Sourced and curated.

The Education of Henry Adams · 1907

★ 1.0

Nothing in education is so astonishing as the amount of ignorance it accumulates in the form of inert facts.

The Education of Henry Adams · 1907

★ 1.1

The effect of power and publicity on all men is the aggravation of self, a sort of tumor that ends by killing the victim's sympathies.

The game of Chess is not merely an idle amusement. Several very valuable qualities of the mind, useful in the course of human life, are to be acquired or strengthened by it, so as to become habits, ready on all occasions. For life is a kind of chess, in which we have often points to gain, and competitors or adversaries to contend with, and in which there is a vast variety of good and ill events, that are, in some degree, the effects of prudence or the want of it.

1907

★ 1.1

Essay · Magazine

1786

★ 1.2

A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him I may think aloud.

These times of ours are serious and full of calamity, but all times are essentially alike. As soon as there is life there is danger.

Essays: First Series (Emerson) · 1841

★ 1.2

Lecture

I hate quotation. Tell me what you know.

1864

★ 1.2

Personal journal

Blessed are those who have no talent!

1849

★ 1.3

Personal journal

Every artist was first an amateur.

1850

★ 1.3

Speech

When I communicate my thought and my sentiments to a friend with whom I am in full sympathy, so that my feelings pass into him and I am conscious of what he feels, do I not live in his brain as well as in my own-most literally!

1867

★ 1.3

Philosophical literature

Charles Sanders Peirce

1966

★ 1.7

Philosophical literature

Our whole past experience is continually in our consciousness, though most of it sunk to a great depth of dimness. I think of consciousness as a bottomless lake, whose waters seem transparent, yet into which we can clearly see but a little way.

Charles Sanders Peirce

1966

★ 1.7

Legal writing

No set of legal institutions or prescriptions exists apart from the narratives that locate it and give it meaning. For every constitution, there is an epic, for each decalogue a scripture. Once understood in the context of the narratives that give it meaning, law becomes not merely a system of rules to be observed, but a world in which we live.

Robert M. Cover

Nomos and Narrative · 1983

★ 1.7

Poem

And I honor the man who is willing to sink Half his present repute for the freedom to think, And, when he has thought, be his cause strong or weak, Will risk t' other half for the freedom to speak.

James Russell Lowell

A Fable of Critics · 1848

★ 1.8

Supreme Court opinion · Legal opinion · Legal writing

The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic... The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Schenck v. United States · 1919

★ 1.8

My atheism, like that of Spinoza, is true piety towards the universe and denies only gods fashioned by men in their own image, to be servants of their human interests.

George Santayana

1922

★ 1.8

Political literature

America is a nation created by all the hopeful wanderers of Europe, not out of geography and genetics, but out of purpose.

Theodore H. White

1961

★ 1.8

If the British went out by water, to show two lanterns in the North Church steeple; and if by land, one as a signal, for we were apprehensive it would be difficult to cross the Charles River or get over Boston Neck.

Paul Revere

1775

★ 1.9

Poem

Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide, In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side.

James Russell Lowell

The Present Crisis · 1845

★ 1.9

Sonnet · Poem

His heart was in his garden; but his brain Wandered at will among the fiery stars.

Frederick Goddard Tuckerman

1860

★ 1.9

Supreme Court opinion · Legal opinion · Dissenting opinion · Legal writing

General propositions do not decide concrete cases. The decision will depend on a judgement or intuition more subtle than any articulate major premise.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

Lochner v. New York · 1905

★ 1.9

One friend in a life-time is much; two are many; three are hardly possible. Friendship needs a certain parallelism of life, a community of thought, a rivalry of aim.

Diplomacy is to do and say The nastiest thing in the nicest way.

The Education of Henry Adams · 1907

★ 1.9

Isaac Goldberg

1927

★ 1.9

Thunder is the voice of God, and, therefore, to be dreaded.

Increase Mather

1684

★ 1.9

Personal journal

A good writer seems to be writing about himself, (but never is,) but has his eye always on that thread of the Universe which runs through himself, & all things.

1867

★ 1.9

The progress of evolution from President Washington to President Grant, was alone evidence enough to upset Darwin.

The Education of Henry Adams · 1907

★ 1.9

Knowledge of human nature is the beginning and end of political education.

What a glorious morning is this.

The Education of Henry Adams · 1907

★ 1.9

Speech · Political speech

Samuel Adams

1775

★ 2.0

Is it so bad then to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.

Essays: First Series (Emerson) · 1841

★ 2.0

People wish to be settled; only as far as they are unsettled is there any hope for them.

There is always a certain meanness in the argument of conservatism, joined with a certain superiority in its fact.

Essays: First Series (Emerson) · 1841

★ 2.0

Lecture

The Conservative · 1841

★ 2.0

Certainty generally is illusion, and repose is not the destiny of man.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

1897

★ 2.0

Chaos often breeds life, when order breeds habit.

The Education of Henry Adams · 1907

★ 2.0

Only on the edge of the grave can man conclude anything.

The good or ill hap of a good or ill Life, is the good or ill choice of a good or ill Wife.

The Education of Henry Adams · 1907

★ 2.0

Almanac

Many a Man thinks he is buying Pleasure, when he is really selling himself a slave to it.

1745

★ 2.1

Almanac

I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it.

1750

★ 2.1

Essay · Political literature

Character is higher than intellect.

1766

★ 2.1

Speech

The American Scholar · 1837

★ 2.1

Happy is the house that shelters a friend.

Essays: First Series (Emerson) · 1841

★ 2.1

Every sweet hath its sour; every evil its good.