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The mores come down to us from the past. Each individual is born into them as he is born into the atmosphere, and he does not reflect on them, or criticise them any more than a baby analyzes the atmosphere before he begins to breathe it.

William Graham Sumner

Folkways

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Sumner, William Graham. Folkways: A Study of Mores, Manners, Customs and Morals. Ginn & Company, 1906, ch. 2.

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The English speaking world may be divided into (1) those who neither know nor care what a split infinitive is; (2) those who do not know, but care very much; (3) those who know and condemn; (4) those who know and approve; (5) those who know and distinguish. Those who neither know nor care are the vast majority and are a happy folk, to be envied by the most of the minority classes.

H.W. Fowler

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Fowler, H. W. "Split infinitive." A Dictionary of Modern English Usage. Oxford University Press, 1926.

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it wont be long now it wont be long
man is making deserts of the earth
it wont be long now
before man will have it used up
so that nothing but ants
and centipedes and scorpions
can find a living on it

Don Marquis

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Marquis, Donald. "What the Ants are Saying." Archy Does His Part. The Evening Sun, c. 1935.

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Men wiser and more learned than I have discerned in history a plot, a rhythm, a predetermined pattern. These harmonies are concealed from me. I can see only one emergency following upon another as wave follows upon wave.

H.A.L. Fisher

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Fisher, Herbert Albert Laurens. A History of Europe. Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1935, preface.

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Just as every conviction begins as a whim so does every emancipator serve his apprenticeship as a crank. A fanatic is a great leader who is just entering the room.

Heywood Broun

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Broun, Heywood. New York World, 6 Feb. 1928.

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The significance of man is that he is that part of the universe that asks the question, What is the significance of Man? He alone can stand apart imaginatively and, regarding himself and the universe in their eternal aspects, pronounce a judgement. The significance of man is that he is insignificant and is aware of it.

Carl Becker

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Becker, Carl. Progress and Power. A. A. Knopf, 1936.

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The effort to understand the universe is one of the very few things that lifts human life a little above the level of farce, and gives it some of the grace of tragedy.

Steven Weinberg

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Weinberg, Steven. The First Three Minutes: A Modern View of the Origin of the Universe. Basic Books, 1977, epilogue.

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I shall not rest quiet in Montparnasse,
I shall not lie easy at Winchelsea.
You may bury my body in Sussex grass,
You may bury my tongue at Champmédy.
I shall not be there, I shall rise and pass.
Bury my heart at Wounded Knee.

Stephen Vincent Benét

American Names

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Benét, Stephen Vincent. "American Names." Yale Review, Oct. 1927.

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The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment.

Robert Maynard Hutchins

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Hutchins, Robert Maynard. Great Books: The Foundation of a Liberal Education. Simon and Schuster, 1954.

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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.

Harry Emerson Fosdick

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Fosdick, Harry Emerson. "The Unknown Soldier." The Secret Of Victorious Living. Harper & Brothers, 1934. Originally a sermon delivered on 12 Nov. 1933, Riverside Church, New York, NY, USA.

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It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone.

A. Bartlett Giamatti

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The Green Fields of the Mind

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On baseball.

Buy a book containing the essay The Green Fields of the Mind at Amazon Buy a book containing the essay The Green Fields of the Mind at Amazon

Read The Green Fields of the Mind in the Yale Alumni Magazine

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Giamatti, A. Bartlett. "The Green Fields of the Mind." The Yale Alumni Magazine, 1977.

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We've all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the Internet, we know this is not true.

Robert Wilensky

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Wilensky, Robert. "Quotes of the Week." Mail on Sunday, 16 Feb. 1997.

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With or without it, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.

Steven Weinberg

On religion.

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Weinberg, Steven. Address in Washington, DC. Conference on Cosmic Design. Apr. 1999, Washington, DC, USA.

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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.

William Ralph Inge

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Inge, William Ralph. "Patriotism." Outspoken Essays: First Series. Longmans, Green, and Co., 1919.

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I have fallen in love with American names,
The sharp, gaunt names that never get fat,
The snakeskin-titles of mining-claims,
The plumed war-bonnet of Medicine Hat,
Tucson and Deadwood and Lost Mule Flat.

Stephen Vincent Benét

American Names

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Benét, Stephen Vincent. "American Names." Yale Review, Oct. 1927.

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In societies dominated by modern conditions of production, life is presented as an immense accumulation of spectacles. Everything that was directly lived has receded into a representation.

Guy Debord

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The Society of the Spectacle

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Buy Society of the Spectacle at Amazon Buy Society of the Spectacle at Amazon

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Debord, Guy. La societe du spectacle [The Society of the Spectacle]. Buchet-Chastel, 1967, ch. 1, sect. 1.

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The Fifth Amendment is an old friend and a good friend. It is one of the great landmarks in man's struggle to be free of tyranny, to be decent and civilized. It is our way of escape from the use of torture.

William O. Douglas

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Douglas, William. An Almanac of Liberty. Doubleday & Co., 1954, p. 238.

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At three years of age, the child's whole emotional life plan has been laid down, his emotional disposition set. At that age, the parents have already determined for him whether he is to grow into a happy person, wholesome and good-natured, whether he is to be a whining, complaining neurotic, an anger-driven, vindictive, over-bearing slave driver, or one whose every move in life is definitely controlled by fear.

John B. Watson

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Watson, John B. "Are You Giving Your Child a Chance?" McCall's, 1927.

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In bombers named for girls, we burned
The cities we had learned about in school-
Till our lives wore out; our bodies lay among
The people we had killed and never seen.
When we lasted long enough they gave us medals;
When we died they said, "Our casualties were low."

Randall Jarrell

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Jarrell, Randall. Losses. Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1948, I. 22.

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The only credential the city asked was the boldness to dream. For those who did, it unlocked its gates and its treasures, not caring who they were or where they came from.