COPYRIGHT

Published by Times Books

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First edition 2018

© This compilation Times Newspapers Ltd 2018

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My thanks and acknowledgements go to Lily Cox and Robin Ashton at News Syndication and, in particular, at The Times, Ian Brunskill and, at HarperCollins, Gerry Breslin, Jethro Lennox, Karen Midgley, Kerry Ferguson, Sarah Woods and Evelyn Sword.

eBook Edition © November 2018

ISBN 9780008317263

Version: 2018-10-13

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Introduction

Achievement and success

Acting and drama

Actions and behaviour

Advice and principles

Appetites

Aspiration and opportunity

Beliefs and doubt

Challenge and tenacity

Chance

Change

Christmas and festive spirit

Competition

Conflict and aggression

Courage and daring

Creativity and the arts

Death and sorrow

Economics and commerce

Education

Emotions

Experience and age

Freedom and tolerance

Friendship

Fun and humour

Good and bad

Governance and society

Gratitude and tribute

Happiness and torment

Health and wellbeing

History and the past

Hope

Intelligence and ideas

Judgment and worth

Leadership

Life, or the way of the world

Love and marriage

Mankind and civilisation

Men

Mistakes and failings

Money and wealth

Morals and ethics

Music

Nature and the weather

Parents and children

Politics and power

Science and technology

Seeing and appearance

Sport and motivation

Temperament and character

The future

Time and the present

Thought and understanding

Travel and relaxation

Truth

Virtue

Wisdom and folly

Wit and insight

Women

Words and writers

Work and employment

People index

About the Publisher

INTRODUCTION

“A good newspaper,” said the writer Arthur Miller, “is a nation talking to itself.” Being a good newspaper, The Times strives to be exactly that ideal. Being intelligent, too, it realised some years ago that one way to promote that end was to make use of the words of interesting people talking to others. As a consequence, in the Daily Universal Register section of every edition, next to the birthdays, the anniversaries and the plashings of voles, there began to appear a stimulating quotation or saying of note, of which this volume is a selection.

Because the quotes which have appeared in the newspaper were assembled on random lines, this is not intended to be a traditional, comprehensive dictionary of famous quotations as such, though I hope it is nevertheless a valuable work of reference. Rather, the content has been grouped into common themes. Again, the hope is that, taken together in this way, these insights, musings and witty observations will provide food for thought. Those readers who wish to find quotes from specific people can easily do so by consulting the index at the back of the book.

Winston Churchill, the originator of a memorable line or two himself, believed it “a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations”. He may have been playing up his own inattentiveness as a schoolboy, but what can the rest of us gain from a ramble through the thoughts of greater minds? One thing is that they do think alike. Over the centuries, the same subjects and reflections recur, for after all much is constant in the human race. Often, too, even the words are similar, and at certain times in history seem to occur to people almost simultaneously. Was it William Faulkner or André Gide who said something about not being able to swim for new horizons without losing sight of the shore?

And, besides being treated to some world-class lectures in the essentials of philosophy, politics, success and common sense, there is the satisfaction (and surprise) of discovering how many expressions that we use every day are actually quotations. Who first said he was going from the sublime to the ridiculous? Napoleon, while leaving Russia. Who held that hell could be paved with good resolutions (often misquoted as good intentions)? That was Mark Twain. And was it a logistics company or the polar explorer Fridtjof Nansen who advised that the difficult takes a little time, the impossible a little longer?

Similarly, it is good to be reminded of the proper context of phrases often cited without knowledge of to what they refer. Making the pips squeak, a favourite standby of politicians, initially had nothing to do with taxing the rich. It was coined in 1918 with regard to the scale of German reparations for the First World War.

When Stanley Baldwin talked of newspapers having “power without responsibility”, he was himself quoting his cousin Rudyard Kipling, and when his successor as prime minister returned from Germany holding in his hand “peace with honour”, he was referencing a remark of his mid-19th century predecessor, Lord John Russell.

In the preparation of the text, every effort has been made to attribute correctly the quotations chosen. Their sources have been given where they are known to be contemporaneous with or authored by the speaker. Where it might be helpful, an English translation is given from a foreign language.

Remembrance of Things Past? Nothing to do with Proust originally, it comes from a Shakespeare sonnet. Fools rush in; hope springs eternal; to err is human; even that Cup Final favourite sing-song about death’s sting – all 18th century poet Alexander Pope. Let us salute Samuel Johnson as a compiler of dictionaries, but I can’t agree with him that making – and reading – them is “dull work”.

James Owen

ACHIEVEMENT AND SUCCESS

He who does something at the head of one regiment, will eclipse him who does nothing at the head of a hundred.

[Letter, 1861]

Abraham Lincoln, 16th president of the US (1809–1865)

•

Those who believe that they are exclusively in the right are generally those who achieve something.

Proper Studies (1927)

Aldous Huxley, English writer and philosopher (1894–1963)

•

Concentrate all of your thoughts upon the work at hand. The sun’s rays do not burn until brought to a focus.

Alexander Graham Bell, Scottish-born scientist and inventor (1847–1922)

•

Give me but one firm spot on which to stand and I will move the Earth.

Archimedes, Greek mathematician and physicist (287–212 BC)

•

Talent hits a target no one else can hit. Genius hits a target no one else can see.

The World as Will and Representation (1819)

Arthur Schopenhauer, German philosopher (1788–1860)

•

For myself, losing is not coming second. It’s getting out of the water knowing you could have done better.

Ian Thorpe, Australian Olympic swimmer (1982–)

•

One secret of success in life is for a man to be ready for his opportunity when it comes.

Benjamin Disraeli, prime minister of the UK (1804–1881)

•

Well done is better than well said.

Benjamin Franklin, founding father of the US (1706–1790)

•

To gain that which is worth having, it may be necessary to lose everything else.

The Price of My Soul (1969)

Bernadette Devlin McAliskey, Irish civil rights leader (1947–)

•

It is easier to live through someone else than to become complete yourself.

The Feminine Mystique (1963)

Betty Friedan, American writer and activist (1921–2006)

•

Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment.

Mother Teresa, Albanian nun and missionary (1910–1997)

•

It’s the stuff of dreams … Kids from Kilburn don’t become favourite for the Tour de France. You’re supposed to become a postman or a milkman or work in Ladbrokes.

Bradley Wiggins, British professional road racing cyclist (1980–)

•

The fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.

Broca’s Brain (1979)

Carl Sagan, American astronomer and educator (1934–1996)

•

Diligence is the mother of good fortune, and idleness, its opposite, never led to good intention’s goal.

Don Quixote (1605)

Miguel de Cervantes, Spanish writer (1547–1616)

•

The world is divided into people who do things and people who get the credit. Try, if you can, to belong to the first class. There’s far less competition.

Dwight Morrow, American diplomat (1873–1931)

•

The two kinds of people on earth I mean are the people who lift, and the people who lean.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox, American writer and poet (1850–1919)

•

I attribute my success to this — I never gave or took any excuse.

Florence Nightingale, English social reformer and nurse (1820–1910)

•

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

Man and Superman (1903)

George Bernard Shaw, Irish playwright (1856–1950)

•

Success is more dangerous than failure, the ripples break over a wider coastline.

