Quotes about wish
page 3

“You mustn’t wish for another life. You mustn’t want to be somebody else. What you must do is this:
“Rejoice evermore.
Pray without ceasing.
In everything give thanks.”
I am not all the way capable of so much, but those are the right instructions.”

Wendell Berry (1934) author

Source: Hannah Coulter

Life, Way

“Strength is paradoxical. I am not strong because I can force others to do what I wish as a result of my play with them, but because I can allow them to do what they wish in the course of my play with them.”

James P. Carse American academic

Source: Finite and Infinite Games: A Vision of Life as Play and Possibility

Strong

“Quite, quite,' she thought with a little sigh. 'It's always like this in their adventures. To save and be saved. I wish somebody would write a story sometime about the people who warm up the heroes afterward.”

Tove Jansson book Moominland Midwinter

Source: Moominland Midwinter

People

“It was much pleasanter at home," thought poor Alice, "when one wasn't always growing larger and smaller, and being ordered about by mice and rabbits. I almost wish I hadn't gone down the rabbit-hole--and yet--and yet--…”

Lewis Carroll book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Source: Alice in Wonderland

Home

“Mary wished to say something very sensible, but knew not how.”

Jane Austen book Pride and Prejudice

Source: Pride and Prejudice

“There are moments in life that you wish with all your heart you could take back. Like, just erase from existence. Like, if you could, you'd erase yourself right out of existence too, just to make that moment not exist.”

Jenny Han (1980) American writer

Source: It's Not Summer Without You

Life, Heart

“Peace is not something you wish for; It's something you make, Something you do, Something you are, And something you give away”

John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter

Peaceful, Peace

“My wish is that you may be loved to the point of madness.”

André Breton (1896–1966) French writer

Source: What is Surrealism?: Selected Writings

love, Cute, Romantic, For Her

“I wish you’d find the exit out of my head.”

Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer

“I wish I’d a knowed more people. I would of loved ‘em all. If I’d a knowed more, I would a loved more”

Toni Morrison book Song of Solomon

Source: Song of Solomon

Love, People

“I always wished that I could find someone as beautiful as you, but in the process I forgot that I was special too.”

Madonna (1958) American singer, songwriter, and actress

Beauty

“Go anywhere you wish, talk to everyone. Ask any questions; you will be given answers. When you want to learn, you will be taught. Use the library. Open any book.”

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author

Books, Question, Learning

“As I have yet to meet a gentleman I wished to spend the rest of my days with, I would say the failure was on their part rather than mine.”

Victoria Alexander (1965) Author

Failure, Parting

“I wish I could freeze this moment, right here, right now, and live in it forever.”

Suzanne Collins book Catching Fire

Peeta Mellark to Katniss, p. 245
Source: The Hunger Games trilogy, Catching Fire (2009)

“I think we ought always to entertain our opinions with some measure of doubt. I shouldn't wish people dogmatically to believe any philosophy, not even mine.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

People, Thinking

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately…”

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist

Beauty, Life, Peaceful

“We are not the person other people wish we were. We are who we decide to be.”

Paulo Coelho book Aleph

Source: Aleph (2011)

People, Personality

“There was a footpath leading across fields to New Southgate, and I used to go there alone to watch the sunset and contemplate suicide. I did not, however, commit suicide, because I wished to know more of mathematics.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Mathematics, Suicide

“Be The Peace You Wish To See In The World!”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

World, Peace

“It was a subtle refinement of God to learn Greek when he wished to write a book – and that he did not learn it better.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

God, Books, Learning

“People whose wishes get granted often don't turn out to be very nice people.”

Terry Pratchett book Witches Abroad

Source: Witches Abroad

People

“The easiest thing in the world is self-deceit; for every man believes what he wishes, though the reality is often different.”

Démosthenés (-384–-322 BC) ancient greek statesman and orator

Third Olynthiac http://books.google.com/books?id=n4INAAAAYAAJ&q=&quot;the+easiest+thing+in+the+world+is+self-deceit+for+every+man+believes+what+he+wishes+though+the+reality+is+often+different&quot;&pg=PA57#v=onepage, section 19 (349 BC), as translated by Charles Rann Kennedy (1852) Variants: A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true. As quoted in The Routledge Dictionary of Quotations (1987) by Robert Andrews, p. 255 There is nothing easier than self-delusion. Since what man desires, is the first thing he believes.

