://books.google.com/books?id=UaTQAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA361&lpg=PA361&dq=+Go+to+the+West.&source=bl&ots=3ys4effVfR&sig=Jq3JDde6ZjCDefVWimZOReHOTlE&hl=en&sa=X&ei=_xPaVNOLJIS7ggS47YPQCw&ved=0CCAQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22%20publicly%20and%20privately%2C%20Go%20to%20the%20West.&f=false

Thomas Jefferson photo

“We are so accustomed to hear arithmetic spoken of as one of the three fundamental ingredients in all schemes of instruction, that it seems like inquiring too curiously to ask why this should be. Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic—these three are assumed to be of co-ordinate rank. Are they indeed co-ordinate, and if so on what grounds?
In this modern “trivium” the art of reading is put first. Well, there is no doubt as to its right to the foremost place. For reading is the instrument of all our acquisition. It is indispensable. There is not an hour in our lives in which it does not make a great difference to us whether we can read or not. And the art of Writing, too; that is the instrument of all communication, and it becomes, in one form or other, useful to us every day. But Counting—doing sums,—how often in life does this accomplishment come into exercise? Beyond the simplest additions, and the power to check the items of a bill, the arithmetical knowledge required of any well-informed person in private life is very limited. For all practical purposes, whatever I may have learned at school of fractions, or proportion, or decimals, is, unless I happen to be in business, far less available to me in life than a knowledge, say, of history of my own country, or the elementary truths of physics. The truth is, that regarded as practical arts, reading, writing, and arithmetic have no right to be classed together as co-ordinate elements of education; for the last of these is considerably less useful to the average man or woman not only than the other two, but than 267 many others that might be named. But reading, writing, and such mathematical or logical exercise as may be gained in connection with the manifestation of numbers, have a right to constitute the primary elements of instruction. And I believe that arithmetic, if it deserves the high place that it conventionally holds in our educational system, deserves it mainly on the ground that it is to be treated as a logical exercise. It is the only branch of mathematics which has found its way into primary and early education; other departments of pure science being reserved for what is called higher or university instruction. But all the arguments in favor of teaching algebra and trigonometry to advanced students, apply equally to the teaching of the principles or theory of arithmetic to schoolboys. It is calculated to do for them exactly the same kind of service, to educate one side of their minds, to bring into play one set of faculties which cannot be so severely or properly exercised in any other department of learning. In short, relatively to the needs of a beginner, Arithmetic, as a science, is just as valuable—it is certainly quite as intelligible—as the higher mathematics to a university student.”

Joshua Girling Fitch (1824–1903) British educationalist

Source: Lectures on Teaching, (1906), pp. 267-268.

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Salmon P. Chase photo

“For, what is slavery? It is the complete and absolute subjection of one person to the control and disposal of another person, by legalized force. We need not argue that no person can be, rightfully, compelled to submit to such control and disposal. All such subjection must originate in force; and, private force not being strong enough to accomplish the purpose, public force, in the form of law, must lend its aid. The Government comes to the help of the individual slaveholder, and punishes resistance to his will, and compels submission. THE GOVERNMENT, therefore, in the case of every individual slave, is THE REAL ENSLAVER, depriving each person enslaved of all liberty and all property, and all that makes life dear, without imputation of crime or any legal process whatsoever. This is precisely what the Government of the United States is forbidden to do by the Constitution. The Government of the United States, therefore, cannot create or continue the relation of master and slave. Nor can that relation be created or continued in any place, district, or territory, over which the jurisdiction of the National Government is exclusive; for slavery cannot subsist a moment after the support of the public force has been withdrawn.”

Salmon P. Chase (1808–1873) Chief Justice of the United States

"The Address of the Southern and Western Liberty Convention" http://alexpeak.com/twr/libertyparty/saw/, in Anti-slavery Addresses of 1844 and 1845 by Salmon Portland Chase and Charles Dexter Cleveland, ed. C. D. C. (London: Sampson Low, Son, and Martson, 1867), pp. 75–125.

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“The act—the act—must not be a revenge. It must be a calm, weary renunciation, a closing of accounts, a private, rhythmic deed. The last remark.”

Cesare Pavese (1908–1950) Italian poet, novelist, literary critic, and translator

This Business of Living (1935-1950)

Walter Rauschenbusch photo
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William Cowper photo

“Praise enough
To fill the ambition of a private man,
That Chatham's language was his mother tongue.”

Source: The Task (1785), Book II, The Timepiece, Line 235.

