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Philosophy triumphs easily over past evils and future evils; but present evils triumph over it.

François de La Rochefoucauld

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Topic

Power of philosophy Philosophy

Author

François de La Rochefoucauld

Source

Reflections

Medium

Epigram

Language

French

Time

1678 1670s 17th century

Authentication Score 2

Original Citation

La Rochefoucauld, Francois. Reflexions ou sentences et maximes morales [Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims]. c. 1665.

Current Citation

La Rochefoucauld, Francois. Collected Maxims and Other Reflections, translated by E. H. and A. M. Blackmore and Francine Giguere. Oxford University Press, 2008.

Never believe governments, not any of them, not a word they say; keep an untrusting eye on all they do.

Martha Gellhorn

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Topic

Lying and politics Government

Author

Martha Gellhorn

Source

The Daily Telegraph

Medium

Obituary Newspaper

Statement Type

Advice

Language

English

Time

1998 1990s 20th century

Authentication Score 1

Citation

Gellhorn, Martha. "Obituary." Daily Telegraph, 17 Feb. 1998.

Trembled to think of that mysterious thing in the soul, which seems to acknowledge no human jurisdiction, but in spite of the individual's own innocent self, will still dream horrid dreams, and mutter unmentionable thoughts.

Herman Melville

Pierre; or, The Ambiguities

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Topic

Divided self Duality of man Inner turmoil

Author

Herman Melville

Source

Pierre; or, The Ambiguities

Medium

Novel

Language

English

Time

1852 1850s 19th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Melville, Herman. Pierre; or, The Ambiguities. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1852, bk. 4, ch. 2.

Current Citation

Melville, Herman. Pierre: Or, The Ambiguities, edited by Robert S. Levine and Cindy Weinstein. W. W. Norton & Company, 2017, bk. 4, ch. 2.

Nature is party to all our deals and decisions, and she has more votes, a longer memory and a sterner sense of justice than we do.

Wendell Berry

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Topic

Environmental destruction Nature

Author

Wendell Berry

Language

English

Time

1995 1990s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Berry, Wendell. Quoted in The Dying of the Trees, written by Charles E. Little. Viking Press, 1995, endorsement, back cover.

Labour, like all other things which are purchased and sold, and which may be increased or diminished in quantity, has its natural and its market price. The natural price of labor is that price which is necessary to enable the laborers, one with another, to subsist and perpetuate their race, without either increase or diminution.

David Ricardo

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Topic

Workers Free market Supply and demand Capitalism

Author

David Ricardo

Source

On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation

Genre

Economic literature

Language

English

Time

1817 1810s 19th century

Authentication Score 2

Original Citation

Ricardo, David. On Principles of Political Economy and Taxation. London: John Murray, 1817.

Current Citation

Ricardo, David. The Principles of Political Economy and Taxation. Dover Publications, 2004.

Politics grease the wheels of business.

R.H. Tawney

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Topic

Political corruption Business Politics

Author

R.H. Tawney

Source

Business and Politics under James 1

Genre

Biography

Language

English

Time

1958 1950s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Tawney, R. H. Business and Politics under James I. Cambridge University Press, 1958.

There's a helluva distance between wise-cracking and wit. Wit has truth in it; wise-cracking is simply calisthenics with words.

Dorothy Parker

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Topic

Jokes

Author

Dorothy Parker

Source

Paris Review

Medium

Interview Magazine

Language

English

Time

1956 1950s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Parker, Dorothy. "The Art of Fiction." The Paris Review, Summer 1956, Issue 13, p. 80.

A writer lives in awe of words for they can be cruel or kind, and they can change their meanings right in front of you. They pick up flavors and odors like butter in a refrigerator.

John Steinbeck

Quoted in Paris Review

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Topic

Power of words Meaning of words Words

Speaker

John Steinbeck

Source

Art of Fiction interview Paris Review

Medium

Interview Magazine

Statement Type

Metaphor, analogy and simile

Language

English

Time

1954 1950s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Steinbeck, John. "John Steinbeck, The Art of Fiction No. 45." Interviewed by Nathaniel Benchley. The Paris Review, Fall 1969. Originally was published in "In Awe of Words." Exonian, 3 Mar. 1954.

Let us reform our schools, and we shall find little reform needed in our prisons.

John Ruskin

Unto This Last

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Topic

Schools and prisons Value of education

Author

John Ruskin

Source

Unto This Last

Medium

Essay

Language

English

Time

1860 1860s 19th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Ruskin, John. "Unto this Last." Cornhill Magazine, Aug. - Dec. 1860.

Current Citation

Ruskin, John. "Unto This Last." The Works of John Ruskin, edited by Edward Tyas Cook and Alexander Wedderburn. Vol. 17, Cambridge University Press, 2010, no. 2.

The world stood like a playing card on edge... One looked at the buildings one passed and wondered if one was to see them again.

Norman Mailer

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Topic

Cuban Missile Crisis Cold War Nuclear weapons

Speaker

Reflecting on the week of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Author

Norman Mailer

Source

The Presidential Papers

Genre

Political literature

Language

English

Time

1963 1960s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Mailer, Norman. "The Big Bite." The Presidential Papers. G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1963. Originally published in Esquire, Apr. 1963.

