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- There is a luxury in self-reproach. When we blame ourselves, we feel that no one else has a right to blame us. It is the confession, not the priest, that gives us absolution.
- Oscar Wilde (1854 - 1900), The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891
- This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of Nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.
- George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950), Man and Superman, Epistle Dedicatory
- War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.
- John Stuart Mill (1806 - 1873)
- You cannot teach a man anything; you can only help him find it within himself.
- Galileo Galilei (1564 - 1642)
- Philosophy consists very largely of one philosopher arguing that all others are jackasses. He usually proves it, and I should add that he also usually proves that he is one himself.
- H. L. Mencken (1880 - 1956)
- Proof is the idol before whom the pure mathematician tortures himself.
- Sir Arthur Eddington (1882 - 1944), The Nature of the Physical World
- Patriotism having become one of our topicks, Johnson suddenly uttered, in a strong determined tone, an apophthegm, at which many will start: "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel." But let it be considered that he did not mean a real and generous love of our country, but that pretended patriotism which so many, in all ages and countries, have made a cloak of self- interest.
- Samuel Johnson (1709 - 1784), quoted in Boswell's Life of Johnson
- My freedom will be so much the greater and more meaningful the more narrowly I limit my field of action and the more I surround myself with obstacles. Whatever diminishes constraint diminishes strength. The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees one's self of the chains that shackle the spirit.
- Igor Stravinsky (1882 - 1971), Poetics of Music
- . . . .When I am, as it were, completely myself, entirely alone, and of good cheer - say traveling in a carriage, or walking after a good meal, or during the night when I cannot sleep - it is on such occasions that my ideas flow best, and most abundantly. Whence and how they come, I know not, nor can I force them...
- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 - 1791)
- Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself. There was never a democracy that did not commit suicide.
- John Adams (1735 - 1826), Letter, April 15, 1814
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