Category: Thought

Plato did not believe any more in his republic than old Homer did in his gods.

Arsène Houssaye, Philosophers and Actresses (1886).

Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Self-Reliance,” Essays: First Series, quoted from the 1847 edition.

You can have a revolution wherever you like, except in a government office; even were the world to come to an end, you’d have to destroy the universe first and then government offices.

Karel Čapek, The Absolute at Large (1921).

Change without continuity can be anarchy. Change with continuity can mean progress. And continuity without change can mean no progress.

President Richard M. Nixon, remarks at the Supreme Court upon the swearing in of Supreme Court Justice Warren E. Burger (June 23, 1969).

One never knows whether people have principles on principle or whether for their own personal satisfaction.

Karel Čapek, Letters from England (1925).

Power ceases in the instant of repose; it resides in the moment of transition from a past to a new state, in the shooting of the gulf, in the darting to an aim.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Self-Reliance,” Essays: First Series, quoted from the 1847 edition.

Seize all the joy you can that robs no other.

Arsène Houssaye, as quoted by James O’Donnell Bennett in When Good Fellows Get Together (1908), p. 109.

To different minds, the same world is a hell, and a heaven.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, Journal, December 20, 1822.

I don’t think politicians are natural crooks. . . . I think they are actors. And actors are neither men nor women. Actors belong to a third sex. Actors are actors, and one aspect of it is the political game. But that kind of acting is not lying, as long as it refers to, and reflects, and exalts the essential commonly held ideals of a culture.

Orson Welles, in conversation with Michael Parkinson (BBC, 1974).

Even when you have a president who you know would like to fix the vote, or whatever, there is a lot of checks and balances. But what happens when the CIA is interfering in elections? There’s no checks and balances. That is a real threat to American democracy.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., talking to comedian Dave Smith on the Part of the Problem podcast.