Quotes about witness
page 3

“What do you know?”
“Almost everything. That almost part can be a real kick in the teeth sometimes.”
“What do you want, then?”
“What I can’t have.” Wit turned to him, eyes solemn. “Same as everyone else, Kaladin Stormblessed.”

Brandon Sanderson book Words of Radiance

Source: Words of Radiance

Parting

“Not many girls would have used their wits the way you did," the officer observed.”

Carolyn Keene book The Secret of the Old Clock

Source: The Secret of the Old Clock

Way, Girl

“Any woman who is sure of her own wits, is a match, at any time, for a man who is not sure of his own temper.”

Wilkie Collins book The Woman in White

Volume 1 [Bernhard Tauchnitz, 1860] ( p. 336 https://books.google.com/books?id=rszxUvpszaMC&pg=PA336) Also in The King of Inventors: A Life of Wilkie Collins by Catherine Peters ( p. 224 https://books.google.com/books?id=T0AABAAAQBAJ&pg=PA224) Source: The Woman in White (1859)

Time

“No matter how you spend your life, your wit will defend you more often than a sword. Keep it sharp!”

Patrick Rothfuss book The Name of the Wind

Source: The Name of the Wind (2007), Chapter 40, “On the Horns” (p. 290)
Context: Any student of mine must be able to defend his ideas against an attack. No matter how you spend your life, your wit will defend you more often than a sword. Keep it sharp!

Life

“Just each of us being me, me, me first. The murderer, the victim, the witness each of us thinks our role is the lead.
Probably that goes for anybody in the world.”

Chuck Palahniuk book Invisible Monsters

Source: Invisible Monsters

World, Thinking

“Your wit is always such a delight, Mr. Zeklos. I can barely contain myself around it.”

Richelle Mead Shadow Kiss

Source: Shadow Kiss

“Mr. Rochester never courted Jane Eyre," Tessa pointed out.
"No, he dressed up as a woman and terrified the poor girl out of her wits. Is that what you want?"
"You would make a very ugly woman."
"I would not. I would be stunning.”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Princess

Source: Clockwork Princess

Girl

“Good art however "immoral" is wholly a thing of virtue. Good art can not be immoral. By good art I mean art that bears true witness, I mean the art that is most precise.”

Ezra Pound (1885–1972) American Imagist poet and critic

Art

“A man can live on his wits and his balls for only so long.”

Hunter S. Thompson The Rum Diary

Source: The Rum Diary

“Getting something and having the wits to use it… those are two different things.”

Rick Riordan book The Battle of the Labyrinth

Source: The Battle of the Labyrinth

“That night as I lay in bed, I thought of several things I could have said and mourned the fact that my wit usually bloomed late, peaking when it no longer mattered, during the solitary hours close to midnight.”

Siri Hustvedt (1955) novelist, essayist, poet

Source: The Blindfold

Night

“There's no pain on earth that doesn't crave a benevolent witness.”

Sue Monk Kidd (1948) Novelist

Source: The Invention of Wings

Pain

“I know how to be the witness to her grief. I don't know how to be this kind of villain.”

Holly Black book Red Glove

Source: Red Glove

“billions of women must be out there on this seven-billion-person planet being told that they are not reliable witnesses to their own lives, that the truth is not their property, now or ever.”

Rebecca Solnit book Men Explain Things To Me

Source: Men Explain Things to Me

Women, Truth, Personality

“We are here to witness the creation and to abet it.”

Annie Dillard (1945) American writer

Source: Teaching a Stone to Talk: Expeditions and Encounters

“Great wits are sure to madness near alli'd;
And thin partitions do their bounds divide”

John Dryden Absalom and Achitophel

Pt. I, lines 159–172.
Source: Absalom and Achitophel (1681)
Context: A daring pilot in extremity;
Pleas'd with the danger, when the waves went high
He sought the storms; but for a calm unfit,
Would steer too nigh the sands, to boast his wit.
Great wits are sure to madness near alli'd;
And thin partitions do their bounds divide:
Else, why should he, with wealth and honour blest,
Refuse his age the needful hours of rest?
Punish a body which he could not please;
Bankrupt of life, yet prodigal of ease?
And all to leave, what with his toil he won
To that unfeather'd, two-legg'd thing, a son:
Got, while his soul did huddled notions try;
And born a shapeless lump, like anarchy.

