Category: Thought

I have maintained for years, sometimes perhaps with undue heat: that pedagogy in the United States is fast descending to the estate of a childish necromancy, and that the worst idiots, even among pedagogues, are the teachers of English. It is positively dreadful to think that the young of the American species are exposed day in and day out to the contamination of such dark minds. What can be expected of education that is carried on in the very sewers of the intellect? How can morons teach anything that is worth knowing?

H.L. Mencken, On ”Teachers of English” in “The Schoolmarm’s Goal” in The Lower Depths: A Play in Four Acts (1925).

We do not want to fritter away our short lives in chains, even if they are golden chains of prosperity and power.

Professor Kurt Huber of The White Rose pamphleteers, at trial on April 19, 1943. He was executed on July 13, 1943.

Somebody, after all, had to make a start. What we wrote and said is also believed by many others. They just don’t dare express themselves as we did.

Sophie Scholl, testimony before the “People’s Court” (Volksgerichtshof) of Judge Roland Freisler (February 21, 1943). Search for more about their group, “The White Rose,” and their pamphlets, on this website.

I knew what I took upon myself and I was prepared to lose my life by so doing.

Hans Scholl’s explanation of his and his sister Sophie’s opposition to Germany regime. He and his sister were beheaded by the German government on February 22, 1943, having been found guilty of high treason for writing, producing and distributing political pamphlets.

No man thinks there is much ado about nothing when the ado is about himself.

Anthony Trollope, The Bertrams (1859), Ch. 27.

On ne découvre pas de terre nouvelle sans consentir
à perdre de vue, d’abord et longtemps, tout rivage.

One doesn’t discover new lands without consenting to lose sight, for a very long time, of the shore.

André Gide, Les faux-monnayeurs [The Counterfeiters] (1925).

La liberté n’est pas un échange, c’est la liberté.

Freedom is not an exchange — it is freedom.

André Malraux, La condition humaine [Man’s Fate] (1933).

Revolt against a tyrant is legitimate; it can succeed. Revolt against human nature is doomed to failure.

André Maurois, Un Art de Vivre (The Art of Living) (1939).

Toutes choses sont dites déjà; mais comme
personne n’écoute, il faut toujours recommencer.

Everything has already been said; but since nobody listens we must say it all over again.

André Gide, Le Traité du Narcisse (Théorie du Symbole).

The wayfarer, 
Perceiving the pathway to truth, 
Was struck with astonishment. 
It was thickly grown with weeds. 
“Ha,” he said, 
“I see that none has passed here 
In a long time.”
Later he saw that each weed 
Was a singular knife. 
“Well,” he mumbled at last, 
“Doubtless there are other roads.”

Stephen Crane, from War Is Kind and Other Lines (1899).