World, Reality

“I am sick to death of cleverness. Everybody is clever nowadays. You can’t go anywhere without meeting clever people. The thing has become an absolute public nuisance. I wish to goodness we had a few fools left.”

Oscar Wilde The Importance of Being Earnest

Source: The Importance of Being Earnest

Death, People, Fools

“Take bread away from me, if you wish,
take air away, but
do not take from me your laughter.”

Pablo Neruda (1904–1973) Chilean poet

Laughter

“I wish my horse had the speed of your tongue.”

William Shakespeare book Much Ado About Nothing

Source: Much Ado About Nothing

Horse, Speed

“Sometimes I wish I was a woman, just so I could have an abortion.”

John Waters (1946) American filmmaker, actor, comedian and writer

“Sometimes I wish I were a cannibal – less for the pleasure of eating someone than for the pleasure of vomiting him.”

Emil M. Cioran (1911–1995) Romanian philosopher and essayist

Source: The Trouble with Being Born

Pleasure

“I wish I wasn’t a girl who needed so much but a little free creature that slept in deserts and ran on clouds and lived on lilies.”

Francesca Lia Block (1962) American children's writer

Girl

“I do not wish any reward but to know I have done the right thing.”

Mark Twain book Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Source: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

“I have often wished I had time to cultivate modesty… But I am too busy thinking about myself.”

Edith Sitwell (1887–1964) British poet

As quoted in The Observer (30 April 1950)

Business, Thinking, Time

“I wish, as well as everybody else, to be perfectly happy; but, like everybody else, it must be in my own way.”

Jane Austen book Sense and Sensibility

Source: Sense and Sensibility

Happy, Way, Happiness

“What and how much had I lost by trying to do only what was expected of me instead of what I myself had wished to do?”

Ralph Ellison book Invisible Man

Source: Invisible Man (1952), Chapter 13.

“It is foolish to wish for beauty. Sensible people never either desire it for themselves or care about it in others. If the mind be but well cultivated, and the heart well disposed, no one ever cares for the exterior.”

Anne Brontë book Agnes Grey

Source: Agnes Grey

People, Beauty, Heart

“See the world as it is, not as you wish it would be”

E. Lockhart book We Were Liars

Source: We Were Liars

World, Wise

“When you find a man you wish to marry, Tessa, remember this: You will know what kind of man he is not by the things he says, but by the things he does.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Angel

Source: Clockwork Angel

“I wish I hadn't cried so much!” said Alice, as she swam about, trying to find her way out.
I shall be punished for it now, I suppose, by being drowned in my own tears!”

Lewis Carroll book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Source: Alice in Wonderland

Way, Tear

“A sense of duty is useful in work but offensive in personal relations. People wish to be liked, not to be endured with patient resignation.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

People, Sense, Personality

“You wish to put me in the dark. I tell you that I will never be put in the dark. You wish to beat me. I tell you that you will never beat me.”

Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930) Scottish physician and author

Source: The Final Problem and Other Stories

“But for half a minute she wished it was a different sort of day, even though she knew that nothing good could come from wanting at the world.”

Patrick Rothfuss book The Slow Regard of Silent Things

Source: The Slow Regard of Silent Things

World

“So long as you write what you wish to write, that is all that matters; and whether it matters for ages or only for hours, nobody can say.”

Virginia Woolf book A Room of One's Own

Source: A Room of One's Own

Age

“I wish everyone had the same chances," I say. "Because it stinks a big one that they don't." - Catherine”

Cynthia Lord Rules

Source: Rules

Chance

“There have been times, lately, when I dearly wished that I could change the past. Well, I can’t, but I can change the present, so that when it becomes the past it will turn out to be a past worth having.”

Terry Pratchett book I Shall Wear Midnight

Source: I Shall Wear Midnight

Change, Time, Past

“Sometimes I felt as if there were no tomorrows, that everything, my whole life, was crammed into one long day. A continuous stretch of meaningless time. Sometimes I even wished there was no tomorrow, if this was all I had to look forward to.”