Madness

“Ragamuffins are simple, direct and honest. Their speech is unaffected. They are slow to claim, "God told me…" As they make their way through the world, they bear wordless, prophetic witness.”

Brennan Manning (1934–2013) writer, American Roman Catholic priest and United States Marine

Source: The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out

God, World, Way

“To experience real agony is something hard to write about, impossible to understand while it grips you; you're frightened out of your wits, can’t sit still, move, or even go decently insane.”

Charles Bukowski book The People Look Like Flowers at Last

Source: The People Look Like Flowers at Last

Understanding

“Why hasn't anyone killed him yet?”
“Dumb luck,” Wit said. “In that I’m lucky you’re all so dumb.”

Brandon Sanderson book Words of Radiance

Source: Words of Radiance

“You've faced horrors in these past weeks… I don't know which is worse. The terror you feel the first time you witness such things, or the numbness that comes after it starts to become ordinary.”

Tasha Alexander (1969) American writer

Source: A Fatal Waltz

Feeling, Time, Past

“Yet who can say how our souls have been stamped by witnessing such a cruel drama? All souls are hostages to their human envelopes, but souls must decay and suffer at such indignity, don't you agree?”

Gregory Maguire book Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

Source: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

Soul, Suffering

“I looked back and forth at them in amazement. I didn't know if I was witnessing a fight or foreplay. I wasn't thrilled about either option.”

Richelle Mead book Last Sacrifice

Source: Last Sacrifice

Fight

“Have you seen them?" he asked. Arrow looked at him disinterestedly. Will frowned.
Not talking, eh?" he said. "Maybe you're a little hoarse."
He cackled breifly at his own wit.”

John Flanagan (1873–1938) Irish-American hammer thrower

Source: Erak's Ransom

“What you did tonight was clever,” Wit said. “You turned an attack into a promise. The wisest of men know that to render an insult powerless, you often need only to embrace it.”

Brandon Sanderson book Words of Radiance

Source: Words of Radiance

Men

“And of course there is always joy in witnessing the joy of others.”

David Nicholls book One Day

Source: One Day

Joy

“Spader and I were nearly killed. Three times. We were also robbed and witnessed a gruesome murder. Happy birthday to me!”

D.J. MacHale book The Never War

Source: The Never War

Birthday, Time, Happiness

“These days, Clarissa believes, you measure people first by their kindness and their capacity for devotion. You get tired, sometimes, of wit and intellect; everybody's little display of genius.”

Michael Cunningham book The Hours

Source: The Hours

People

“My silences he mistook for a lack of wit rather than a lack of any need to speak.”

Robin Hobb book Assassin's Apprentice

Source: Assassin's Apprentice

Silence

“You know, Gilan, sarcasm isn't the lowest form of wit. It's not even wit at all.”

John Flanagan (1873–1938) Irish-American hammer thrower

“The witty woman is a tragic figure in American life. Wit destroys eroticism and eroticism destroys wit, so women must choose between taking lovers and taking no prisoners.”

Florence King (1936–2016) American writer

Life, Women, Lovers

“Fear has no brains; it is an idiot. The dismal witness that it bears and the cowardly counsel that it whispers are unrelated.”

Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914) American editorialist, journalist, short story writer, fabulist, and satirist

Source: The Moonlit Road and Other Ghost and Horror Stories

Fear

“Curious things, habits. People themselves never knew they had them.

[Witness for the Prosecution, also published in The Hound of Death and Other Stories. ]”

Agatha Christie book The Witness for the Prosecution and Other Stories

Source: The Witness for the Prosecution and Other Stories

Death, People

“I would love to have a battle of wits with you, Bison, but I doubt it would be a fair fight.'
'Shut your face.'
'Exactly my point.”

Derek Landy (1974) Irish children's writer

Source: Death Bringer

Love, Fight

“Mr. Rochester never courted Jane Eyre, Tessa pointed out.
No, he dressed up as a woman and terrified the poor girl out of her wits. Is that what you want?”