Robert Grosseteste photo

“In similar fashion we may approach the personality and induce the individual to reveal his way of organizing experience by giving him a field (objects, materials, experiences) with relatively little structure and cultural patterning so that the personality can project upon that plastic field his way of seeing life, his meanings, significances, patterns, and especially his feelings, Thus we elicit a projection of the individual's private world, because he has to organize the field, interpret the material, and react affectively to it. More specifically, a projection method for study of personality involves the presentation of a stimulus-situation designed or chosen because it will mean to the subject, not what the experimenter has arbitrarily decided it should mean (as in most psychological experiments using standardized stimuli in order to be “objective”), but rather whatever it must mean to the personality who gives it, or imposes it, his private, idiosyncratic meaning and organization. The subject then will respond to his meaning of the presented stimulus-situation by some form of action and feeling that is expressive of his personality.”

Lawrence K. Frank (1890–1968) American cyberneticist

Source: Projective methods for the study of personality (1939), p. 402-403; As cited in: Edwin Inglee Megargee, Charles Donald Spielberger (1992) Personality assessment in America: a retrospective on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the Society for Personality Assessment. p. 20-21

Bernard Cornwell photo

“It is not wise, I think, to mix private revenge with war." "Of course it's not wise, but it's bloody enjoyable. Enjoying yourself, Sergeant?”

Bernard Cornwell (1944) British writer

<br/k> "Never been happier, sir."
Lieutenant Jorge Vicente, Captain Richard Sharpe, and Sergeant Patrick Harper, p. 161
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Escape (2003)

John Jay photo
Felix Frankfurter photo

“For the highest exercise of judicial duty is to subordinate one's personal pulls and one's private views to the law of which we are all guaradians - those impersonal convictions that made a society a civilized community, and not the victims of personal rule.”

Felix Frankfurter (1882–1965) American judge

A Heritage For All Who Love The Law 51 ABAJ 330 (1965); quoted by United States Senator Howell Heflin during the confirmation debate for Justice David Souter, on September 24, 1990, S13540.
Other writings

E.M. Forster photo

“Love is a great force in private life; it is indeed the greatest of all things; but love in public affairs does not work.”

E.M. Forster (1879–1970) English novelist

"Tolerance"
Two Cheers for Democracy (1951)

Irving Kristol photo

“Power breeds responsibilities, in international affairs as in domestic -- or even private. To dodge or disclaim these responsibilities is one form of the abuse of power.”

Irving Kristol (1920–2009) American columnist, journalist, and writer

New York Times Magazine, May 12, 1968.
1960s

William Pitt the Younger photo
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Robert Louis Stevenson photo

“Quiet minds cannot be perplexed or frightened but go on in fortune or misfortune at their own private pace, like a clock during a thunderstorm.”

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894) Scottish novelist, poet, essayist, and travel writer

'La Fère of Cursed Memory', 15th vignette of An Inland Voyage (1878), in Collected Memoirs, Travel Sketches and Island Literature of Robert Louis Stevenson https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/8026833953, Stevenson, e-artnow (2015)

“Theorem I. Any sight of which seeing has not informed me of, is unknown to me. Comments. 1. Sensible knowledge discriminated from intellectual knowledge. 2. The intellectual injury from the privation of any sense.”

Alexander Bryan Johnson (1786–1867) United States philosopher and banker

Part II. Of the Extent of Sensible Knowledge.
The Physiology of the Senses: Or, How and what We See, Hear, Taste, Feel and Smell (1856)

Walter Rauschenbusch photo
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“The great end, for which men entered into society, was to secure their property. That right is preserved sacred and incommunicable in all instances, where it has not been taken away or abridged by some public law for the good of the whole. The cases where this right of property is set aside by private law, are various. Distresses, executions, forfeitures, taxes etc are all of this description; wherein every man by common consent gives up that right, for the sake of justice and the general good. By the laws of England, every invasion of private property, be it ever so minute, is a trespass. No man can set his foot upon my ground without my license, but he is liable to an action, though the damage be nothing; which is proved by every declaration in trespass, where the defendant is called upon to answer for bruising the grass and even treading upon the soil. If he admits the fact, he is bound to show by way of justification, that some positive law has empowered or excused him. The justification is submitted to the judges, who are to look into the books; and if such a justification can be maintained by the text of the statute law, or by the principles of common law. If no excuse can be found or produced, the silence of the books is an authority against the defendant, and the plaintiff must have judgment.”

Charles Pratt, 1st Earl Camden (1714–1794) English lawyer, judge and Whig politician

Entick v. Carrington, 19 Howell’s State Trials 1029 (1765), Constitution Society, United States, 2008-11-13 http://www.constitution.org/trials/entick/entick_v_carrington.htm,

“Once an activity has been socialized, it is impossible to point out, by concrete example, how men in a free market could better conduct it. How, for instance, can one compare a socialized post office with private postal delivery when the latter has been outlawed?”