Julie Anne Peters book Keeping You a Secret

Source: Keeping You a Secret

Life, Time

“He who wishes to be rich in a day will be hanged in a year.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

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

“one does not only wish to be understood when one writes; one wishes just as surely not to be understood.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

“We must consult our means rather than our wishes.”

George Washington (1732–1799) first President of the United States

“Didier once told me, in a rambling, midnight dissertation, that a dream is the place where a wish and a fear meet. When the wish and the fear are exactly the same, he said, we call the dream a nightmare.”

Gregory David Roberts book Shantaram

Source: Shantaram

Fear, Dreams

“I wish people were all trees and I think I could enjoy them then.”

Georgia O'Keeffe (1887–1986) American artist

People, Thinking, Tree

“My Diego: Mirror of the night Your eyes green swords inside my flesh. waves between our hands. All of you in a space full of sounds — in the shade and in the light. You were called AUXOCHROME the one who captures color. I CHROMOPHORE — the one who gives color. You are all the combinations of numbers. life. My wish is to understand lines form shades movement. You fulfill and I receive. Your word travels the entirety of space and reaches my cells which are my stars then goes to yours which are my light.”

Frida Kahlo (1907–1954) Mexican painter

Life, Color, Travel, Star

“You know, some people think Shadowhunters are just myths. Like mummies and genies." Kyle grinned at Jace. "Can you grant wishes?"

"That depends," he said. "Do you wish to be punched in the face?”

Cassandra Clare book City of Fallen Angels

Source: City of Fallen Angels

People, Thinking, Dependency

“This is a photograph of me as I wish I looked all the time. Then I might have a chance of getting in Hollywood.”

Anne Frank (1929–1945) victim of the Holocaust and author of a diary

Source: The Diary of a Young Girl

Chance, Time

“I wish to live to 150 years old, but the day I die, I wish it to be with a cigarette in one hand and a glass of whiskey in the other.”

Ava Gardner (1922–1990) American actress

“I talk of you:
Why did you wish me milder? would you have me
False to my nature? Rather say I play
The man I am.”

William Shakespeare Coriolanus

Source: Coriolanus

Nature, Falseness

“Desire is the starting point of all achievement, not a hope, not a wish, but a keen pulsating desire which transcends everything.”

Napoleon Hill (1883–1970) American author

Hope

“I wish to weep
but sorrow is
stupid.
I wish to believe
but belief is a
graveyard.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

Source: What Matters Most is How Well You Walk Through the Fire

Stupidity

“Girls blush, sometimes, because they are alive,
Half wishing they were dead to save the shame.
The sudden blush devours them, neck and brow;
They have drawn too near the fire of life, like gnats,
And flare up bodily, wings and all. What then?
Who's sorry for a gnat… or a girl?”

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861) English poet, author

Source: A Little Book Of Love Poems

Life, Girl, Dead

“I while yet a youth wrote in a quite large volume three books of magical things, which I calledin which whatever was then erroneous because of my curious youth, now, more cautious, I wish to retract by this recantation, for formerly I spent much time and goods on these vanities.”

Cornelius Agrippa (1486–1535) Magician, occult writer, theologian, astrologer, alchemist

Source: The Devil's Doctor: Paracelsus and the World of Renaissance Magic and Science

Books, Youth, Time

“If you wish to know the mind of a man, listen to his words.” — JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE”

Doreen Virtue (1958) American writer

Source: Angel Words: Visual Evidence of How Words Can Be Angels in Your Life

“My dear, here we must run as fast as we can, just to stay in place. And if you wish to go anywhere you must run twice as fast as that.”

Lewis Carroll book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Source: Alice in Wonderland

“Whoever wishes to become a philosopher must learn not to be frightened by absurdities.”

Bertrand Russell The Problems of Philosophy

Source: The Problems of Philosophy

Learning

“I almost wish we were butterflies and liv'd but three summer days - three such days with you I could fill with more delight than fifty common years could ever contain.”

John Keats (1795–1821) English Romantic poet

Source: Bright Star: Love Letters and Poems of John Keats to Fanny Brawne

Summer

“I don't do regrets. Regrets are pointless. It's too late for regrets. You've already done it, haven't you? You've lived your life. No point wishing you could change it.”

Lemmy Kilmister (1945–2015) British singer-songwriter

Life, Change

“There was a time when I thought I loved my first wife more than life itself. But now I hate her guts. I do. How do you explain that? What happened to that love? What happened to it, is what I'd like to know. I wish someone could tell me.”