Cassandra Clare book Clockwork Princess

Source: Clockwork Princess

Girl

“These moments were wondrous and divine, instances when the gossamer curtain between heaven and earth ripped and all of humanity witnessed the marvel of the ethereal beings.
Angelology pg. 32”

Danielle Trussoni book Angelology

Source: Angelology

“For every reader who dies today, a viewer is born, and we seem to be witnessing… the final tipping balance.”

Jonathan Franzen book How to Be Alone

Source: How to Be Alone

“So is there any part of you that’s not a lethal weapon? (Kiara)
No. Even my wits are sharpened. (Nykyrian)”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Born of the Night

Parting

“Girls are so queer you never know what they mean. They say no when they mean yes, and drive a man out of his wits just for the fun of it.”

Louisa May Alcott book Little Women

Laurie to Jo, in Ch. 35 : Heartache
Source: Little Women (1868)

Girl

“People make their own reality. That was what Praxis had taught him years ago. A hundred people can witness the exact same event, and give two hundred and three different accountings of it.”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Styxx

People, Reality

“When the green woods laugh with the voice of joy, And the dimpling stream runs laughing by; When the air does laugh with our merry wit, And the green hill laughs with the noise of it.”

George Gordon Byron (1788–1824) English poet and a leading figure in the Romantic movement

Joy

“The troublesome ones in a family are usually either the wits or the idiots.”

George Eliot book Middlemarch

Source: Middlemarch

Family

“She knew that even pain can be confessed, but to confess happiness is to stand naked, delivered to the witness…”

Ayn Rand book The Fountainhead

Source: The Fountainhead

Pain, Happiness

“Success, after all, loves a witness, but failure can't exist without one.”

Junot Díaz book The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

Source: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

Love, Failure, Success

“He drew a circle that shut me out —
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But Love and I had the wit to win:
We drew a circle that took him in.”

Edwin Markham (1852–1940) American poet

"Outwitted".
The Shoes of Happiness, and Other Poems (1913)

Love

“There is a monsterous deal of stupid quizzing, & common-place nonsense talked, but scarcely any wit.”

Jane Austen (1775–1817) English novelist

Stupidity

“No one is satisfied with his position, but every one is satisfied with his wit”

Leo Tolstoy book Anna Karenina

Source: Anna Karenina

“Everything changes once we identify with being the witness to the story, instead of the actor in it.”

Ram Dass (1931–2019) American contemporary spiritual teacher and the author of the 1971 book Be Here Now

Change

“Vulgarity is no substitute for wit”

Julian Fellowes (1949) English actor, dramatist, director, novelist, producer and screenwriter

“The Earth is Art, The Photographer is only a Witness”

Yann Arthus-Bertrand Earth from Above

Source: Earth from Above

Art

“Keep the fire of your testimony of the restored gospel and your witness of our Redeemer burning so brightly that our children can warm their hands by the fire of your faith.”

Boyd K. Packer (1924–2015) American Mormon leader

Children, Faith

“Journalism allows its readers to witness history; fiction gives its readers an opportunity to live it.”

John Hersey (1914–1993) American journalist, novelist, professor

History

“Because ultimately only the witness -- and not the actors -- knows the truth (Vyasa to Draupadi)”

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni (1956) novelist, short story writer, poet, and essayist

Source: The Palace of Illusions

Truth

“As God is my witness, I'll never be hungry again.”

Margaret Mitchell (1900–1949) American author and journalist

Source: Gone With The Wind

God

“They say sarcasm is the lowest form of wit," Valkyrie said.

China glanced at her. "They've obviously never met me.”

Derek Landy (1974) Irish children's writer

Source: Mortal Coil

“Wit seduces by signaling intelligence without nerdiness.”

Nassim Nicholas Taleb book The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms

Source: The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms (2010), p. 60

Intelligence

“Living by your wits is always knowing where the wasps are.”

Stephen King book The Shining

Source: The Shining (1977)

“Wine can of their wits the wise beguile, Make the sage frolic, and the serious smile”

Homér The Odyssey (Cowper)

XIV. 463–466 (tr. Alexander Pope).
Odyssey (c. 725 BC)
Context: Tis sweet to play the fool in time and place,
And wine can of their wits the wise beguile,
Make the sage frolic, and the serious smile,
The grave in merry measures frisk about,
And many a long-repented word bring out.

