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).
It is the magician’s bargain: give up our soul, get power in return. But once our souls, that is, ourselves, have been given up, the power thus conferred will not belong to us. We shall in fact be the slaves and puppets of that to which we have given our souls.
C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man (1943).
Every individual has a place to fill in the world, and is important, in some respect, whether he chooses to be so or not.
Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1836 entry, The American Notebooks (1835, 1853).
And all the time — such is the tragi-comedy of our situation — we continue to clamor for those very qualities we are rendering impossible. You can hardly open a periodical without coming across the statement that what our civilization needs is more “drive,” or dynamism, or self-sacrifice, or “creativity.” In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.
C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man (1943).
Private property and free trade stand on exactly the same footing, both being essential and indivisible parts of liberty, both depending upon rights, which no body of men, whether called governments or anything else, can justly take from the individual.
Auberon Herbert, The Right and Wrong of Compulsion by the State (1885).
You really don’t understand. We don’t worry about individuals. What counts is that many millions of people have the knowledge that they can go to a weapon shop if they want to protect themselves and their families. And, even more important, the forces that would normally try to& enslave them are restrained by the conviction that it is dangerous to press people too far. And so a great balance has been struck between those who govern and those who are governed.
Lucy Rail, a character in A. E. Van Vogt’s The Weapon Shops of Isher (1951).
Amid the seeming confusion of our mysterious world, individuals are so nicely adjusted to a system, and systems to one another and to a whole, that, by stepping aside for a moment, a man exposes himself to a fearful risk of losing his place forever.
Nathaniel Hawthorne, “Wakefield” (1835) from Twice Told Tales (1837, 1851).