Graham Greene, English writer (1904–1991)

•

If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself.

Henry Ford, American industrialist and businessman (1863–1947)

•

Not in the clamour of the crowded street, not in the shouts and plaudits of the throng, but in ourselves, are triumph and defeat.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, American poet (1807–1882)

•

Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil.

Lycidas (1637)

John Milton, English poet (1608–1674)

•

All the world’s great have been little boys who wanted the moon.

Cup of Gold (1929)

John Steinbeck, American writer (1902–1968)

•

Whether our efforts are, or not, favoured by life, let us be able to say when we come near the great goal, “I have done what I could”.

Louis Pasteur, French biologist and chemist (1822–1895)

•

I never see what has been done; I only see what remains to be done.

Marie Curie, French-Polish physicist and chemist (1867–1934)

•

All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence; then success is sure.

Mark Twain, American writer (1835–1910)

•

To live at all is miracle enough.

Mervyn Peake, English writer (1911–1968)

•

In most things success depends on knowing how long it takes to succeed.

Pensées et fragments inédits

Montesquieu, French political philosopher (1689–1755)

•

The reward of a thing well done is to have done it.

New England Reformers (1844)

Ralph Waldo Emerson, American poet, essayist and philosopher (1803–1882)

•

The love of life is necessary to the vigorous prosecution of any undertaking.

Samuel Johnson, English writer, critic and lexicographer (1709–1784)

•

I had done all that I could; and no man is well pleased to have his all neglected, be it ever so little.

Samuel Johnson, English writer, critic and lexicographer (1709–1784)

•

It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves.

Sir Edmund Hillary, New Zealand mountaineer (1919–2008)

•

We may become the makers of our fate when we have ceased to pose as its prophets.

Sir Karl Popper, Austrian-British philosopher and professor (1902–1994)

•

All men who have turned out worth anything have had the chief hand in their own education.

[Letter to JG Lockhart, 1830]

Sir Walter Scott, Scottish writer (1771–1832)

•

My mountain did not seem to me a lifeless thing of rock and ice, but warm and friendly and living.

She was a mother hen, and the other mountains were chicks under her wings.

Man of Everest (1955)

Tenzing Norgay, Nepali Sherpa mountaineer (1914–1986)

•

Many of life’s failures are people who did not realise how close they were to success when they gave up.

Thomas Edison, American inventor (1847–1931)

•

Genius is one per cent inspiration, ninety-nine per cent perspiration.

Thomas Edison, American inventor (1847–1931)

•

It is sobering to consider that when Mozart was my age he had already been dead for a year.

Tom Lehrer, American humourist and singer-songwriter (1928–)

•

Success is relative: It is what we can make of the mess we have made of things.

The Family Reunion (1939)

TS Eliot, English-American poet, critic and dramatist (1888–1965)

•

In the United States there’s a Puritan ethic and a mythology of success. He who is successful is good. In Latin countries, in Catholic countries, a successful person is a sinner.

International Herald Tribune (1988)

Umberto Eco, Italian philosopher, writer and professor of semiotics (1932–2016)

•

Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together.

Vincent van Gogh, Dutch painter (1853–1890)

•

I felt as if I was walking with destiny, and that all my past life had been but a preparation for this hour and this trial.

[On becoming prime minister during the Second World War]

Sir Winston Churchill, prime minister of the UK, historian and Nobel Prize winner (1874–1965)

ACTING AND DRAMA

Just say the lines and don’t trip over the furniture.

Sir Noël Coward, English playwright (1899–1973)

•

Television has brought back murder into the home — where it belongs.

Alfred Hitchcock, English film director (1899–1980)

•

If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired. Otherwise don’t put it there.

Teatr i iskusstvo (1904)

Anton Chekhov, Russian playwright and short-story writer (1860–1904)

•

The structure of a play is always the story of how the birds came home to roost.

Shadows of the Gods (1958)

Arthur Miller, American playwright (1915–2005)

•

The basic essential of a great actor is that he loves himself in acting.

My Autobiography (1964)

Charlie Chaplin, English comic actor, director and composer (1889–1977)

•

Without wonder and insight, acting is just a trade. With it, it becomes creation.

The Lonely Life (1962)

Bette Davis, American actress (1908–1989)

•

You spend all your life trying to do something they put people in asylums for.

Jane Fonda, American actress (1937–)

•

Acting should be like punk in the best way. It should be a full-on expression of self – only without the broken bottles.

Uncut (2000)

John Cusack, American actor (1966–)

•

Playing Shakespeare is very tiring. You never get to sit down, unless you’re a king.

Josephine Hull, American actress (1877–1957)

•

Acting is a masochistic form of exhibitionism. It is not quite the occupation of an adult.

Time (1978)

Laurence Olivier, English actor (1907–1989)

•

A painter paints, a musician plays, a writer writes – but a movie actor waits.

A Life on Film (1967)

Mary Astor, American actress (1906–1987)

•

Acting is standing up naked and turning around slowly.

Life Is a Banquet (1977)

Rosalind Russell, American actress (1907–1976)

•

Being another character is more interesting than being yourself.

Sir John Gielgud, English actor (1904–2000)

•

The art of acting consists in keeping people from coughing.

Sir Ralph Richardson, English actor (1902–1983)

ACTIONS AND BEHAVIOUR

Official dignity tends to increase in inverse ratio to the importance of the country in which the office is held.

Beyond the Mexique Bay (1934)

Aldous Huxley, English writer and philosopher (1894–1963)

•

Most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted.

Themes and Variations (1950)

Aldous Huxley, English writer and philosopher (1894–1963)

•

It is always easier to fight for one’s principles than to live up to them.

Alfred Adler, Austrian psychologist and psychiatrist (1870–1937)

•

Man is so made that he can only find relaxation from one kind of labour by taking up another.

The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard (1881)

Anatole France, French poet (1844–1924)

•

A man’s mind will very generally refuse to make itself up until it be driven and compelled by emergency.

Ayala’s Angel (1881)

Anthony Trollope, English writer (1815–1882)

•

I have taken great care not to laugh at human actions, not to weep at them, nor to hate them, but to understand them.

Tractatus Politicus (1677)

Baruch Spinoza, Dutch philosopher (1632–1677)

•

Men who are unhappy, like men who sleep badly, are always proud of the fact.

The Conquest of Happiness (1930)

Bertrand Russell, British philosopher, mathematician, historian, and writer (1872–1970)

•

One of the symptoms of approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one’s work is terribly important, and that to take a holiday would bring all kinds of disaster.

In Praise of Idleness and Other Essays (1935)

Bertrand Russell, British philosopher, mathematician, historian, and writer (1872–1970)

•

The pendulum of the mind oscillates between sense and nonsense, not between right and wrong.

Memories, Dreams, Reflections (1962)

Carl Jung, Swiss psychologist (1875–1961)

•

The shoe that fits one person pinches another; there is no recipe for living that suits all cases.

Modern Man in Search of a Soul (1933)

Carl Jung, Swiss psychologist (1875–1961)

•

Where we have strong emotions, we’re liable to fool ourselves.