My country is not a country, it is winter.

Gilles Vigneault

Mon Pays

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Topic

Canada

Speaker

Gilles Vigneault

Source

Mon Pays

Medium

Song

Language

French

Time

1964 1960s 20th century

Authentication Score 1

Citation

"Mon Pays [My Country]." La Neige a Fondu sur la Manicouagan [The Snow Has Melted on the Manicouagan]. Directed by Arthur Lamothe, composed by Gilles Vigneault, National Film Board of Canada, 1965.

Under the wide and starry sky,
Dig the grave and let me lie.
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.
This be the verse you grave for me:
Here he lies where he longed to be;
Home is the sailor, home from sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.

Robert Louis Stevenson

Requiem

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Author

Robert Louis Stevenson

Source

Requiem

Medium

Poem

Statement Type

Epitaph

Language

English

Time

1887 1880s 19th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Stevenson, Robert Louis. "Requiem." Underwoods. New York City: Charles Scribner's Sons/London: Chatto & Windus, 1887, I. 1.

A quotation is a handy thing to have about, saving one the trouble of thinking for oneself.

A.A. Milne

The Record Lie

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Topic

Thinking for oneself Quotations

Author

A.A. Milne

Source

The Record Lie

Medium

Essay

Language

English

Time

1920 1920s 20th century

Authentication Score 2

Citation

Milne, A. A. "The Record Lie." If I May. Methuen, 1920.

It is wise to apply the oil of refined politeness to the mechanism of friendship.

Colette

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Topic

Politeness Friendship

Author

Colette

Source

The Pure and the Impure

Medium

Novel

Statement Type

Metaphor, analogy and simile

Language

French

Time

1932 1930s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Colette. Le Pur et l'impur and Ces Plaisirs [The Pure and the Impure and These Pleasures]. J. Ferenczi & fils, 1932, ch. 9.

Current Citation

Colette. The Pure and the Impure. NYRB Classics, 2000, ch. 9.

We are stuck with technology when what we really want is just stuff that works.

Douglas Adams

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Topic

Downsides of technology Technology

Author

Douglas Adams

Source

Little Dongly Things The Salmon of Doubt

Medium

Essay

Language

English

Time

2001 2000s 21st century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Adams, Douglas. "Little Dongly Things." The Salmon of Doubt. William Heinemann/Pocket Books, 2002.

The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.

Milan Kundera

The Book of Laughter and Forgetting

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Topic

Fighting injustice Oppression Memory History

Speaker

Mirek

Author

Milan Kundera

Source

The Book of Laughter and Forgetting

Medium

Novel

Statement Type

Metaphor, analogy and simile

Language

Czech

Time

1979 1970s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Kundera, Milan. Le Livre du rire et de l'oubli [The Book of Laughter and Forgetting]. Gallimard, 1979.

Current Citation

Kundera, Milan. The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, translated by Aaron Asher. Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 1999.

The great decisions of human life have as a rule far more to do with the instincts and other mysterious unconscious factors than with conscious will and well-meaning reasonableness.

Carl Jung

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Topic

Decisions and choices Reason and emotion Intuition Reason

Author

Carl Jung

Source

Modern Man in Search of a Soul

Genre

Psychological literature

Language

German

Time

1933 1930s 20th century

Authentication Score 0

Citation

Jung, Carl. "Aims of Psychotherapy." Modern Man in Search of a Soul, translated by Cary F. Baynes and William Stanley Dell. Kegen Paul, Trenche, Trubner & Co., 1933.

It is delightful to read on the spot the impressions and opinions of tourists who visited a hundred years ago, in the vehicles and with the aesthetic prejudices of the period, the places which you are visiting now. The voyage ceases to be a mere tour through space; you travel through time and thought as well.

Aldous Huxley

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Topic

Tourism Travel

Author

Aldous Huxley

Source

Along the Road: Notes and Essays of a Tourist

Medium

Essay

Genre

Travel writing

Language

English

Time

1925 1920s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Huxley, Aldous. Along the Road: Notes and Essays of a Tourist. Chatto & Windus/George H. Doran, 1925.

Whether ours shall continue to be a Government of laws and not of men is now for Congress and ultimately the American people.

Archibald Cox

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Topic

Watergate American politics

Author

Archibald Cox

Genre

Political literature

Language

English

Time

1973 1970s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Cox, Archibald. Statement after being dismissed by President Richard Nixon. 20 Oct. 1973, Washington, DC, USA.

Wind back the tape of life to the early days of the Burgess Shale; let it play again from an identical starting point, and the chance becomes vanishingly small that anything like human intelligence would grace the replay.

Stephen Jay Gould

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Topic

Intelligent life Randomness Evolution

Author

Stephen Jay Gould

Source

Wonderful Life

Genre

Scientific literature

Language

English

Time

1989 1980s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Gould, Stephen Jay. Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History. W. W. Norton & Co., 1989, preface.