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Facts are the mere dross of history. It is from the abstract truth which interpenetrates them, and lies latent among them, like gold in the ore, that the mass derives its whole value: and the precious particles are generally combined with the baser in such a manner that the separation is a task of the utmost difficulty.

Thomas Babington Macaulay

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Topic

Facts

Author

Thomas Babington Macaulay

Source

History Edinburgh Review

Medium

Essay

Language

English

Time

1828 1820s 19th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Macaulay, Thomas Babington. "History." Edinburgh Review, May 1828.

When is a crisis reached? When questions arise that can't be answered.

Ryszard Kapuscinski

A Warsaw Diary

More information about this quote

Topic

Causes of revolution Inflection points

Author

Ryszard Kapuscinski

Source

A Warsaw Diary

Medium

Essay

Language

Polish

Time

1985 1980s 20th century

Authentication Score 1

Citation

Kapuściński, Ryszard. "A Warsaw Diary: Part 1." Granta 15: The Fall of Saigon, translated by Adam Czerniawski, Spring 1985.

What people say behind your back is your standing in the community in which you live.

Edgar W. Howe

More information about this quote

Topic

Gossip Reputation

Speaker

Edgar W. Howe

Language

English

Time

1877 1870s 19th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Howe, Edgar W. Country Town Sayings: A Collection of Paragraphs from the Atchison Globe. Crane, 1911.

I am about Courting a Girl I have had but little Acquaintance with; how shall I come to a Knowledge of her Fawlts? and whether she has the Virtues I imagine she has?
Answ. Commend her among her Female Acquaintance.

Benjamin Franklin

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Author

Benjamin Franklin

Source

Miscellaneous Observations Pennsylvania Gazette

Medium

Newspaper

Language

English

Time

1732 1730s 18th century

Authentication Score 1

Original Citation

Franklin, Benjamin. "Miscellaneous Observations." Pennsylvania Gazette. 12 Mar. 1732.

Current Citation

Franklin, Benjamin. "Miscellaneous Observations, 1732." Founders Online, National Archives, founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-01-02-0091

If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

The Gulag Archipelago

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Topic

Duality of man Good and evil

Author

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Source

The Gulag Archipelago

Genre

Political literature Historical literature

Language

Russian

Time

1973 1970s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr. Архипелаг ГУЛАГ, Arkhipelag GULAG [The Gulag Archipelago: An Experiment in Literary Investigation]. Vol. 1, YMCA-Press, 1973.

To be misunderstood even by those whom one loves is the cross and bitterness of life. It is the secret of that sad and melancholy smile on the lips of great men which so few understand; it is the cruelest trial reserved for self-devotion; it is what must have oftenest wrung the heart of the Son of man; and if God could suffer, it would be the wound we should be forever inflicting upon Him. He also-He above all-is the great misunderstood, the least comprehended.

Henri-Frederic Amiel

Read Amiel's Journal at Project Gutenberg

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Topic

Alienation

Author

Henri-Frederic Amiel

Source

Journals of Henri Frederic Amiel

Medium

Personal journal

Language

French

Time

1849 1840s 19th century

Authentication Score 2

Citation

Amiel, Henri-Frederic. Journal entry. 27 May 1849.

I can picture in my mind a world without war, a world without hate. And I can picture us attacking that world, because they'd never expect it.

Jack Handey

More information about this quote

Topic

World peace

Author

Jack Handey

Statement Type

Joke

Language

English

Time

1999 1990s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Handey, Jack. Quoted in L.A. Times. 18 Jan. 1999.

There is a legend about a bird which sings just once in its life, more sweetly than any other creature on the face of the earth. From the moment it leaves the nest it searches for a thorn tree, and does not rest until it has found one. Then, singing among the savage branches, it impales itself upon the longest, sharpest spine. And, dying, it rises above its own agony to out-carol the lark and the nightingale. One superlative song, existence the price. But the whole world stills to listen, and God in His heaven smiles. For the best is only bought at the cost of great pain.

Colleen McCullough

The Thorn Birds

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Topic

Bird songs Birds

Author

Colleen McCullough

Source

The Thorn Birds

Medium

Novel

Statement Type

Paradox

Language

English

Time

1977 1970s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

McCullough, Colleen. The Thorn Birds. Harper & Row, 1977, epigraph.

The pebble
is a perfect creature

equal to itself
mindful of its limits

filled exactly
with a pebbly meaning

Zbigniew Herbert

Pebble

More information about this quote

Topic

Nature

Author

Zbigniew Herbert

Source

Pebble

Medium

Poem

Language

Polish

Time

1966 1960s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Herbert, Zbigniew. "Kamyk [Pebble]." Studium przedmiotu [Subject Study]. Czytelnik, 1961.

Pessimism (or rather what is called such) is, in brief, playing the sure game. You cannot lose at it; you may gain. It is the only view of life in which you can never be disappointed.

Thomas Hardy

More information about this quote

Topic

Pessimism Low expectations

Author

Thomas Hardy

Medium

Personal journal

Language

English

Time

1902 1900s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Hardy, Thomas. Notebook entry. 1 Jan. 1902.

Current Citation

Hardy, Thomas. Quoted in The Poetry of Thomas Hardy: A Handbook and Commentary, written by J. O. Bailey. UNC Press Books, 2018.

Given for one instant an intelligence which could comprehend all the forces by which nature is animated and the respective positions of the beings which compose it, if moreover this intelligence were vast enough to submit these data to analysis, it would embrace in the same formula both the movements of the largest bodies in the universe and those of the lightest atom; to it nothing would be uncertain. And the future as the past would be present to its eyes.