Smile, Wine

“No one could have called Mr. Standen quick-witted, but the possession of three sisters had considerably sharpened his instinct of self-preservation.”

Georgette Heyer book Cotillion

Source: Cotillion

Sister

“Sadness is the matrix from which wit and irony spring; sadness is uncomfortable and creative, which is why consumer society cannot tolerate it.”

Germaine Greer (1939) Australian feminist author

Sadness, Spring

“Sometimes artist like to catch themselves looking out, let the world see them for once. It's a signature. This one is a very bold one. But this is also a witnessing. We want to remember, and we want to be remembered. That's why we paint.”

Maureen Johnson book 13 Little Blue Envelopes

Source: 13 Little Blue Envelopes

World, Painting

“A true lady should have the wit and the imagination, or at least the very restraint, to express herself without resorting herself to such base vocabulary.”

Ari Marmell (1974) D&D game writer

Source: Thief's Covenant

Imagination

“As Emmanuel, Cardinal Suhard says, "To be a witness does not consist in engaging in propaganda, nor even in stirring people up, but in being a living mystery. It means to live in such a way that one's life would not make sense if God did not exist.”

Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer

Source: Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art

Life, God, People, Way

“Wait,” Foyle commanded. He looked at the beaming grin engraved in the steel robot face. “But society can be so stupid. So confused. You’ve witnessed this conference.”
“Yes, sir, but you must teach, not dictate. You must teach society.”
“To space-jaunte? Why? Why reach out to the stars and galaxies? What for?”
“Because you’re alive, sir. You might as well ask: Why is life? Don’t ask about it. Live it.”
“Quite mad,” Dagenham muttered.
“But fascinating,” Y’ang-Yeovil murmured.
“There’s got to be more to life than just living,” Foyle said to the robot.
“Then find it for yourself, sir. Don’t ask the world to stop moving because you have doubts.”
“Why can’t we all move forward together?”
“Because you’re all different. You’re not lemmings. Some must lead, and hope that the rest will follow.”
“Who leads?”
“The men who must … driven men, compelled men.”
“Freak men.”
“You’re all freaks, sir. But you always have been freaks. Life is a freak. That’s its hope and glory.”
“Thank you very much.”

Alfred Bester book The Stars My Destination

“My pleasure, sir.”
Source: The Stars My Destination (1956), Chapter 16 (p. 251).

Life, Men, Pleasure, Stupidity

“Where there is insight in citation, or wisdom winged with wit, especially from the world of letters, I have quoted liberally. For a good epigram not only makes a point, but a point to ponder. This book provides many such quotations that I have unearthed from the tomes of many writers.”

Evan Esar (1899–1995) American writer

20,000 Quips & Quotes, Introduction, pviii

Wisdom, Books, World, Quotes

“The twentieth century has witnessed with surprise, not merely the promulgation of these ferocious doctrines, but their enforcement with brutal vigour by the Government and by the populace. No past services, no proved patriotism, even wounds sustained in war, could procure immunity for persons whose only crime was that their parents had brought them into the world. Every kind of persecution, grave or petty, upon the world-famous scientists, writers, and composers at the top down to the wretched little Jewish children in the national schools, was practised, was glorified, and is still being practised and glorified.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

"Hitler and His Choice", The Strand Magazine (November 1935), quoted in Martin Gilbert, Prophet of Truth: Winston S. Churchill, 1922–1939 (London: Minerva, 1990), p. 681
The 1930s

War, Children, World, School

“Once you’ve been to Cambodia, you’ll never stop wanting to beat Henry Kissinger to death with your bare hands. You will never again be able to open a newspaper and read about that treacherous, prevaricating, murderous scumbag sitting down for a nice chat with Charlie Rose or attending some black-tie affair for a new glossy magazine without choking. Witness what Henry did in Cambodia – the fruits of his genius for statesmanship – and you will never understand why he’s not sitting in the dock at The Hague next to Milošević. While Henry continues to nibble nori rolls & remaki at A-list parties, Cambodia, the neutral nation he secretly and illegally bombed, invaded, undermined, and then threw to the dogs, is still trying to raise itself up on its one remaining leg.”