Cosmos (1980)

Carl Sagan, American astronomer and educator (1934–1996)

•

My life is spent in a perpetual alternation between two rhythms, the rhythm of attracting people for fear I may be lonely, and the rhythm of trying to get rid of them because I know that I am bored.

The Observer (1948)

CEM Joad, English philosopher (1891–1953)

•

Any man may be in good spirits and good temper when he’s well dressed. There ain’t much credit in that.

Martin Chuzzlewit (1844)

Charles Dickens, English writer and social critic (1812–1870)

•

Every one says forgiveness is a lovely idea, until they have something to forgive.

Mere Christianity (1952)

CS Lewis, British literary scholar and writer (1898–1963)

•

Pleasure is a thief to business.

The Complete English Tradesman (1726)

Daniel Defoe, English trader, writer and spy (1660–1731)

•

The heart of man is made to reconcile the most glaring contradictions.

Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects (1753)

David Hume, Scottish philosopher (1711–1776)

•

Every time you open your wardrobe, you look at your clothes and you wonder what you are going to wear. What you are really saying is, “Who am I going to be today?”

The New Yorker (1995)

Fay Weldon, English feminist and playwright (1931–)

•

Everyone thinks his own burden is heavy.

French proverb

•

The smyler with the knyf under the cloke.

The Knight’s Tale (1387)

Geoffrey Chaucer, English poet (c. 1343–1400)

•

Our deeds determine us, as much as we determine our deeds.

Adam Bede (1859)

George Eliot, English writer (1819–1880)

•

Our actions are like ships which we may watch set out to sea, and not know when or with what cargo they will return to port.

The Bell (1958)

Iris Murdoch, Irish writer (1919–1999)

•

The world can only be grasped by action, not by contemplation … The hand is the cutting edge of the mind.

The Ascent of Man (1973)

Jacob Bronowski, British-Polish mathematician and science historian (1908–1974)

•

Only the actions of the just,

Smell sweet and blossom on their dust.

The Contention of Ajax and Ulysses for the Armour of Achilles (1659)

James Shirley, English playwright (1596–1666)

•

It isn’t what we say or think that defines us, but what we do.

Sense and Sensibility (1811)

Jane Austen, English writer (1775–1817)

•

I was raised to feel that doing nothing was a sin. I had to learn to do nothing.

The Observer (1998)

Jenny Joseph, English poet (1932–2018)

•

It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one has plenty of work to do.

Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow (1886)

Jerome K Jerome, English writer (1859–1927)

•

Deeds, not words shall speak me.

The Lover’s Progress (1647)

John Fletcher, English playwright (1579–1625)

•

I have always thought the actions of men the best interpreters of their thoughts.

An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689)

John Locke, English philosopher (1632–1704)

•

Word is but wynd; leff woord and tak the dede.

Secrets of Old Philosophers

John Lydgate, English poet (1370–1451)

•

The highest reward for a man’s toil is not what he gets for it but what he becomes by it.

John Ruskin, English art critic (1819–1900)

•

Action is consolatory. It is the enemy of thought and the friend of flattering illusions.

Nostromo (1904)

Joseph Conrad, Polish-British writer (1857–1924)

•

Iron rusts from disuse, stagnant water loses its purity, and in cold weather becomes frozen; even so does inaction sap the vigour of the mind.

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883)

Leonardo da Vinci, Italian polymath (1452–1519)

•

Everybody, sooner or later, sits down to a banquet of consequences.

Old Mortality (1884)

Robert Louis Stevenson, Scottish writer (1850–1894)

•

The only infallible rule we know is, that the man who is always talking about being a gentleman never is one.

Ask Mamma (1858)

RS Surtees, English editor and sporting writer (1805–1864)

•

Everyone is more or less mad on one point.

Plain Tales from the Hills (1888)

Rudyard Kipling, English journalist and writer (1865–1936)

•

The ordinary acts we practise every day at home are of more importance to the soul than their simplicity might suggest.

Sir Thomas More, English saint and lawyer (1478–1535)

•

Terror … often arises from a pervasive sense of disestablishment; that things are in the unmaking.

Danse Macabre (1981)

Stephen King, American writer (1947–)

•

Perfection is terrible, it cannot have children.

The Munich Mannequins (1965)

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

•

It is part of human nature to hate the man you have hurt.

Agricola (c. 98)

Tacitus, Roman senator and historian (c. 56–120)

•

Considering how foolishly people act and how pleasantly they prattle, perhaps it would be better for the world if they talked more and did less.

A Writer’s Notebook (1946)

W Somerset Maugham, British playwright (1874–1965)

•

It is an undoubted truth, that the less one has to do, the less time one finds to do it in. One yawns, one procrastinates, one can do it when one will, and therefore one seldom does it at all.

Lord Chesterfield, British statesman (1694–1773)

•

Anything that is worth doing has been done frequently. Things hitherto undone should be given, I suspect, a wide berth.

Mainly on the Air (1946)

Sir Max Beerbohm, English essayist and parodist (1872–1956)

•

Truly, when the day of judgment comes, it will not be a question of what we have read, but what we have done.

De Imitatione Christi (c. 1418–1427)

Thomas á Kempis, Dutch-German canon regular and writer (1380–1471)

•

Men are rewarded and punished not for what they do, but rather for how their acts are defined. This is why men are more interested in better justifying themselves than in better behaving themselves.

The Second Sin (1973)

Thomas Szasz, American-Hungarian psychiatrist (1920–2012)

ADVICE AND PRINCIPLES

Out of clutter, find simplicity.

Albert Einstein, German theoretical physicist (1879–1955)

•

There’s only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that’s your own self.

Time Must Have a Stop (1944)

Aldous Huxley, English writer and philosopher (1894–1963)

•

Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.

Arthur Ashe, American tennis player and Aids activist (1943–1993)

•

If you would be known, and not know, vegetate in a village; if you would know, and not be known, live in a city.

Lacon (1820)

Charles Caleb Colton, English cleric (1780–1832)

•

Reflect upon your present blessings, of which every man has many; not on your past misfortunes of which all men have some.

Charles Dickens, English writer and social critic (1812–1870)

•

Never make a defence or apology before you be accused.

Charles I, King of England (1600–1649)

•

When environment changes, there must be a corresponding change in life.

The Wartime Journals (1970)

Charles Lindbergh, American aviator (1902–1974)

•

Get the advice of everybody whose advice is worth having — they are very few — and then do what you think best yourself.

Charles Stewart Parnell, Irish nationalist leader (1846–1891)

•

A ruffled mind makes a restless pillow.

Charlotte Brontë, English writer (1816–1855)

•

If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.

Ad Familiares IX, 4

Cicero, Roman statesman (106–43 BC)

•

Stand a little less between me and the sun.

[On being asked by Alexander the Great what he could do for him]

Diogenes, Greek philosopher (412–323 BC)

•

Hope is a good breakfast but a bad supper.

Francis Bacon, English philosopher, statesman and essayist (1561–1626)

•

Be wisely worldly, but not worldly wise.

Francis Quarles, English poet (1592–1644)

•

Believe me! The secret of reaping the greatest fruitfulness and the greatest enjoyment from life is to live dangerously!