Raymond Carver book What We Talk About When We Talk About Love

Source: What We Talk About When We Talk About Love (1981)

Love, Life, Hate, Time

“It seems to me we can never give up longing and wishing while we are thoroughly alive. There are certain things we feel to be beautiful and good, and we must hunger after them. How can we ever be satisfied without them until our feelings are deadened?”

George Eliot book The Mill on the Floss

The Mill on the Floss (1860)

Hunger, Beauty, Feeling

“I wish the country had fewer lawyers and more engineers.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

Source: The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream

Country

“The more abstract the truth you wish to teach, the more you need to seduce the senses to it.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

Truth, Sense

“Be careful what you wish for. You never know who will be listening.”

Terry Pratchett book Soul Music

Source: Soul Music

“I would not wish any companion in the world but you.”

William Shakespeare The Tempest

Source: The Tempest

Anniversary, Wedding, For Her, World

“He who only wishes and hopes does not interfere actively with the course of events and with the shaping of his own destiny.”

Ludwig von Mises (1881–1973) austrian economist

Source: Human Action: A Treatise on Economics

Hope

“Even those who write against fame wish for the fame of having written well, and those who read their works desire the fame of having read them.”

Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer, and Christian philosopher

Reading

“Do you wish people to think well of you? Don't speak well of yourself.”

Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer, and Christian philosopher

People, Thinking

“Never let yourself be diverted, either by what you wish to believe, or what you think could have beneficent social effects if it were believed; but look only and solely at what are the facts.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Response to the question "Suppose Lord Russell, this film were to be looked at by our descendants, like a dead sea scroll in a thousand years time. What would you think it's worth telling that generation about the life you've lived and the lessons you've learned from it?" in a BBC interview on "Face to Face" (1959) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3aPkzHpT8M 1950s Context: When you are studying any matter, or considering any philosophy, ask yourself only: What are the facts, and what is the truth that the facts bear out. Never let yourself be diverted, either by what you wish to believe, or by what you think would have beneficent social effects if it were believed; but look only and solely at what are the facts. Context: I should like to say two things. One intellectual and one moral. The intellectual thing I should want to say to them is this: "When you are studying any matter, or considering any philosophy, ask yourself only: What are the facts, and what is the truth that the facts bear out. Never let yourself be diverted, either by what you wish to believe, or by what you think would have beneficent social effects if it were believed; but look only and solely at what are the facts." That is the intellectual thing that I should wish to say. The moral thing I should wish to say to them is very simple; I should say: "Love is wise – Hatred is foolish." In this world, which is getting more and more closely interconnected, we have to learn to tolerate each other. We have to learn to put up with the fact, that some people say things we don't like. We can only live together in that way. But if we are to live together, and not die together, we must learn a kind of charity and a kind of tolerance which is absolutely vital, to the continuation of human life on this planet.

Thinking

“I wish I was either in your arms full of faith, or that a Thunder bolt would strike me.”

John Keats (1795–1821) English Romantic poet

Source: Bright Star: Love Letters and Poems of John Keats to Fanny Brawne

Faith

“The bottom line is this: Peace will come to Israel and the Middle East only when the Israeli government is willing to comply with international law, with the Roadmap for Peace, with official American policy, with the wishes of a majority of its own citizens--and honor its own previous commitments--by accepting its legal borders. All Arab neighbors must pledge to honor Israel's right to live in peace under these conditions. The United States is squandering international prestige and goodwill and intensifying global anti-American terrorism by unofficially condoning or abetting the Israeli confiscation and colonization of Palestinian territories.”

Jimmy Carter book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid

Source: Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid

Peace, Law

“The moment of betrayal is the worst, the moment when you know beyond any doubt that you've been betrayed: that some other human being has wished you that much evil”

Margaret Atwood book The Handmaid's Tale

Source: The Handmaid's Tale

Evil, Betrayal

“You wish to be liked. I wish simply to be. One day you will know what that means, perhaps. And you will smile. Not against me. But with me.”

John Fowles book The Magus

Source: The Magus

Smile

“Philosophy, if it cannot answer so many questions as we could wish, has at least the power of asking questions which increase the interest of the world, and show the strangeness and wonder lying just below the surface even in the commonest things of daily life.”

