Category: Thought

My own belief, more than once set afloat from this spot, is that it will take us, soon or late, into the stormy waters of Fascism. To be sure, that Fascism is not likely to be identical with the kinds on tap in Germany, Italy and Russia; indeed, it is very apt to come in under the name of anti-Fascism. And its first Duce, whether the Hon. Mr. Roosevelt or another, will not call himself a dictator, but a scotcher of dictators.

H. L. Mencken, “Of The People, By The People,” The Baltimore Sun, November 6, 1938. Mencken was born on September 12, 1880, and died on January 29, 1956.

Society has always to demand a little more from human beings than it will get in practice.

George Orwell, “The Art of Donald McGill” (1941).

To his dog, every man is Napoleon; hence the constant popularity of dogs.

Aldous Huxley, in Reader’s Digest (1934).

Has it ever struck you that there’s a thin man inside every fat man, just as they say there’s a statue inside every block of stone?

George Orwell, Coming Up for Air (1939), Part 1, Ch. 3.

Official dignity tends to increase in inverse ratio to the importance of the country in which the office is held.

Aldous Huxley, Beyond the Mexique Bay (1934).

Perhaps a man really dies when his brain stops, when he loses the power to take in a new idea.

George Orwell, Coming Up for Air (1939), Part 3, Ch. 1.

I can sympathize with people’s pains, but not with their pleasures. There is something curiously boring about somebody else’s happiness.

Aldous Huxley, “Cynthia,” Limbo (1920).

I now believe that evolution, or deevolution, never ends short of death, that no society has ever achieved an absolute pinnacle, that all humans are not created equal. In fact, I believe attempts to create some abstract equalization create a morass of injustices that rebound on the equalizers. Equal justice and equal opportunity are ideals we should seek, but we should recognize that humans administer the ideals and that humans do not have equal ability.

Frank Herbert, “Dune Origins,” Omni, Vol. 2, No. 2 (July 1980), p. 72.

Louella remarked that when foreign nations had intercourse with this country they knew they had been intercoursed.

Jack Woodford (John Woolfolk, 1894–1971), The Autobiography of Jack Woodford (1962).

οὔποτε ποιήσεις τὸν καρκίνον ὀρθὰ βαδίζειν.

You will never make the crab walk straight.

Hierocles, in Peace (421 BC), a play by Aristophanes, line 1083.