Anthony Bourdain book A Cook's Tour

A Cook's Tour (2001)

Death, Dogs, Understanding, Reading

““This is the first award I received…In fact, I consider this priceless. This was presented to me by Sri. Godavarma Bhattan Thampuran of Kodungallur (Cranganore) Palace years ago. I was only 22 then. Those were days when Kodungallur used to witness the best assembly of scholars in Sanskrit and the sasthras. Present on that day were several highly learned men and women. The stage was in front of Sringapuram temple. I presented Bhagavad Dooth Prabhantham Koothu. My interpretation of one of the slokas was a little more elaborate than and different from the custom-worn treatment. The audience liked it. In appreciation, Bhattan Thampuran removed this ring from his finger and put it on mine. The spontaneous gesture in recognition of my art naturally is the most precious to me ”
-Guru Māni Mādhava Chākyār, about his prized possession- the golden ring from the great scholar H. H Bhattan Thampuran”

Mani Madhava Chakyar (1899–1990) Indian actor

Awards
Source: K. A. Chandrahasan, In pursuit of excellence (Performing Arts), "The Hindu", Sunday March 26, 1989

Women, Men, Art, Nature

“The old notion that brevity is the essence of wit has succumbed to the modern idea that tedium is the essence of quality.”

Russell Baker (1925–2019) writer and satirst from the United States

"Getting on with It" (p.103)
There's a Country in My Cellar (1990)

Idea

“Men are contented to be laughed at for their wit, but not for their folly.”

Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) Anglo-Irish satirist, essayist, and poet

Thoughts on Various Subjects from Miscellanies (1711-1726)

Men

“I appeal to your own eyes as my witness and judge.”

William Harvey (1578–1657) English physician

Introduction.
De Generatione Animalium (1651)

“Some other Course therefore must be taken to promote the Search of Knowledge. Some other kind of Art for Inquiry than what hath been hitherto made use of, must be discovered; the Intellect is not to he suffer'd to act without its Helps, but is continually to be assisted by some Method or Engine, which shall be as a Guide to regulate its Actions, so as that it shall not be able to act amiss: Of this Engine, no Man except the incomparable Verulam hath had any Thoughts, and he indeed hath promoted it to a very good pitch; but there is yet somewhat more to be added, which he seem'd to want time to compleat. By this, as by that Art of Algebra in Geometry, 'twill be very easy to proceed in any Natural Inquiry, regularly and certainly: And indeed it may not improperly be call'd a Philosophical Algebra, or an Art of directing the Mind in the search after Philosophical Truths, for as 'tis very hard for the most acute Wit to find out any difficult Problem in Geometry. without the help of Algebra to direct and regulate the Acts of the Reason in the Process from the question to the quœsitum, and altogether as easy for the meanest Capacity acting by that Method to compleat and perfect it, so will it be in the inquiry after Natural Knowledge.”

Robert Hooke (1635–1703) English natural philosopher, architect and polymath

"The Present State of Natural Philosophy, and wherein it is deficient," The Posthumous Works of Robert Hooke https://books.google.com/books?id=6xVTAAAAcAAJ (1705) ed., Richard Waller, pp. 6-7.

Truth, Art, Search, Question

“The correct answer to speech you abhor is bearing witness to what you believe.”

Alan Charles Kors (1943) American academic

2010s, Who's too Weak to Live with Freedom? (2013)

“In 1992 by chance I witnessed a drum and bugle corps competition on television and became aware of three-valve bugles. A year later my wife, Donna, and I attended a performance in La Mirada of the previous year's winner. I have experienced fine concert band performances and also good symphonies in my life, but what was not prepared for what I experienced that day. The entire bugle corps was turned away from us playing softly and suddenly they turned toward us and projected a very thick chord. Every hair on my body stood up (and I have a lot of it) and I decided at that moment to buy some of these instruments. In the next year I purchased approximately $14,000 worth of bugles. After having completed an orchestrational family all the way down to the contrabass bugle, I began writing. This album is the result of this particular interest in my sixth decade in music.”