Die fröhliche Wissenschaft (1882)

Friedrich Nietzsche, German philosopher and writer (1844–1900)

•

Simplicity is light, carefree, neat and loving — not a self-punishing ascetic trip.

A Place in Space (1995)

Gary Snyder, American poet (1930–)

•

Take care to get what you like or you will be forced to like what you get.

Man and Superman (1903)

George Bernard Shaw, Irish playwright (1856–1950)

•

We must consult our means rather than our wishes.

George Washington, 1st president of the US (1732–1799)

•

One sees great things from the valley; only small things from the peak.

GK Chesterton, English writer (1874–1936)

•

Be steady and well-ordered in your life so that you can be fierce and original in your work.

Gustave Flaubert, French writer (1821–1880)

•

This is the precept by which I have lived: prepare for the worst; expect the best; and take what comes.

Hannah Arendt, American-German philosopher (1906–1975)

•

Up with your damned nonsense will I put twice, or perhaps once, but sometimes always, by God, never.

Hans Richter, Hungarian-born conductor and painter (1888–1976)

•

Live all you can: it’s a mistake not to. It doesn’t matter what you do in particular, so long as you have had your life. If you haven’t had that, what have you had?

Henry James, American writer (1843–1916)

•

Never trust the man who tells you all his troubles but keeps from you all his joys.

Jewish proverb

•

Meetings are a great trap … However, they are indispensable when you don’t want to do anything.

Ambassador’s Journal (1969)

JK Galbraith, Canadian economist (1908–2006)

•

Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, German writer and statesman (1749–1832)

•

Praising all alike is praising none.

A Letter To A Lady

John Gay, English poet (1685–1732)

•

Nor love thy life, nor hate; but what thou liv’st live well, how long or short permit to heaven.

Paradise Lost (1667)

John Milton, English poet (1608–1674)

•

Though I am always in haste, I am never in a hurry.

John Wesley, English cleric (1703–1791)

•

Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.

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

•

A thick skin is a gift from God.

Konrad Adenauer, chancellor of Germany (1876–1967)

•

Civility costs nothing and buys everything.

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, English writer (1689–1762)

•

The strongest of all warriors are these two — Time and Patience.

Leo Tolstoy, Russian writer (1828–1910)

•

If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.

Lewis Carroll, English writer (1832–1898)

•

A proverb is one man’s wit and all men’s wisdom.

Lord John Russell, prime minister of the UK (1792–1878)

•

Turn your face to the sun and the shadows fall behind you.

Maori proverb

•

The heart that gives, gathers.

Marianne Moore, American poet (1887–1972)

•

You will find it a very good practice always to verify your references, sir!

Martin Joseph Routh, English classical scholar (1755–1854)

•

The sense of being well-dressed gives a feeling of inward tranquillity which religion is powerless to bestow.

Emerson, Social Aims (1876)

Miss CF Forbes, English writer (1817–1911)

•

Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.

Oscar Wilde, Irish dramatist and poet (1854–1900)

•

I always pass on good advice. It is the only thing to do with it. It is never of any use to oneself.

An Ideal Husband (1895)

Oscar Wilde, Irish dramatist and poet (1854–1900)

•

Education is what you get when you read the fine print; experience is what you get when you don’t.

Pete Seeger, American folk singer (1919–2014)

•

When the bee comes to your house, let her have beer; you may want to visit the bee’s house some day.

Proverb from the Republic of Congo

•

There was no need to do any housework at all. After the first four years the dirt doesn’t get any worse.

The Naked Civil Servant (1968)

Quentin Crisp, English writer, raconteur and actor (1908–1999)

•

There is no such uncertainty as a sure thing.

Robert Burns, Scottish poet (1759–1796)

•

If you live among wolves you have to howl like a wolf.

Russian proverb

•

He who is blind, dumb and deaf will live a peaceful life of a hundred years.

Sicilian proverb

•

You’ve got to have two out of death, sex and jewels.

[In The Sunday Times, 1994, on his principles for a successful museum show]

Sir Roy Strong, English art historian (1935–)

•

Nature has given us two ears, two eyes, and but one tongue — to the end that we should hear and see more than we speak.

Socrates, Greek philosopher (470–399 BC)

•

There are two possible situations — one can either do this or that. My honest opinion and my friendly advice is this: do it or do not do it — you will regret both.

Either/Or (1843)

Søren Kierkegaard, Danish philosopher (1813–1855)

•

Don’t speak unless you can improve on the silence.

Spanish proverb

•

The shrimp that falls asleep is carried away by the current.

Spanish proverb

•

Straightforwardness without civility is like a surgeon’s knife, effective but unpleasant. Candour with courtesy is helpful and admirable.

Sri Yukteswar Giri, Indian guru (1855–1936)

•

Shared joy is a double joy; shared sorrow is half a sorrow.

Swedish proverb

•

Coffee should be black as hell, strong as death and sweet as love.

Turkish proverb

•

Your head is not only for putting a hat on.

Ukrainian proverb

•

Think like a wise man but express yourself like the common people.

WB Yeats, Irish poet (1865–1939)

•

Be nice to people on your way up because you’ll meet ’em on your way down.

Wilson Mizner, American playwright (1876–1933)

•

Let our advance worrying become advance thinking and planning.

Sir Winston Churchill, prime minister of the UK, historian and Nobel Prize winner (1874–1965)

APPETITES

Time for a little something.

Winnie the Pooh (1926)

AA Milne, English writer (1882–1956)

•

In the spring a livelier iris changes on the burnished dove; In the spring a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.

Locksley Hall (1842)

Alfred, Lord Tennyson, English poet (1809–1892)

•

My problem lies in reconciling my gross habits with my net income.

Errol Flynn, Australian-born actor (1909–1959)

•

There is no love sincerer than the love of food.

Man and Superman (1903)

George Bernard Shaw, Irish playwright (1856–1950)

•

People say I wasted my money. I say 90 per cent went on women, fast cars and booze. The rest I wasted.

George Best, Northern Irish professional footballer (1946–2005)

•

Three glasses of wine drive away the evil spirits, but with the fourth they return.

German proverb

•

If all be true that I do think,

There are five reasons we should drink:

Good wine — a friend — or being dry —

Or lest we should be by and by —

Or any other reason why.

Five Reasons for Drinking (1689)

Henry Aldrich, English philosopher and composer (1647–1710)

•

We drink one another’s healths, and spoil our own.

Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow (1886)

Jerome K Jerome, English writer (1859–1927)

•

No pleasure is worth giving up for the sake of two more years in a geriatric home in Weston-super-Mare.

The Times (1994)

[Attr.]

Kingsley Amis, English writer and critic (1922–1995)

•

Wine may well be considered the most healthful and most hygienic of beverages.

Études sur le vin (1866)

Louis Pasteur, French biologist and chemist (1822–1895)

•

One reason why I don’t drink is because I wish to know when I am having a good time.

Christian Herald (1960)

Nancy Astor, American-born politician and socialite (1879–1964)

•

Strange to see how a good dinner and feasting reconciles everybody.

Diary (1660)

Samuel Pepys, English diarist, naval administrator and politician (1633–1703)

•

Hath wine an oblivious power? Can it pluck out the sting from the brain? The draught might beguile for an hour, But still leaves behind it the pain.

Anonymous

•

A well-balanced person has a drink in each hand.

Gullible’s Travels (1982)

Sir Billy Connolly, Scottish comedian (1942–)

•

Too much and too little wine. Give him none, he cannot find truth; give him too much, the same.

Pensées (1670)

Blaise Pascal, French mathematician and physicist (1623–1662)

•

There are two things that will be believed of any man whatsoever, and one of them is that he has taken to drink.

Penrod (1914)

Booth Tarkington, American writer and dramatist (1869–1946)

•

I only take a drink on two occasions – when I’m thirsty and when I’m not.

Brendan Behan, Irish writer (1923–1964)

•

Every form of addiction is bad, no matter whether the narcotic be alcohol or morphine or idealism.

Memories, Dreams, Reflections (1962)

Carl Jung, Swiss psychologist (1875–1961)

•

Then trust me, there’s nothing like drinking

So pleasant on this side the grave;

It keeps the unhappy from thinking,

And makes e’en the valiant more brave.

Nothing like Grog (1841)

Charles Dibdin, British composer (1745–1814)

•

Bring in the bottled lightning, a clean tumbler, and a corkscrew.

Nicholas Nickleby (1838)

Charles Dickens, English writer and social critic (1812–1870)

•

We are fighting Germany, Austria and drink, and so far as I can see the greatest of these deadly foes is drink.

[Speech at Bangor, 1915]

David Lloyd George, prime minister of the UK (1863–1945)

•

I feel sorry for people who don’t drink. When they wake up in the morning, that’s the best they are going to feel all day.

Dean Martin, American singer and actor (1917–1995)

•

One whisky is all right; two is too much; three is too few.

A Taste of Scotch (1989)

Derek Cooper, British journalist and broadcaster (1925–2014)

•

Come quickly, I am tasting stars!

[On discovering he had created champagne]

Dom Perignon, French Benedictine monk (1638–1715)

•

An alcoholic is someone you don’t like who drinks as much as you do.

Dylan Thomas, Welsh writer (1914–1953)

•

To eat figs off the tree in the very early morning, when they have been barely touched by the sun, is one of the exquisite pleasures of the Mediterranean.

Italian Food (1954)

Elizabeth David, British cookery writer (1913–1992)

•

Great eaters of meat are in general more cruel and ferocious than other men. The English are known for their cruelty.

Émile (1762)

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Genevan philosopher (1712–1778)

•

Food is an important part of a balanced diet.

Metropolitan Life (1978)

Fran Lebowitz, American writer and public speaker (1950–)

•

A cheerful look makes a dish a feast.

Jacula Prudentum (1640)

George Herbert, Welsh-born poet and priest (1593–1633)

•

Man cannot live by bread alone; he must have peanut butter.

[Inaugural address, 1881]

James A Garfield, 20th president of the US (1831–1881)

•

I saw him even now going the way of all flesh, that is to say towards the kitchen.

Westward Hoe (1607)

John Webster, English dramatist (c. 1580–1634)

•

Coffee is a cold dry food, suited to the ascetic life and sedative of lust.

Katib Chelebi, Ottoman scholar (1609–1657)

•

All my life I have been a very thirsty person.

The Sunday Times (2001)

Keith Floyd, British cook, restaurateur and television personality (1943–2009)

•

The noblest of all dogs is the hot-dog; it feeds the hand that bites it.

Quotations for Our Time (1977)

Laurence J Peter, Canadian educator (1919–1990)

•

Good mashed potato is one of the great luxuries of life and I don’t blame Elvis for eating it every night for the last year of his life.

In Praise of the Potato (1989)

Lindsey Bareham, British cookery writer

ASPIRATION AND OPPORTUNITY

Now, gentlemen, let us do something today which the world may talk of hereafter.

Admiral Cuthbert Collingwood, admiral of the Royal Navy (1748–1810)

•

We have to do the best we can. This is our sacred human responsibility.

Albert Einstein, German theoretical physicist (1879–1955)

•

Come, my friends. ’Tis not too late to seek a newer world.

Ulysses (1833)

Alfred, Lord Tennyson, English poet (1809–1892)

•

One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight, for a very long time, of the shore.

Les faux-monnayeurs (1925)

André Gide, French writer (1869–1951)

•

A goal without a plan is just a wish.

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, French writer (1900–1944)

•

Nurture your minds with great thoughts; to believe in the heroic makes heroes.

Benjamin Disraeli, prime minister of the UK (1804–1881)

•

We are not creatures of circumstance; we are creators of circumstance.

Benjamin Disraeli, prime minister of the UK (1804–1881)

•

There comes a time in a man’s life when to get where he has to go — if there are no doors or windows — he walks through a wall.

Rembrandt’s Hat (1972)

Bernard Malamud, American writer (1914–1986)

•

By prevailing over all obstacles and distractions, one may unfailingly arrive at his chosen goal or destination.

Christopher Columbus, Italian explorer (1451–1506)

•

In order to carry a positive action we must develop here a positive vision.

Dalai Lama, Tibetan monk of the Gelug school (1935–)

•

Small opportunities are often the beginning of great enterprises.

Against Leptines (c. 385/4 BC)

Demosthenes, Greek orator and Athenian statesman (c. 384–322 BC)

•

Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.

Edmund Burke, Irish philosopher and statesman (1729–1797)

•

I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And I will not let what I cannot do interfere with what I can do.

Edward Everett Hale, American writer (1822–1909)

•

What we’re saying today is that you’re either part of the solution or you’re part of the problem.

[Speech in San Francisco, 1968]

Eldridge Cleaver, American political activist (1935–1998)

•

I am here to live out loud.

Émile Zola, French writer (1840–1902)

•

Man’s main task in life is to give birth to himself, to become what he potentially is. The most important product of his effort is his own personality.

Man for Himself (1947)

Erich Fromm, German philosopher and psychologist (1900–1980)

•

You see things; and you say, “Why?” But I dream things that never were; and I say, “Why not?”

Methuselah (1903)

George Bernard Shaw, Irish playwright (1856–1950)

•

It will never rain roses: when we want to have more roses, we must plant more roses.

George Eliot, English writer (1819–1880)

•

What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult for each other?

Middlemarch (1871–72)

George Eliot, English writer (1819–1880)

•

Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.

Let Us Have Faith (1940)

Helen Keller, American writer and social reformer (1880–1968)

•

It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.

Herman Melville, American writer (1819–1891)

•

Time is that wherein there is opportunity, and opportunity is that wherein there is no great time.

Hippocrates, Greek physician (460–370 BC)

•

He who has begun has half done. Dare to be wise; begin.

Epistles (20 BC)

Horace, Roman poet (65–8 BC)

•

You have not lived today until you have done something for someone who can never repay you.

John Bunyan, English writer (1628–1688)

•

All this will not be finished in the first 100 days. Nor will it be finished in the first 1,000 days, nor in the life of this administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin.

[Inaugural address, 1961]

John F Kennedy, 35th president of the US (1917–1963)

•

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up

Like a raisin in the sun?

Langston Hughes, American poet (1902–1967)

•

The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

Tao Te Ching

Lao Tzu, Chinese philosopher (?–533 BC)

•

Great fires erupt from tiny sparks.

Libyan proverb

•

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. In fact, it’s the only thing that ever has.

Margaret Mead, American anthropologist (1901–1978)

•

We must believe that we are gifted for something, and that this thing, at whatever cost, must be attained.

Marie Curie, French-Polish physicist and chemist (1867–1934)

•

What can stop the determined heart and resolved will of man?

Frankenstein (1823)

Mary Shelley, English writer (1797–1851)

•

Life loves to be taken by the lapel and told: I’m with you kid. Let’s go.

Maya Angelou, American writer (1928–2014)

•

Chance is always powerful. Let your hook be always cast. In the pool where you least expect it, will be fish.

Ovid, Roman poet (43 BC–AD 18)

•

I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.

Pablo Picasso, Spanish painter (1881–1973)

•

Always do what you are afraid to do.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, American poet, essayist and philosopher (1803–1882)

•

Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.

Circles (1841)

Ralph Waldo Emerson, American poet, essayist and philosopher (1803–1882)

•

Here is a test to find whether your mission on earth is finished: if you’re alive, it isn’t.

Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah (1977)

Richard Bach, American writer (1936–)

•

The scouts’ motto is founded on my initials, it is Be Prepared, which means, you are always to be in a state of readiness in mind and body to do your duty.

Scouting for Boys (1908)

Robert Baden-Powell, British Army officer (1857–1941)

•

Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, Or what’s a heaven for?

Andrea del Sarto (1855)

Robert Browning, English poet (1812–1889)

•

To be what we are, and to become what we are capable of becoming, is the only end of life.

Robert Louis Stevenson, Scottish writer (1850–1894)

•

At the age of six I wanted to be a cook. At seven I wanted to be Napoleon. And my ambition has been growing steadily ever since.

Salvador Dalí, Spanish surrealist painter (1904–1989)

•

Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must first be overcome.

Samuel Johnson, English writer, critic and lexicographer (1709–1784)

•

If you are not criticised, you may not be doing much.

Human Life (1819)

Samuel Rogers, English poet (1763–1855)

•

To show your true ability is always, in a sense, to surpass the limits of your ability, to go a little beyond them.

Simone de Beauvoir, French writer (1908–1986)

•

One sometimes finds what one is not looking for.

Sir Alexander Fleming, Scottish physician (1881–1955)

•

Strive for perfection in everything you do. Take the best that exists and make it better. When it does not exist, design it.

Sir Henry Royce, English engineer (1863–1933)

•

Either I will find a way, or I will make one.

Sir Philip Sidney, English poet (1554–1586)

•

Opportunities multiply as they are seized.

Sun Tzu, Chinese strategist (545–470 BC)

•

Believe you can and you’re halfway there.

Theodore Roosevelt, 26th president of the US (1858–1919)

•

I wish to preach, not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life.

[Speech in Chicago, 1899]

Theodore Roosevelt, 26th president of the US (1858–1919)

•

Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in that grey twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.

[The Strenuous Life speech, 1899]

Theodore Roosevelt, 26th president of the US (1858–1919)

•

As you enter positions of trust and power, dream a little before you think.

[Commencement speech at Sarah Lawrence College, 1988]

Toni Morrison, American writer (1931–)

•

What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?

[Letter to his brother Theo, 1881]

Vincent van Gogh, Dutch painter (1853–1890)

•

The man who removes a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.

[Interview with The Paris Review, 1956]

William Faulkner, American writer (1897–1962)

•

You cannot swim for new horizons until you have courage to lose sight of the shore.

The Mansion (1959)

William Faulkner, American writer (1897–1962)

•

Things won are done; joy’s soul lies in the doing.

Troilus and Cressida (1602)

William Shakespeare, English poet and dramatist (1564–1616)

•

I would rather fail in a cause that will ultimately triumph than to triumph in a cause that will ultimately fail.

[Campaign speech at New York State Fair Grounds, Syracuse, 1912]

Woodrow Wilson, 28th president of the US (1856–1924)

•

A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.

[Attr.]

Sir Winston Churchill, prime minister of the UK, historian and Nobel Prize winner (1874–1965)

BELIEFS AND DOUBT

It is often said that there is no such thing as a free lunch. The universe, however, is a free lunch.

Harper’s Magazine (1994)

Alan Guth, American theoretical physicist (1947–)

•

Zen … does not confuse spirituality with thinking about God while one is peeling potatoes. Zen spirituality is just to peel the potatoes.

The Way of Zen (1957)

Alan Watts, British teacher and writer (1915–1973)

•

My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right!

[Speech to the US Senate, 1872)

Carl Schurz, German revolutionary and American statesman (1829–1906)

•

Men will wrangle for religion; write for it; fight for it; die for it; anything but live for it.

Lacon (1820)

Charles Caleb Colton, English cleric (1780–1832)

•

Isn’t it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (1979)

Douglas Adams, English humourist and dramatist (1952–2001)

•

Not things, but opinions about things, trouble men.

The Enchiridion of Epictetus (c. 125)

Epictetus, Greek philosopher (50–135)

•

At eighteen our convictions are hills from which we look; at forty-five they are caves in which we hide.

Bernice Bobs her Hair (1920)

F Scott Fitzgerald, American writer (1896–1940)

•

All good moral philosophy is but a handmaid to religion.

The Advancement of Learning (1605)

Francis Bacon, English philosopher, statesman and essayist (1561–1626)

•

So long as man remains free he strives for nothing so incessantly and so painfully as to find someone to worship.

The Brothers Karamazov (1880)

Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Russian writer (1821–1881)

•

If the Devil doesn’t exist, but man has created him, he has created him in his own likeness.

The Brothers Karamazov (1880)

Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Russian writer (1821–1881)

•

There is only one religion, though there are a hundred versions of it.

Plays Pleasant and Unpleasant (1898)

George Bernard Shaw, Irish playwright (1856–1950)

•

Religions are kept alive by heresies, which are really sudden explosions of faith. Dead religions do not produce them.

Thoughts in a Dry Season (1978)

Gerald Brenan, British writer (1894–1987)

•

If God is your emotional role model, very few human relationships will match up to it.

Oranges are Not the Only Fruit (1985)

Jeanette Winterson, English writer (1959–)

•

Religion, which should most distinguish us from the beasts, and ought most particularly elevate us, as rational creatures, above brutes, is that wherein men often appear most irrational, and more senseless than beasts.

An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689)

John Locke, English philosopher (1632–1704)

•

God and the doctor we alike adore

But only when in danger, not before;

The danger o’er, both are alike requited,

God is forgotten and the doctor slighted.

Epigrams (1677)

John Owen, Welsh epigrammist (1564–1622)

•

Human beings are perhaps never more frightening than when they are convinced beyond doubt that they are right.

The Lost World of the Kalahari (1958)

Laurens van der Post, South African writer and political adviser (1906–1996)

•

I see it as an elderly lady, who mutters away to herself in a corner, ignored most of the time.

[In Reader’s Digest, 1991, about the Church of England]

Lord Carey of Clifton, Archbishop of Canterbury (1935–)

•

To give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.

The Bible

Luke 1:79

•

Man is quite insane. He wouldn’t know how to create a maggot, and he creates gods by the dozens.

Essais (1580)

Michel de Montaigne, French philosopher (1533–1592)

•

He who gains an indulgence is not, strictly speaking, absolved from the debt of punishment, but is given the means whereby he may pay it.

Summa Theologica (1485)

Saint Thomas Aquinas, Italian Catholic priest (1225–1274)

•

If the sun and moon should doubt, they’d immediately go out.

Auguries of Innocence (1863)

William Blake, English poet (1757–1827)

•

Both read the Bible day and night,

But thou read’st black where I read white.

The Everlasting Gospel (c. 1818)

William Blake, English poet (1757–1827)

•

It is a mistake to suppose that God is only, or even chiefly, concerned with religion.

William Temple, British theologian and Archbishop of Canterbury (1881–1944)

•

I am ready to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter.

Sir Winston Churchill, prime minister of the UK, historian and Nobel Prize winner (1874–1965)

•

Even God is deprived of this one thing only: the power to undo what has been done.

Agathon, Greek poet (448–400 BC)

•

God does not play dice.

The Born-Einstein Letters (1926)

Albert Einstein, German theoretical physicist (1879–1955)

•

I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it.

The Color Purple (1985)

Alice Walker, American writer and activist (1944–)

•

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

The Bible

Genesis 1:2

•

God seems to have left the receiver off the hook, and time is running out.

The Ghost in the Machine (1967)

Arthur Koestler, Hungarian-British writer (1905–1983)

•

My dear child, you must believe in God in spite of what the clergy tell you.

Benjamin Jowett, English educator and theologian (1817–1893)

•

I cannot forgive Descartes; in all his philosophy he did his best to dispense with God. But he could not avoid making Him set the world in motion with a flick of His finger; after that he had no more use for God.

Pensées (1670)

Blaise Pascal, French mathematician and physicist (1623–1662)

•

In all important questions, man has learned to cope without recourse to God as a working hypothesis.

[Letter to a friend, 1944]

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, German pastor and theologian (1906–1945)

•

By Night an Atheist half believes a God.

Night-Thoughts on Life, Death and Immortality (1742–1745)

Edward Young, English poet (1683–1765)

•

God answers sharp and sudden on some prayers, And thrusts the thing we have prayed for in our face, A gauntlet with a gift in’t.

Aurora Leigh (1857)

Elizabeth Barrett Browning, English poet (1806–1861)

•

So many gods, so many creeds,

So many paths that wind and wind,

While just the art of being kind

Is all the sad world needs.

The World’s Need (1917)

Ella Wheeler Wilcox, American writer and poet (1850–1919)

•

God is a circle whose centre is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.

Empedocles, Greek philosopher (495–444 BC)

CHALLENGE AND TENACITY

Man needs difficulties; they are necessary for health.

The Transcendent Function (1916)

Carl Jung, Swiss psychologist (1875–1961)

•

No easy problems ever come to the president of the United States. If they are easy to solve, somebody else has solved them.

Parade Magazine (1962)

Dwight D Eisenhower, 34th president of the US (1890–1969)

•

Never stop because you are afraid — you are never so likely to be wrong. Never keep a line of retreat; it is a wretched invention. The difficult is what takes a little time; the impossible is what takes a little longer.

Fridtjof Nansen, Norwegian polar explorer (1861–1930)

•

Security is when everything is settled, when nothing can happen to you; security is the denial of life.

The Female Eunuch (1970)

Germaine Greer, Australian writer and intellectual (1939–)

•

Oft in danger, oft in woe,

Onward, Christians, onward go;

Bear the toil, maintain the strife,

Strengthened with the Bread of Life.

Oft in danger, oft in woe (1812)

H Kirke White, English poet (1785–1806)

•

Never give up, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn.

Old Town Folks (1869)

Harriet Beecher Stowe, American abolitionist and writer (1811–1896)

•

The drop of rain maketh a hole in the stone, not by violence but by oft falling.

[Seventh Sermon before Edward VI, 1549]

Hugh Latimer, English Protestant martyr (1487–1555)

•

It is a common experience that a problem difficult at night is resolved in the morning after the committee of sleep has worked on it.

John Steinbeck, American writer (1902–1968)

•

Facing it, always facing it, that’s the way to get through. Face it.

Typhoon (1902)

Joseph Conrad, Polish-British writer (1857–1924)

•

Nothing happens to anybody which he is not fitted by nature to bear.

Meditations (before 850)

Marcus Aurelius, Roman emperor (161–180)

•

Whoever said anybody has a right to give up?

Marian Wright Edelman, American children’s rights activist (1939–)

•

I have been through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened.

Mark Twain, American writer (1835–1910)

•

You may not control all the events that happen to you but you can decide not to be reduced by them.

Letter to My Daughter (2008)

Maya Angelou, American writer (1928–2014)

•

There is no effort without error or shortcoming.

[“Citizenship in a Republic” speech, 1910]

Theodore Roosevelt, 26th president of the US (1858–1919)

•

Fire is the test of gold; adversity, of strong men.

Moral Epistles (c. 65)

Seneca the Younger, Roman philosopher and poet (4 BC–AD 65)

•

Kites rise highest against the wind, not with it.

Sir Winston Churchill, prime minister of the UK, historian and Nobel Prize winner (1874–1965)

•

If you bear the cross gladly, it will bear you.

De Imitatione Christi (c. 1418–1427)

Thomas á Kempis, Dutch-German canon regular and writer (1380–1471)

•

When you have exhausted all possibilities, remember this — you haven’t.

Thomas Edison, American inventor (1847–1931)

CHANCE

Some people are so fond of ill luck that they run halfway to meet it.

Douglas Jerrold, English playwright and journalist (1803–1857)

•

Luck is preparation meeting opportunity.

Oprah Winfrey, American talk show host and philanthropist (1954–)

•

The more I practise the luckier I get.

Arnold Palmer, American professional golfer (1929–2016)

•

Luck is not chance, it’s toil; fortune’s expensive smile is earned.

Luck is not chance (1875)

Emily Dickinson, American poet (1830–1886)

•

Chance is always powerful. Let your hook be always cast. In the pool where you least expect it, will be fish.

Heroides (c. 25–16 BC)

Ovid, Roman poet (43 BC–AD 18)

CHANGE

Change is not made without inconvenience, even from worse to better.

Richard Hooker, English priest and theologian (1554–1600)

•

There is a certain relief in change, even though it be from bad to worse … it is often a comfort to shift one’s position and be bruised in a new place.

Tales of a Traveler (1824)

Washington Irving, American writer, historian and diplomat (1783–1859)

•

The issues are the same. We wanted peace on earth, love, and understanding between everyone around the world. We have learned that change comes slowly.

The Observer (1987)

Sir Paul McCartney, English singer-songwriter and composer (1942–)

•

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. The more things change the more they remain the same.

Les Guêpes (1849)

Alphonse Karr, French critic and writer (1808–1890)

•

Future shock … the shattering stress and disorientation that we induce in individuals by subjecting them to too much change in too short a time.