Leonard E. Read (1898–1983) American academic

Excuse Me, Professor: Challenging the Myths of Progressivism https://books.google.com/books?id=W3MuCgAAQBAJ&pg=PT25&dq=Once+an+activity+has+been+socialized,+it+is+impossible+to+point+out,+by+concrete+example,+how+men+in+a+free+market+could+better+conduct+it.+How,+for+instance,+can+one+compare+a+socialized+post+office+with+private+postal+delivery+when+the+latter+has+been+outlawed?&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwilwZqz9PLTAhXGOyYKHSjJCk8Q6AEIJzAA#v=onepage&q=Once%20an%20activity%20has%20been%20socialized%2C%20it%20is%20impossible%20to%20point%20out%2C%20by%20concrete%20example%2C%20how%20men%20in%20a%20free%20market%20could%20better%20conduct%20it.%20How%2C%20for%20instance%2C%20can%20one%20compare%20a%20socialized%20post%20office%20with%20private%20postal%20delivery%20when%20the%20latter%20has%20been%20outlawed%3F&f=false
Excuse Me, Professor: Challenging the Myths of Progressivism

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Richard Pipes photo

“We need to keep a very keen eye on our own government. It's getting too rich and redistributing wealth is a sure way of robbing us of our private property rights and other rights along with them.”

Richard Pipes (1923–2018) American historian

“Property and Freedom: The Inseparable Connection,” speech at an “Evenings at FEE” event, October 2004. https://fee.org/resources/property-and-freedom-the-inseparable-connection/

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“In 1965 alone we had 300 private talks for peace in Vietnam, with friends and adversaries throughout the world. Since Christmas your government has labored again, with imagination and endurance, to remove any barrier to peaceful settlement. For 20 days now we and our Vietnamese allies have dropped no bombs in North Vietnam. Able and experienced spokesmen have visited, in behalf of America, more than 40 countries. We have talked to more than a hundred governments, all 113 that we have relations with, and some that we don't. We have talked to the United Nations and we have called upon all of its members to make any contribution that they can toward helping obtain peace. In public statements and in private communications, to adversaries and to friends, in Rome and Warsaw, in Paris and Tokyo, in Africa and throughout this hemisphere, America has made her position abundantly clear. We seek neither territory nor bases, economic domination or military alliance in Vietnam. We fight for the principle of self-determination—that the people of South Vietnam should be able to choose their own course, choose it in free elections without violence, without terror, and without fear. The people of all Vietnam should make a free decision on the great question of reunification. This is all we want for South Vietnam. It is all the people of South Vietnam want. And if there is a single nation on this earth that desires less than this for its own people, then let its voice be heard. We have also made it clear—from Hanoi to New York—that there are no arbitrary limits to our search for peace. We stand by the Geneva Agreements of 1954 and 1962. We will meet at any conference table, we will discuss any proposals—four points or 14 or 40—and we will consider the views of any group. We will work for a cease-fire now or once discussions have begun. We will respond if others reduce their use of force, and we will withdraw our soldiers once South Vietnam is securely guaranteed the right to shape its own future. We have said all this, and we have asked—and hoped—and we have waited for a response. So far we have received no response to prove either success or failure.”

Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973) American politician, 36th president of the United States (in office from 1963 to 1969)

1960s, State of the Union Address (1966)

Christopher Hitchens photo

“Religious ideas, supposedly private matters between man and god, are in practice always political ideas.”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

1990s, The Monarchy: A Critique of Britain's Favourite Fetish

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William T. Sherman photo

“You also remember well who first burned the bridges of your railroad, who forced Union men to give up their slaves to work on the rebel forts at Bowling Green, who took wagons and horses and burned houses of persons differing with them honestly in opinion, when I would not let our men burn fence rails for fire or gather fruit or vegetables though hungry, and these were the property of outspoken rebels. We at that time were restrained, tied by a deep seated reverence for law and property. The rebels first introduced terror as a part of their system, and forced contributions to diminish their wagon trains and thereby increase the mobility and efficiency of their columns. When General Buell had to move at a snail's pace with his vast wagon trains, Bragg moved rapidly, living on the country. No military mind could endure this long, and we are forced in self defense to imitate their example. To me this whole matter seems simple. We must, to live and prosper, be governed by law, and as near that which we inherited as possible. Our hitherto political and private differences were settled by debate, or vote, or decree of a court. We are still willing to return to that system, but our adversaries say no, and appeal to war. They dared us to war, and you remember how tauntingly they defied us to the contest. We have accepted the issue and it must be fought out. You might as well reason with a thunder-storm.”

William T. Sherman (1820–1891) American General, businessman, educator, and author.

1860s, 1864, Letter to James Guthrie (August 1864)

Pliny the Younger photo

“A man must rate public and permanent, above private and fleeting advantages and study how to render his benefaction most useful, rather than how he may bestow it with least expense.”
Oportet privatis utilitatibus publicas, mortalibus aeternas anteferre, multoque diligentius muneri suo consulere quam facultatibus.

Pliny the Younger (61–113) Roman writer

Letter 18, 5.
Letters, Book VII

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Jean-Baptiste Say photo