Clare Fischer (1928–2012) American keyboardist, composer, arranger, and bandleader

Written in 1997, from the liner notes for Jazz Corps (1998)

Life, Family, Music, Way

“God's enemies from the Jews, Christians, atheists, Shiites, apostates and all of the world's infidels have dedicated their media, money, army and munitions to fight Muslims and jihadists in the State of Nineveh after they witnessed it become one of the bases of Islam and one of its minarets under the Caliphate.”

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi (1971–2019) leader of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant

Audio message as quoted in ISIS leader releases rare audio message as Iraqi troops enter Mosul by Euan McKirdy, CNN (November 3 2016)
Attributed
Source: http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/02/middleeast/al-baghdadi-audio-mosul/

Money, God, World, Fight

“Nations are represented by their poets and their writers in the open competition for the Nobel Prize. Consequently the award of the Prize by the Academy glorifies not only the author but the people whose son he is, and it bears witness that that nation has a share in the universal achievement, that its efforts are fruitful, and that it has the right to live for the profit of mankind. If this honour is premous to all, it is infinitely more so to Poland. It has been said that Poland is dead, exhausted, enslaved, but here is the proof of her life and triumph. Like Galileo, one is forced to think when before the eyes of the world homage has been rendered to the importance of Poland's achievement and her genius.”

Henryk Sienkiewicz (1846–1916) Polish journalist, Nobel Prize-winning novelist, and philanthropist

Nobel Prize acceptance speech (1905)

Life, People, World, Thinking

“GRONINGEN, BERLIN, MOSCOW, PARIS 1923
Start of the violet season
Reader
As we are convinced that it is not too LATE, we will speak.
Time is running, honestly.... it has become necessary now to do something, before it is too late
There must be witnessing and speaking..
.. Art is everywhere. She is thrown us people on our jackets by the birds. In every infant with weak intestines, the latent seed is laid for an artist..
Our first publication will soon be published. We urgently invite you to become a fellow reader [of the upcoming art-magazine 'The Next Call'].... We count on your DEEDS in the white season with the black shadows..”

Hendrik Werkman (1882–1945) Dutch artist

version in original Dutch (origineel citaat van Hendrik Werkman, in het Nederlands):
GRONINGEN, BERLIJN, MOSKAU, PARIJS 1923
Aanvang van het violette jaargetijde
Lezer..
..Aangezien wij dus overtuigd zijn dat het nog niet TE LAAT is, zullen wij spreken.
Het wordt tijd, waarachtig.. ..meer dan tijd dat er iets gedaan wordt.
Er MOET getuigd en gesproken worden.
….Kunst is overal. Zij wordt den mensch als het ware door de vogels op de jas geworpen. In elke zuigeling met zwakke ingewanden wordt de latente kiem gelegd voor een kunstenaar..
Ons eerste geschrift verschijnt binnenkort. Wij nodigen u dringend uit medelezer te worden.. [van het komende kunsttijdschrift ‘The Next Call'].. ..Wij rekenen op uwe DADEN in het witte jaargetijde met de zwarte schaduwen..
Quote from Werkman's Manifesto: ' Aanvang van het violette jaargetijde / Start of the violet season' - also known as 'Roze Pamflet / Pink Pamphlet', Sept. 1923; in the collection of Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (transl: Fons Heijnsbroek)
1920's

People, Art, Bird, Time

“When conspiracies have governmental powers, they can usually cover up their guilt at the time and they often destroy evidence so thoroughly that later generations are left with a puzzle they can solve only partially or tentatively. We now know only that the assassination of Abraham Lincoln was arranged by a conspiracy for the dual purpose of eliminating a political figure who was no longer useful and of exciting fresh animosity against the Southerners who had been conquered, and whose country had been destroyed, in the unconscionable war of aggression of which he had been the ostensible leader; but, aside from a few hirelings, the only person whom we can positively identify as a member of the conspiracy is Stanton, who was the Secretary of War in Lincoln’s cabinet, arranged many of the practical details, and was able, after the event, to silence key witnesses, although we can only guess what it was they knew that made it necessary to have them judicially murdered. And Stanton seems to have been only a local manager for principals whose identity we can only surmise.”

