The more numerous laws, the more corrupt the government.
-Tacitus, Annals, Book III, 27
Tag: Quotes
Whatever Is Rightly Done
Whatever is rightly done, however humble, is noble.
Henry Royce
How Easy It Is to Make People Believe A Lie . . .
How easy it is to make people believe a lie, and [how] hard it is to undo that work again!
-Mark Twain, Autobiography of Mark Twain: Volume 2
To Be Nobody-But-Yourself
To be nobody-but-yourself-in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else-means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.
e.e. cummings, A Poet’s Advice to Students
Above All, Do Not Lie To Yourself
Above all, do not lie to yourself. A man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point where he does not discern any truth either in himself or anywhere around him, and thus falls into disrespect towards himself and others. Not respecting anyone, he ceases to love, and having no love, he gives himself up to passions and coarse pleasures, in order to occupy and amuse himself, and in his vices reaches complete bestiality, and it all comes from lying continually to others and to himself. A man who lies to himself is often the first to take offense. It sometimes feels very good to take offense, doesn’t it? And surely he knows that no one has offended him, and that he himself has invented the offense and told lies just for the beauty of it, that he has exaggerated for the sake of effect, that he has picked on a word and made a mountain out of a pea — he knows all of that, and still he is the first to take offense, he likes feeling offended, it gives him great pleasure, and thus he reaches the point of real hostility… Do get up from your knees and sit down, I beg you, these posturings are false, too.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov, Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky trans., p.44
A Power Over a Man’s Subsistence
In the general course of human nature, a power over a man’s subsistence amounts to a power over his will.
Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist Papers, No. 79.