Future Shock (1970)

Alvin Toffler, American writer, futurist and businessmen (1928–2016)

CHRISTMAS AND FESTIVE SPIRIT

Still xmas is a good time with all those presents and good food and i hope it will never die out or at any rate not until i am grown up and hav to pay for it all.

How to Be Topp (1954)

Geoffrey Willams (1911–1958) and Ronald Searle (1920–2011), English humourists

•

A lovely thing about Christmas is that it’s compulsory, like a thunderstorm, and we all go through it together.

Leaving Home (1987)

Garrison Keillor, American writer, humourist and radio personality (1942–)

•

Hogmanay, like all festivals, being but a bank from which we can only draw what we put in.

Sentimental Tommy (1896)

JM Barrie, Scottish writer and dramatist (1860–1937)

•

Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual.

[Letter to a US newspaper, 1863]

Mark Twain, American writer (1835–1910)

•

Christmas begins about the first of December with an office party and ends when you finally realise what you spent, around April fifteenth of the next year.

Modern Manners (1983)

PJ O’Rourke, American political satirist and journalist (1947–)

•

Christmas is the time for kindling the fire of hospitality in the hall, the genial flame of charity in the heart.

Old Christmas (1876)

Washington Irving, American writer, historian and diplomat (1783–1859)

•

I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach!

A Christmas Carol (1843)

Charles Dickens, English writer and social critic (1812–1870)

•

At Christmas I no more desire a rose

Than wish a snow in May’s new fangled shows;

But like of each thing that in season grows.

Love’s Labour’s Lost (1597)

William Shakespeare, English poet and dramatist (1564–1616)

•

My idea of Christmas, whether old-fashioned or modern, is very simple: loving others. Come to think of it, why do we have to wait for Christmas to do that?

Bob Hope, English-born American comedian and actor (1903–2003)

COMPETITION

If you don’t try to win you might as well hold the Olympics in somebody’s back yard.

Jesse Owens, American Olympic gold medallist for track and field (1913–1980)

•

The important thing in life is not the victory but the contest; the essential thing is not to have won but to have fought well.

[Speech in London, 1908]

Baron Pierre de Coubertin, French founder of the International Olympic Committee (1863–1937)

•

Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize.

The Bible

Corinthians 9:24

•

Winning is everything. The only ones who remember you when you come second are your wife and your dog.

The Sunday Times (1994)

Damon Hill, British Formula One world champion (1960–)

•

When you are in any contest, you should work as if there were — to the very last minute — a chance to lose it.

[The President’s News Conference, 1956]

Dwight D Eisenhower, 34th president of the US (1890–1969)

CONFLICT AND AGGRESSION

War settles nothing … to win a war is as disastrous as to lose one!

An Autobiography (1977)

Agatha Christie, English writer (1890–1976)

•

Peace is the only battle worth waging.

Combat (1945)

Albert Camus, French philosopher, writer and journalist (1913–1960)

•

I am not only a pacifist but a militant pacifist. I am willing to fight for peace. Nothing will end war unless the people themselves refuse to go to war.

[Interview with George Sylvester Viereck, 1931]

Albert Einstein, German theoretical physicist (1879–1955)

•

The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking, and we thus drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.

[Telegram to prominent Americans, 1946]

Albert Einstein, German theoretical physicist (1879–1955)

•

There are not fifty ways of fighting, there’s only one, and that’s to win. Neither revolution nor war consists in doing what one pleases.

L’Espoir (1937)

André Malraux, French writer (1901–1976)

•

We are in an armed conflict; that is the phrase I have used. There has been no declaration of war.

[Speech on the Suez crisis, House of Commons, 1956]

Anthony Eden, prime minister of the UK (1897–1977)

•

Love, friendship, respect do not unite people as much as common hatred for something.

Notebooks (1921)

Anton Chekhov, Russian writer (1860–1904)

•

If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.

Mother Teresa, Albanian nun and missionary (1910–1997)

•

After each war there is a little less democracy to save.

Once Around the Sun (1951)

Brooks Atkinson, American theatre critic and writer (1894–1984)

•

It is not violence that best overcomes hate — nor vengeance that most certainly heals injury.

Jane Eyre (1847)

Charlotte Brontë, English writer (1816–1855)

•

First, we are going to cut it off, and then, we are going to kill it.

[Pentagon press briefing on the Gulf War, 1991]

Colin Powell, US general and politician (1937–)

•

It takes in reality only one to make a quarrel. It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions in favour of vegetarianism, while the wolf remains of a different opinion.

Outspoken Essays: First Series “Patriotism” (1919)

Dean Inge, English writer, priest and educator (1860–1954)

•

A man may build himself a throne of bayonets, but he cannot sit on it.

Philosophy of Plotinus (1923)

Dean Inge, English writer, priest and educator (1860–1954)

•

History is littered with the wars which everybody knew would never happen.

The Times (1967)

Enoch Powell, British politician and scholar (1912–1998)

•

All the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting.

Homage to Catalonia (1938)

George Orwell, English writer (1903–1950)

•

The weak have one weapon: the errors of those who think they are strong.

The Observer (1962)

Georges Bidault, prime minister of France (1899–1983)

•

I renounce war for its consequences, for the lies it lives on and propagates, for the undying hatred it arouses, for the dictatorships it puts in the place of democracy, for the starvation that stalks after it.

[Armistice Day sermon in New York, 1933]

Harry Emerson Fosdick, American pastor (1878–1969)

•

Older men declare war. But it is the youth who must fight and die.

[Speech in Chicago to the 23rd Republican national convention, 1944]

Herbert Hoover, 31st president of the US (1874–1964)

•

Peace is not made at the council table or by treaties, but in the hearts of men.

Herbert Hoover, 31st president of the US (1874–1964)

•

Those who in quarrels interpose

Must often wipe a bloody nose.

Fables (1727)

John Gay, English poet (1685–1732)

•

If the thrill of hunting were in the hunt, or even in the marksmanship, a camera would do just as well.

Eating Animals (2009)

Jonathan Safran Foer, American writer (1977–)

•

If peace cannot be maintained with honour, it is no longer peace.

[Speech in Greenock, 1853]

Lord John Russell, prime minister of the UK (1792–1878)

•

A war can perhaps be won single-handedly. But peace — lasting peace — cannot be secured without the support of all.

[Speech to the UN, 2003]

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, president of Brazil (1945–)

•

All I have I would have given gladly not to be standing here today.

[Speech to Congress after the assassination of John F Kennedy, 1963]

Lyndon B Johnson, 36th president of the US (1908–1973)

•

I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent.

Mahatma Gandhi, Indian politician, social activist and writer (1869–1948)

•

Non-violence is the first article of my faith. It is also the last article of my creed.

[In response to a charge of sedition, 1922]

Mahatma Gandhi, Indian politician, social activist and writer (1869–1948)

•

Weapons are like money; no one knows the meaning of enough.

Einstein’s Monsters (1987)

Martin Amis, British writer (1949–)

•

You must not fight too often with one enemy, or you will teach him all your art of war.

Napoleon Bonaparte, French statesman and military leader (1769–1821)

•

It is only a step from the sublime to the ridiculous.

[After the retreat from Moscow, 1812]

Napoleon Bonaparte

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