Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792).
Independence I have long considered as the grand blessing of life, the basis of every virtue; and independence I will ever secure by contracting my wants, though I were to live on a barren heath.
There may be a certain amount of convenience in having a timepiece in every room of a house; still the convenience of the first, that is, the importance of having one, is probably greater than that of all the rest put together. So, a person who has one house may wish to have a second, but still the want of the second is not equal to that of the first.
William F. Lloyd, “A Lecture on the Notion of Value as Distinguished Not Only From Utility, but also from Value in Exchange” (University of Oxford, 1833). This lecture is an early explication of the principle of diminishing marginal utility, a central concept in economics. The formal statements of the notion were published by other economists from 1870 on.
Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that? We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for something, and that this thing, at whatever cost, must be attained.
Marie Curie, as quoted in Madame Curie: A Biography (1937) by Eve Curie Labouisse, Part 2, p. 116.
Though nobody has ever seen two dogs making an exchange, yet a dog has been often seen to hide a bone. The dog does this from a sense of its value, properly so called. He does not do it merely from a sense of utility, or, in other words, because he likes a bone, but because he knows that a bone is a good thing which is not always to be had when wanted.
William F. Lloyd, “A Lecture on the Notion of Value as Distinguished Not Only From Utility, but also from Value in Exchange” (University of Oxford, 1833).
Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the ax.
A popular government without popular information or the means of acquiring it is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy, or perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance: And a people who mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.
Though all the winds of doctrine were let loose to play upon the earth, so Truth be in the field, we do injuriously, by licensing and prohibiting, to misdoubt her strength. Let her and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worse, in a free and open encounter?
John Milton, Areopagitica; A speech of Mr. John Milton for the Liberty of Unlicenc’d Printing, to the Parlament of England (1644).
This is true liberty, when free-born men,
Having to advise the public, may speak free,
Which he who can, and will, deserves high praise;
Who neither can, nor will, may hold his peace:
What can be juster in a state than this?
Euripides, The Suppliant Women (c. 420-415 BC), as used by John Milton as epigraph to his Areopagitica (1644). A modern translation of this passage, and a few lines immediately preceding, by Frank William Jones, runs as follows:
Nothing . . .
Is worse for a city than an absolute ruler.
In earliest days, before the laws are common,
One man has power and makes the law his own:
Equality is not yet. With written laws,
People of small resources and the rich
Both have the same recourse to justice. Now
A man of means, if badly spoken of,
Will have no better standing than the weak;
And if the little man is right, he wins
Against the great. This is the call of freedom:
“what man has good advice to give the city,
And wishes to make it known?” He who responds
Gains glory; the reluctant hold their peace.
For the city, what can be more fair than that?
. . . as good almost kill a Man as kill a good Book; who kills a Man kills a reasonable creature, Gods Image; but hee who destroyes a good Booke, kills reason it selfe, kills the Image of God, as it were in the eye. Many a man lives a burden to the Earth; but a good Booke is the pretious life-blood of a master spirit, imbalm’d and treasur’d up on purpose to a life beyond life.
John Milton, Areopagitica; A speech of Mr. John Milton for the Liberty of Unlicenc’d Printing, to the Parlament of England (1644).
Since it is so likely that children will meet cruel enemies, let them at least have heard of brave knights and heroic courage.
C. S. Lewis, On Stories: And Other Essays on Literature (1966).