Bertrand Russell The Problems of Philosophy

Source: 1910s, The Problems of Philosophy (1912)

Life, World, Lying, Question

“No matter what they wish for, no matter how far they go, people can never be anything but themselves. That's all.”

Haruki Murakami (1949) Japanese author, novelist

Source: Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman: 24 Stories

People

“Men in rage strike those that wish them best.”

William Shakespeare Othello

Source: Othello

Men, Rage

“Thus I am not able to exist either with you or without you; and I seem not to know my own wishes.”

Ovid (-43–17 BC) Roman poet

“Peace is not something you wish for, it is something you make, something you are, something you do, and something you give away.”

Robert Fulghum (1937) American writer

Peaceful, Peace

“There's plenty of sense in nonsense sometimes, if you wish to look for it.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Angel

Source: Clockwork Angel

Sense

“The real secret of magic is that the world is made of words, and that if you know the words that the world is made of you can make of it whatever you wish.”

Terence McKenna (1946–2000) American ethnobotanist

"Alien Dreamtime" a multimedia event recorded live. (27 February 1993)

Secret, World

“What you tell me about in the nights. That is not love. That is only passion and lust. When you love you wish to do things for. You wish to sacrifice for. You wish to serve.”

Ernest Hemingway book A Farewell to Arms

Source: A Farewell to Arms

Love, Passion, Night

“People do not wish to appear foolish; to avoid the appearance of foolishness, they are willing to remain actually fools.”

Alice Walker (1944) American author and activist

People, Fools, Appearance

“Each one must do his part if we wish to show that the nation is worthy of its good fortune.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

1900s, The Strenuous Life: Essays and Addresses (1900), National Duties
Context: Exactly as each man, while doing first his duty to his wife and the children within his home, must yet, if he hopes to amount to much, strive mightily in the world outside his home, so our nation, while first of all seeing to its own domestic well-being, must not shrink from playing its part among the great nations without. Our duty may take many forms in the future as it has taken many forms in the past. Nor is it possible to lay down a hard-and-fast rule for all cases. We must ever face the fact of our shifting national needs, of the always-changing opportunities that present themselves. But we may be certain of one thing: whether we wish it or not, we cannot avoid hereafter having duties to do in the face of other nations. All that we can do is to settle whether we shall perform these duties well or ill.

Parting

“Honor is honesty to what is, not blind duty to what you wish to be.”

Terry Goodkind Faith of the Fallen

Source: Faith of the Fallen

“Every development of truths which relate to human nature, and more especially its active manifestations, is attended with a wish to see worked out in practice what theory has shown us to be just and good. To man, whose mind is seldom satisfied with the calmly beneficent influence of abstract ideas, this desire is perfectly natural, and it increases in liveliness with the spirit of benevolent sympathy in social happiness and well-being. But, however natural in itself, and however noble in its origin, this desire has not unfrequently led to hurtful consequences,—nay, often to greater evils than the colder indifference, or (as from the very opposite cause the same effect may follow) the glowing enthusiasm, which, comparatively heedless of reality, delights only in the pure beauty of ideas.”

Wilhelm Von Humboldt (1767–1835) German (Prussian) philosopher, government functionary, diplomat, and founder of the University of Berlin

Source: The Limits of State Action (1792), Ch. 16

Truth, Beauty, Idea, Nature

“I am staunchly opposed to presenting political opinions in mainstream comics. No manifestos from Spider-Man. The reader should be able to project themselves on these characters. That’s necessary when writing heroic escapist fiction. Superheroes are wish fulfillment characters. We want to be Superman. We hope we’re as principled as Captain America. It’s important that these characters portray only the most universal values.”

Chuck Dixon (1954) American comic book writer

TBU Exclusive: Chuck Dixon Talks The Batman Universe http://thebatmanuniverse.net/chuck-dixon/ (May 24, 2016)

Hope, Universe

“Acquisitiveness – the wish to possess as much as possible of goods, or the title to goods – is a motive which, I suppose, has its origin in a combination of fear with the desire for necessaries.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

1950s, What Desires Are Politically Important? (1950)

Fear, Motivation

“I admire Tebaldi's tone; it's beautiful — also some beautiful phrasing. Sometimes, I actually wish I had her voice.”