Pierre-Simon Laplace

More information about this quote

Topic

Predicting the future Determinism

Author

Pierre-Simon Laplace

Source

A Philosophical Essay on Probabilities

Language

French

Time

1812 1810s 19th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Laplace, Pierre-Simon. Theorie Analytique des Probabilities [Analytic Theory of Probability]. Paris: Madame Va Courcier, 1812.

Human contact seemed to her so frail a thing that the hope that two people might want each other in the same way, at the same time and with the possibility of doing something about it, seemed infinitely remote.

Margaret Drabble

The Waterfall

More information about this quote

Topic

Connecting with others

Author

Margaret Drabble

Source

The Waterfall

Medium

Novel

Language

English

Time

1969 1960s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Drabble, Margaret. The Waterfall. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1969.

When you consider that God could have commanded anything he wanted-anything!-the Ten have got to rank as one of the great missed moral opportunities of all time. How different history would have been had he clearly and unmistakably forbidden war, tyranny, taking over other people's countries, slavery, exploitation of workers, cruelty to children, wife-beating, stoning, treating women-or anyone-as chattel or inferior beings.

Katha Pollitt

Stacked Decalogue

More information about this quote

Topic

The Ten Commandments

Author

Katha Pollitt

Source

Stacked Decalogue The Nation

Medium

Magazine

Language

English

Time

2003 2000s 21st century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Pollitt, Katha. "Stacked Decalogue." The Nation, 4 Sept. 2003.

I decided it is better to scream. This pitiful sound, which sometimes, goodness knows how, reaches into the remotest prison cell, is a concentrated expression of the last vestige of human dignity. It is a man's way of leaving a trace, of telling people how he lived and died. By his screams he asserts his right to live, sends a message to the outside world demanding help and calling for resistance. If nothing else is left, one must scream. Silence is the real crime against humanity.

Nadezhda Mandelstam

Hope Against Hope

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Topic

Soviet Union

Author

Nadezhda Mandelstam

Source

Hope Against Hope

Genre

Autobiography and memoir

Language

Russian

Time

1970 1970s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Mandelstam, Nadezhda. Hope Against Hope. The Chekov Press/Atheneum, 1970, ch. 11.

If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,-
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

Wilfred Owen

Dulce et Decorum Est

Read Dulce et Decorum Est at Poetry Foundation

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Topic

Horrors of war War

Author

Wilfred Owen

Source

Dulce et Decorum Est

Medium

Poem

Language

English

Time

1920 1920s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Owen, Wilfred. "Dulce et Decorum Est." Poems by Wilfred Owen. Chatto & Windus, 1920.

Current Citation

Owen, Wilfred. "Dulce et Decorum Est." The War Poems Of Wilfred Owen. Random House UK, 2018.

There was a famous story, some reporters asked a door gunner, "How can you shoot women and children?" and he'd answered, "It's easy, you just don't lead 'em so much."

Michael Herr

Dispatches

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Topic

Vietnam War

Author

Michael Herr

Source

Dispatches

Genre

War literature War

Language

English

Time

1977 1970s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Herr, Michael. "Breathing In." Dispatches. Alfred A. Knopf, 1977, pt. 3.

There is only one question which really matters: why do bad things happen to good people?

Harold S. Kushner

When Bad Things Happen to Good People

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More information about this quote

Topic

Problem of evil

Author

Harold S. Kushner

Source

When Bad Things Happen to Good People

Statement Type

Question

Language

English

Time

1981 1980s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Kushner, Harold. When Bad Things Happen to Good People. Schocken Books, 1981, ch. 1.

I live in a rather special world. I know only one person who voted for Nixon. Where they are I don't know. They're outside my ken. But sometimes when I'm in a theater I can feel them.

Pauline Kael

Remark in an address to the Modern Language Association after Richard Nixon's landslide election win in 1972.

More information about this quote

Topic

Living in a bubble American politics

Speaker

Pauline Kael

Language

English

Time

1972 1970s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Kael, Pauline. Quoted in "Critics Here Focus on Films As Language Conference Opens." Written by Israel Shenker. The New York Times, 28 Dec. 1972. Originally stated in a lecture at the Modern Language Association, Dec. 1972.

Time has no divisions to mark its passage, there is never a thunderstorm or blare of trumpets to announce the beginning of a new month or year. Even when a new century beings it is only we mortals who ring bells and fire off pistols.

Thomas Mann

The Magic Mountain

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More information about this quote

Topic

Nature of time

Author

Thomas Mann

Source

The Magic Mountain

Medium

Novel

Language

German

Time

1924 1920s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Mann, Thomas. Der Zauberberg [The Magic Mountain]. S. Fischer Verlag, 1924, ch. 5.

Current Citation

Mann, Thomas. The Magic Mountain. Everyman's Library, 2005, ch. 5.

A society based on the letter of the law and never reaching any higher fails to take advantage of the full range of human possibilities. The letter of the law is too cold and formal to have a beneficial influence on society. Whenever the tissue of life is woven of legalistic relationships, this creates an atmosphere of spiritual mediocrity that paralyzes man’s noblest impulses.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

More information about this quote

Topic

Legalism Laws of physics

Speaker

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Medium

Speech

Genre

Commencement address

Language

English

Time

1978 1970s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Solzhenitsyn, Alexander I. "A World Split Apart." Commencement cermony. 8 June 1978, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA.