Category: Thought

Sell not virtue to purchase wealth, nor Liberty to purchase power.

Poor Richard’s Almanack, 1738.

Le temps est un grand maître, dit-​on;
le malheur est qu’il soit un maître inhumain qui tue ses élèves.

Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils.

From a letter by Hector Berlioz, November 1856, published in Pierre Citron (ed.) Correspondance générale (Paris: Flammarion, 1989) vol. 5, p. 390.

Stand up and take your dissonance like a man.

American composer and insurance innovator Charles Ives, as quoted in “Charles Ives’ Rambunctious ‘Fourth Of July,’ NPR Music (July 3, 2008).

Too many pieces of music finish too long after the end.

To err is human. To blame someone else is politics.

Oft attributed to Hubert Horatio Humphrey, Jr., 38th Vice President of the United States.

I am proud of my journalistic philosophy — to tell the world things people do not want me to reveal, to advocate limited government, economic freedom, and a strong, prudent America — and to have fun doing it. For the sober-​sided younger generations of journalists, having fun may seem unserious. But it was the kind of journalism that prevailed when I started.

Robert D. Novak, The Prince of Darkness (2007), p. 14.