Category: Thought

Surely it is much more generous to forgive and remember, than to forgive and forget.

Maria Edgeworth, “An Essay on the Noble Science of Self-Justification” in Tales and Novels, vol. 1, p. 213.

Socialism is but the further screwing up of the State machine to limit the individual.

James Huneker, in Egoists: A Book of Supermen (1913), p. 364.

What matters the party to me? I shall find enough anyhow who unite with me without swearing allegiance to my flag.

Max Stirner, Der Einzige und sein Eigenthum translated by Steven T. Byington (1907).

Illustration of Stirner by Friedrich Engels, modified.

No man with a face capable of a hundred shades of expression can be ugly.

James Huneker, a portrait of “A Sentimental Education: Henry Beyle — Stendhal” [pictured above], in Egoists: A Book of Supermen (1913), p. 2.

Alas, if man is blind, shall his misfortune be also his crime? I may have mistaken the voice of reason; but never, knowingly, have I rejected its authority.

C. F. Volney, The Ruins, or, Meditation on the Revolutions of Empires (1793; second English-language edition, the Philadelphia translation, 1802).

The only remedy against the malady of life is life itself. The bane is its own antidote.

William J. Locke, The Glory of Clementina (1911).

Either the USSR was not the country of socialism, in which case socialism didn’t exist anywhere and doubtless, wasn’t possible: or else, socialism was that, this abominable monster, this police state, the power of beasts of prey.

Jean-Paul Sartre, Les Temps modernes, 1961.

He who has failed three times sets up as an instructor.

Ernest Bramah, Kai Lung Unrolls His Mat, “The Story of Lin Ho and the Treasure of Fang-Tso” (1928)

I believe half the unhappiness in life comes from people being afraid to go straight at things.

William J. Locke, Simon the Jester (1910)

[W]e judge of a man’s character, after long frequenting his society, not by one speech, or by one mood or opinion, or by one day’s talk, but by the tenor of his general bearing and conversation….

William Makepeace Thackeray, The History of Pendennis (1848-1850), preface.