Maria Callas (1923–1977) American-born Greek operatic soprano

Discussing rival soprano Renata Tebaldi, in a television interview with Norman Ross, Chicago (17 November 1957)

Beauty

“When a man acts in ways that annoy us we wish to think him wicked, and we refuse to face the fact that his annoying behaviour is a result of antecedent causes which, if you follow them long enough, will take you beyond the moment of his birth and therefore to events for which he cannot be held responsible by any stretch of imagination.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

"The Doctrine of Free Will"
1930s, Has Religion Made Useful Contributions to Civilization? (1930)

Way, Imagination, Birth, Thinking

“As a general rule, I abstain from reading the reports of attacks upon myself, wishing not to be provoked by that to which I can not properly offer an answer. In spite of this precaution, however, it comes to my knowledge that I am much censured for some supposed agency in setting up, and seeking to sustain, the new State government of Louisiana. In this I have done just so much as, and no more than, the public knows. In the Annual Message of Dec. 1863 and accompanying Proclamation, I presented a plan of re-construction (as the phrase goes) which, I promised, if adopted by any State, should be acceptable to, and sustained by, the Executive government of the nation. I distinctly stated that this was not the only plan which might possibly be acceptable; and I also distinctly protested that the Executive claimed no right to say when, or whether members should be admitted to seats in Congress from such States. This plan was, in advance, submitted to the then Cabinet, and distinctly approved by every member of it. One of them suggested that I should then, and in that connection, apply the Emancipation Proclamation to the theretofore excepted parts of Virginia and Louisiana; that I should drop the suggestion about apprenticeship for freed-people, and that I should omit the protest against my own power, in regard to the admission of members to Congress; but even he approved every part and parcel of the plan which has since been employed or touched by the action of Louisiana. The new constitution of Louisiana, declaring emancipation for the whole State, practically applies the Proclamation to the part previously excepted. It does not adopt apprenticeship for freed-people; and it is silent, as it could not well be otherwise, about the admission of members to Congress. So that, as it applies to Louisiana, every member of the Cabinet fully approved the plan. The message went to Congress, and I received many commendations of the plan, written and verbal; and not a single objection to it, from any professed emancipationist, came to my knowledge, until after the news reached Washington that the people of Louisiana had begun to move in accordance with it. From about July 1862, I had corresponded with different persons, supposed to be interested, seeking a reconstruction of a State government for Louisiana. When the message of 1863, with the plan before mentioned, reached New-Orleans, General Banks wrote me that he was confident the people, with his military co-operation, would reconstruct, substantially on that plan. I wrote him, and some of them to try it; they tried it, and the result is known. Such only has been my agency in getting up the Louisiana government. As to sustaining it, my promise is out, as before stated. But, as bad promises are better broken than kept, I shall treat this as a bad promise, and break it, whenever I shall be convinced that keeping it is adverse to the public interest. But I have not yet been so convinced.”

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

1860s, Last public address (1865)

People, Confidence, Knowledge, Reading

“The rate of investment – the speed at which investors wish to increase the capital stock – should be related, if to anything, to q, the value of capital relative to its replacement cost.”

James Tobin (1918–2002) American economist

Source: "A general equilibrium approach to monetary theory" (1969), p. 21 as cited in: Sılvio Rendon, "Non-Tobin’s q in Tests for Financial Constraints," 2009

Speed

“Do you wish to honor the Body of the Savior? Do not despise it when it is naked. Do not honor it in church with silk vestments while outside it is naked and numb with cold. He who said, “This is my body,” and made it so by his word, is the same that said, “You saw me hungry and you gave me no food. As you did it not to the least of these, you did it not to me.” Honor him then by sharing your property with the poor. For what God needs is not golden chalices but golden souls.”

John Chrysostom (349–407) important Early Church Father

Homilies on the Gospel of Saint Matthew http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf110/Page_303.html, Homily L

God, Food, Soul

“I wish to propose for the reader's favourable consideration a doctrine which may, I fear, appear wildly paradoxical and subversive. The doctrine in question is this: that it is undesirable to believe a proposition when there is no ground whatever for supposing it true.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Source: 1920s, Sceptical Essays (1928), Ch. 1: The Value of Scepticism

Fear, Question, Appearance

“My dear Sir: Herewith is a little sketch, as you requested. There is not much of it, for the reason, I suppose, that there is not much of me. If anything be made out of it, I wish it to be modest, and not to go beyond the material. If it were thought necessary to incorporate anything from any of my speeches, I suppose there would be no objection. Of course it must not appear to have been written by myself.”