Revilo P. Oliver (1908–1994) American philologist

"Revised Historiography", Liberty Bell magazine (April 1980)
1970s, 1980s

War, Silence, Time, Personality

“The regime which is destroyed by a revolution is almost always an improvement on its immediate predecessor, and experience teaches that the most critical moment for bad governments is the one which witnesses their first steps toward reform.”

Alexis De Tocqueville book The Old Regime and the Revolution

Variant translation: The most dangerous moment for a bad government is when it begins to reform. Old Regime (1856), p. 214 http://books.google.com/books?id=N50aibeL8BAC&pg=PA214&vq=%22most+critical+moment+for+bad+governments%22&source=gbs_search_r&cad=1_1 1850s and later

“This is an epistle from the letter ‘Thá’ unto Him Who will be made manifest through the power of Truth — He Who is the All-Glorious, the Best Beloved — to affirm that all created things as well as myself bear witness for all time that there is none other God but Thee, the Omnipotent, the Self-Subsisting; that Thou art God, there is no God besides Thee and that all men shall be raised up to life through Thee.”

Báb (1819–1850) Iranian prophet; founder of the religion Bábism; venerated in the Bahá'í Faith

Tablet to ‘Him Who Will Be Made Manifest’

Life, Men, God, Truth

“Whilst America hath been the land of promise to Europeans, and their descendants, it hath been the vale of death to millions of the wretched sons of Africa… Whilst we were offering up vows at the shrine of Liberty… whilst we swore irreconcilable hostility to her enemies… whilst we adjured the God of Hosts to witness our resolution to live free or die… we were imposing on our fellow men, who differ in complexion from us, a slavery, ten thousand times more cruel than the utmost extremity of those grievances and oppressions, of which we complained.”

St. George Tucker (1752–1827) Bermudan lawyer and judge

A Dissertation on Slavery: With a Proposal for the Gradual Abolition of it, in the State of Virginia (1796)

Death, Men, God, Hostility

“His fine wit
Makes such a wound, the knife is lost in it.”

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) English Romantic poet

Letter to Maria Gisborne (1820), l. 240

“If we add state capitalism to the Bush administration’s success in eroding both the US Constitution and the power of Congress, we may be witnessing the final death of accountable constitutional government.”

Paul Craig Roberts (1939) American economist

"The Bitter Fruits of Deregulation," CounterPunch (2008-09-24)

Death, Success

“It is astonishing to witness the struggles of this city so shattered, so starved, so deprived of all those things that justify a city’s existence, to adapt itself to a collapse into conditions which must resemble life in the Dark Ages. People camp out like Bedouins in deserts of brick.”

Norman Lewis book Naples '44

Naples '44

Life, People, Age

“God is a witness that cannot be sworn.”

Samuel Beckett book Watt

Part I, p. 4
Watt (1943)

God

“Wit is, in fact, the eloquence of indifference.”

William Hazlitt (1778–1830) English writer

"On Wit and Humour" http://books.google.com/books?id=XPchAAAAMAAJ&q=%22Wit+is+in+fact+the+eloquence+of%22&pg=PA23#v=onepage Lectures on the English Comic Writers (1819)

Indifference

“At the core, what Jesus did was to reform the conception of God in the interest of the absolute reality and the moral freedom of men. With this what can be more discordant, what more hostile to it, than the attempt to establish by an appeal to declarative authority doctrines that either contradict the human reason or have no witness from it?”

George Holmes Howison (1834–1916) American philosopher

Source: The Limits of Evolution, and Other Essays, Illustrating the Metaphysical Theory of Personal Ideaalism (1905), The Right Relation of Reason to Religion, p.259

Men, God, Hostility, Reality

“The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him.”

Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) Russian writer

Source: The Kingdom of God is Within You (1894), Ch. III

Intelligence, Idea

“[T]he last 15 years have witnessed the ascent of an alternative view, that of embodied or enactive cognition. This new wave arose because the computationalist doctrine failed to account even for the most elementary coping with the world: walking, perceiving object in a natural setting, imagination. Slowly the cards turned into considering that the basis of mind is the body in coupled action, that is, the sensory-motor circuits establish the organism as viable in situated contexts. From this perspective the brain appears as a dynamical process (and not a syntactic one) of real time variables with a rich self-organizing capacity (and not a representational machinery). So in this sense the mind is not in the head since it is roots in the body as a whole and also in the extended environment where the organism finds itself.”

Francisco Varela (1946–2001) Chilean biologist

Varela (1998) " The Cosmos Letter http://www.expo-cosmos.or.jp/letter/letter12e.html", Expo'90 Foundation, Japan

World, Imagination, Nature, Sense

Chittaranjan Das (1870–1925) Indian politician and leader of the Swaraj Party

Speech in defence of Aurobindo Ghosh in the Maincktala Bomb Case. The judgement was issued in 1909. Source: Collected Works of Deshbandhu.
Legal

Life, Law, Dreams, Idea

“What had he been taught? For the social good, you must be your own policeman and witness. You must assume responsibility for any crime which might conceivably be yours.
The face of the informer stared impassively at him. It was Barrent’s own face, reflected back from a mirror on the wall.”

Robert Sheckley book The Status Civilization

Source: The Status Civilization (1960), Chapter 29 (p. 123)

“My first car was painted red down one side and blue down the other to confuse witnesses in case of an accident.”

Stormont Mancroft, 2nd Baron Mancroft (1914–1987) British politician

A Chinaman in My Bath

Cars, Painting

“"AS GOD AS MY WITNESS, HE IS BROKEN IN HALF!" (most famously uttered during the Undertaker vs Mankind match at King of the Ring 1998)”

Jim Ross (1952) American professional wrestling commentator, professional wrestling referee, and restaurateur

Commentary Quotes

God

“Theology is now called to listen fully to the world, even if such a listening demands a turning away from the church's witness to Christ.”

Thomas J. J. Altizer (1927–2018) American radical theologian

The Gospel of Christian Atheism (1966), Preface

World, Christ

“How nice it is for the people to feel that they can get up in the mornin’ without bein’ afraid of seein’ in the papers that the Commissioner of Water Supply has sandbagged the Dock Commissioner, and that the Mayor and heads of the departments have been taken to the police court as witnesses! p. 82”

George Washington Plunkitt (1842–1924) New York State Senator

Plunkitt of Tammany Hall, Chapter 20, Bosses Preserve the Nation

People, Feeling, Water

“It is not the pleasure of curiosity, nor the quiet of resolution, nor the raising of the spirit, nor victory of wit, nor faculty of speech … that are the true ends of knowledge … but it is a restitution and reinvesting, in great part, of man to the sovereignty and power, for whensoever he shall be able to call the creatures by their true names, he shall again command them.”

Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English philosopher, statesman, scientist, jurist, and author

Valerius Terminus: Of the Interpretation of Nature (ca. 1603) Works, Vol. 1, p. 83; The Works of Francis Bacon (1819) p. 133, https://books.google.com/books?id=xgE9AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA133 Vol. 2

Pleasure, Knowledge, Victory, Parting

“There are those who strive to stamp with disrepute
The luscious food, because it feeds the brute;
In tropes of high-strain'd wit, while gaudy prigs
Compare thy nursling man to pamper'd pigs;
With sovereign scorn I treat the vulgar jest,
Nor fear to share thy bounties with the beast.”

Joel Barlow (1754–1812) American diplomat

Canto 1: st. 10, lines 1–6
The Hasty-Pudding (1793)

Fear, Food

“Last year, the President promised he would use his pen and phone to ignore the legislative branch and push through his agenda by executive fiat. We have witnessed one executive power grab after another, setting a dangerous precedent and eroding the constitutional balance set forward by our Founders. As the President himself once said, elections have consequences. The most recent one being he must work with the Republican-controlled Congress, rather than spout recycled, failed ideas from past speeches. Americans are looking for leadership. They want solutions.”

Trey Gowdy (1964) American politician

Gowdy Statement on State of the Union Address https://gowdy.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/gowdy-statement-state-union-address (January 20, 2015)

Idea, Past