Category: Thought

Morality not only commands innumerable terrible means for preventing critical hands being laid upon her: her security depends still more upon a sort of enchantment at which she is phenomenally skilled. That is to say, she knows how to enrapture. She appeals to the emotions; her glance paralyzes the reason and the will. . . . Ever since there has been talking and persuading on earth, she has been the supreme mistress of seduction.

Friedrich W. Nietzsche, as quoted and translated by H.L. Mencken, The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche (1913), from Daybreak (“Morgenröte,” preface, § 3).

Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it.

Albert Einstein, as quoted by Virgil Henshaw in Albert Einstein: Philosopher Scientist (1949) edited by Paul A. Schilpp.

Let it, then, be henceforth proclaimed to the world, that man’s conscience was created free; that he is no longer accountable to his fellow man for his religious opinions, being responsible therefore only to his God.

John Tyler, funeral oration for Thomas Jefferson (July 11, 1826).

All the lessons of history and experience must be lost upon us if we are content to trust alone to the peculiar advantages we happen to possess.

President Martin Van Buren’s Inaugural Address (March 4, 1837).

So far as it depends on the course of this government, our relations of good will and friendship will be sedulously cultivated with all nations.

President John Tyler, first annual message to Congress (June 1, 1841).

The strongest of all governments is that which is most free.

William Henry Harrison, letter to Simon Bolivar (September 27, 1829).

Popularity, I have always thought, may aptly be compared to a coquette — the more you woo her, the more apt is she to elude your embrace.

John Tyler, Message to the House (December 18, 1816), in his early days in politics, before becoming the tenth president of the United States.

And, to speak in general, we can produce no example wherein our fathers got any success by war, or failed of success when without war they committed themselves to God.

Flavius Josephus (A.D. 37–100), De Bello Judaico (The War of the Jews), Book 5, Chapter 9.

In three moments a laborer will remove an obstructing rock, but three moons will pass without two wise men agreeing on the meaning of a single vowel.

Ernest Bramah, in “The Story of Wong Pao and the Minstrel,” Kai Lung’s Golden Hours (1922).

The young have less charity for aged follies than the old for those of youth.

Nathaniel Hawthorne, “The Wedding Knell” (1837) from Twice Told Tales (1837, 1851).