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

p, 125
1850s, Autobiographical Sketch Written for Jesse W. Fell (1859)

Appearance

“The very fact that religions are not content to stand on their own feet, but insist on crippling or warping the flexible minds of children in their favour, forms a sufficient proof that there is no truth in them. If there were any truth in religion, it would be even more acceptable to a mature mind than to an infant mind—yet no mature mind ever accepts religion unless it has been crippled in infancy. … The whole basis of religion is a symbolic emotionalism which modern knowledge has rendered meaningless & even unhealthy. Today we know that the cosmos is simply a flux of purposeless rearrangement amidst which man is a wholly negligible incident or accident. There is no reason why it should be otherwise, or why we should wish it otherwise. All the florid romancing about man's "dignity", "immortality", &c. &c. is simply egotistical delusions plus primitive ignorance. So, too, are the infantile concepts of "sin" or cosmic "right" & "wrong". Actually, organic life on our planet is simply a momentary spark of no importance or meaning whatsoever. Man matters to nobody except himself. Nor are his "noble" imaginative concepts any proof of the objective reality of the things they visualise. Psychologists understand how these concepts are built up out of fragments of experience, instinct, & misapprehension. Man is essentially a machine of a very complex sort, as La Mettrie recognised nearly 2 centuries ago. He arises through certain typical chemical & physical reactions, & his members gradually break down into their constituent parts & vanish from existence. The idea of personal "immortality" is merely the dream of a child or savage. However, there is nothing anti-ethical or anti-social in such a realistic view of things. Although meaning nothing in the cosmos as a whole, mankind obviously means a good deal to itself. Therefore it must be regulated by customs which shall ensure, for its own benefit, the full development of its various accidental potentialities. It has a fortuitous jumble of reactions, some of which it instinctively seeks to heighten & prolong, & some of which it instinctively seeks to shorten or lessen. Also, we see that certain courses of action tend to increase its radius of comprehension & degree of specialised organisation (things usually promoting the wished-for reactions, & in general removing the species from a clod-like, unorganised state), while other courses of action tend to exert an opposite effect. Now since man means nothing to the cosmos, it is plan that his only logical goal (a goal whose sole reference is to himself) is simply the achievement of a reasonable equilibrium which shall enhance his likelihood of experiencing the sort of reactions he wishes, & which shall help along his natural impulse to increase his differentiation from unorganised force & matter. This goal can be reached only through teaching individual men how best to keep out of each other's way, & how best to reconcile the various conflicting instincts which a haphazard cosmic drift has placed within the breast of the same person. Here, then, is a practical & imperative system of ethics, resting on the firmest possible foundation & being essentially that taught by Epicurus & Lucretius. It has no need of supernatualism, & indeed has nothing to do with it.”

H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author

Letter to Natalie H. Wooley (2 May 1936), in Selected Letters V, 1934-1937 edited by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei, pp. 240-241
Non-Fiction, Letters

Life, Men, Children, Truth

“Children wish fathers looked but with their eyes; fathers that children with their judgment looked; and either may be wrong.”

William Shakespeare (1564–1616) English playwright and poet

Derived from A Midsummer Night's Dream on p. 269, Aphorisms from Shakespeare (1812), Capel Lofft, Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme and Brown, a book which rewrites in aphoristic form Shakespeare quotations, in this case the exchange between Hermia and Theseus: "I would my father look'd but with my eyes", "Rather your eyes must with his judgment look".
Misattributed

Children

“I respect personality; it is an abstract entitity. A certain number of lines and colors constituting a harmony, can be arranged infinite ways. The literary side in painting is a second element of personality; it may exist – it must exist – but only as a pretext; if it dominates, one fall into the realm of illustration. You see that I do not wish to legislate personality.”

Paul Sérusier (1864–1927) French painter

Source: from: 'A letter to Maurice Denis, p. 237

Color, Way, Painting, Personality

Quotes about wish page 3

Quotes about wish
page 3