1930s

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Only solitary men know the full joys of friendship. Others have their family-but to a solitary and an exile his friends are everything.

Willa Cather

Shadows on the Rock

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Cather, Willa. Shadows on the Rock. Alfred A. Knopf, 1931, bk. 3, ch. 5.

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Why, America’s the only free nation on earth. Besides! Country’s too big for a revolution. No, no! Couldn’t happen here!

Sinclair Lewis

It Can't Happen Here

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Lewis, Sinclair. It Can't Happen Here. Doubleday, Doran and Company, 1935, ch. 5.

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It was the supreme expression of the mediocrity of the apparatus that Stalin himself rose to his position.

Leon Trotsky

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Trotsky, Leon. Моя Жизнь [My Life]. Charles Scribner's Sons/Thornton Butterworth, 1930, ch. 40.

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The morning star always gets wonderful bright the minute before it has to go, doesn't it?

Thornton Wilder

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Wilder, Thornton. Our Town. 22 Jan. 1938, McCarter Theatre, Princeton, New Jersey, USA, act 1.

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Wilder, Thornton. Our Town: A Play in Three Acts. Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2020, act 1.

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A foggy day in London Town
Had me low and had me down.
I viewed the morning with alarm.
The British Museum had lost its charm.

Ira Gershwin

A Foggy Day

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"A Foggy Day in London Town." A Damsel in Distress. Directed by George Stevens, performed by Fred Astaire, RKO Radio Pictures, 1937.

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People say that life is the thing, but I prefer reading.

Logan Pearsall Smith

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Smith, Logan Pearsall. "Myself." Afterthoughts. Constable & Company, 1931.

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When the accumulation of wealth is no longer of high social importance, there will be great changes in the code of morals... The love of money as a possession—as distinguished from the love of money as a means to the enjoyments and realities of life—will be recognized for what it is, a somewhat disgusting morbidity, one of those semi-criminal, semi-pathological propensities which one hands over with a shudder to the specialists in mental disease.

John Maynard Keynes

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Keynes, John Maynard. "Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren." The Nation and Athenaeum, 11 and 18 Oct. 1930.

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Keynes, John Maynard. "Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren (1930)." The Essential Keynes. Penguin, edited by Robert Skidelsky, 2016.

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Certain women should be struck regularly, like gongs.

Noel Coward

Private Lives

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Coward, Noël. Private Lives. Directed by Noël Coward. Performed by Noël Coward and Adrianne Allen and Gertrude Lawrence and Laurence Olivier. 1930, King's Theatre, Edinburgh, Scotland, act 3.

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Coward, Noël. Private Lives. Methuen Drama, 2023, act 3.

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We fear death, we shudder at life's instability, we grieve to see the flowers wilt again and again, and the leaves fall, and in our hearts we know that we, too, are transitory and will soon disappear.

Hermann Hesse

Narcissus and Goldmund

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Hesse, Herman. Narziß und Goldmund [Narcissus and Goldmund]. Fischer Verlag, 1930.

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Hesse, Herman. Narcissus and Goldmund, translated by Ursule Molinaro. Bantam, 1984.

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The whole human memory can be, and probably in a short time will be, made accessible to every individual.

H.G. Wells

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Wells, H. G. "The Idea of a Permanent World Encyclopaedia." Harper's Magazine, Apr. 1937.

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Literature is the most agreeable way of ignoring life.

Fernando Pessoa

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Pessoa, Fernando (published as Bernardo Soares). Livro do Desassossego [The Book of Disquiet]. Attica, 1982.

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We hear war called murder. It is not: it is suicide.

Ramsay MacDonald

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MacDonald, Ramsay. Observer. 4 May 1930.

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I think that I shall never see
A billboard lovely as a tree.
Indeed, unless the billboards fall
I'll never see a tree at all.

Ogden Nash

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Nash, Ogden. "Song of the Open Road." The New Yorker, 15 Oct. 1932.

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Life is made up of a series of judgments on insufficient data, and if we waited to run down all our doubts, it would flow past us.

Learned Hand

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Hand, Learned. "On Receiving an Honorary Degree." Harvard Alumni Bulletin, 7 July 1939.

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I am convinced that everything that is worth while in the world has been accomplished by the free, inquiring, critical spirit, and that the preservation of this spirit is more important than any social system whatsoever. But the men of ritual and the men of barbarism are capable of shutting up the men of science and of silencing them forever.

Sinclair Lewis

It Can't Happen Here

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Lewis, Sinclair. It Can't Happen Here. Doubleday, Doran and Company, 1935, ch. 36.

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Work is of two kinds: first, altering the position of matter at or near the earth's surface relatively to other such matter; second, telling other people to do so. The first kind is unpleasant and ill paid; the second is pleasant and highly paid.

Bertrand Russell

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Russell, Bertrand. "In Praise of Idleness." In Praise of Idleness and Other Essays. George Allen & Unwin, 1935. Originally published in Harper's Magazine, Oct. 1932.

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I long ago come to the conclusions that all life is 6 to 5 against.

Damon Runyon

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Runyon, Alfred Damon. "A Nice Price." Money From Home. Frederick A. Stokes, 1935.

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I often want to cry. That is the only advantage women have over men-at least they can cry.

Jean Rhys

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Rhys, Jean. Good Morning, Midnight. Constable Press, 1939.

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Rhys, Jean. Good Morning, Midnight. W. W. Norton & Company, 2020.

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Off we go into the wild blue yonder,
Climbing high into the sun.

Robert MacArthur Crawford

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Crawford, Robert. The U.S. Air Force. 1947.

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Nothing is more dangerous than an idea, when you have only one idea.

Alain (Emile Chartier)

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Chartier, Émile [published as Alain]. Propos sur le Religion no. 74. Editions Rieder, 1938.

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