History shows how the human mind, which, at the dawn of civilisation, was a lyre of three chords, became in the progress of civilisation a lyre of seven chords. . . .
G. H. Lewes, Problems of Life and Mind (Third Series) Problem the First — The Study of Psychology: Its Object, Scope, and Method (1879), p. 157.
Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving us wordy evidence of the fact.
George Eliot, the nom de plume of Mary Ann Evans (1819-1880), Impressions of Theophrastus Such, Ch. 4 (1879).
The people of the United States are entitled to a sound and stable currency and to money recognized as such on every exchange and in every market of the world.
Ethics requires the kind of personal reflection, in the end, that no one else can do decisively for any individual.
Tibor R. Machan, The Promise of Liberty: A Non-Utopian Vision (2009), p. 69.
What is the use of being elected or re-elected unless you stand for something?
When the devil comes he’s not gonna have horns, he’s gonna have a crew neck sweater and glasses.
Comedian Jimmy Dore on John Papola’s Dad Saves America podcast (March 13, 2025).
Harriet Beecher Stowe, “The Cathedral,” The Atlantic Monthly (1846).
What makes saintliness in my view, as distinguished from ordinary goodness, is a certain quality of magnanimity and greatness of soul that brings life within the circle of the heroic.
What is liberty? WHO WILL ALLOW ME TO DEFINE IT FOR HIM, AND AGREE BEFOREHAND TO SQUARE HIS LIFE BY MY DEFINITION? Who does not wish to see it first, and sit in judgment on it, and decide for himself as to its propriety? and who does not see that it is his own individualinterpretation of the word that he adopts? And who will agree to square his whole life by any rule, which, although good at present, may not prove applicable to all cases? Who does not wish to preserve his liberty to act according to the peculiarities or INDIVIDUALITIES of future cases, and to sit in judgment on the merits of each, and to change or vary from time to time with new developments and increasing knowledge? Each individual being thus at liberty at all times, would be SOVEREIGN OF HIMSELF. NO GREATER AMOUNT OF LIBERTY CAN BE CONCEIVED—ANY LESS WOULD NOT BE LIBERTY! Liberty defined and limited by others is slavery!
Josiah Warren, Equitable Commerce (1852).
That’s the thing about Americans, they’re the most propagandized people in the world and they have no idea. People in China know when they’re being propagandized and people in the old Soviet Union knew . . . but people in America think that — “what? I’m just watching the news!”
Comedian Jimmy Dore on John Papola’s Dad Saves America podcast (March 13, 2025).
The greater the interest involved in a truth the more careful, self-distrustful, and patient should be the inquiry.
I would not attack the faith of a heathen without being sure I had a better one to put in its place, because, such as it is, it is better than nothing.
Harriet Beecher Stowe, Letter to William Lloyd Garrison (1853).