1897

Truth is the most valuable thing we have. Let us economize it.

The report of my death was an exaggeration.

Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World · 1897

★ 7.7

Note

Art is a human activity having for its purpose the transmission to others of the highest and best feelings to which men have risen.

1897

★ 7.3

Essay

Leo Tolstoy

What Is Art? · 1897

★ 6.4

To recognise that the soul of a man is unknowable, is the ultimate achievement of wisdom. The final mystery is oneself. When one has weighed the sun in the balance, and measured the steps of the moon, and mapped out the seven heavens star by star, there still remains oneself. Who can calculate the orbit of his own soul?

Oscar Wilde

De Profundis · 1897

★ 6.1

One writes only half the book; the other half is with the reader.

1897

★ 5.5

Where there is sorrow there is holy ground.

Oscar Wilde

De Profundis · 1897

★ 5.5

Novel

My task... To make you hear, to make you feel—it is, before all, to make you see. That—and no more, and it is everything.

My task which I am trying to achieve is, by the power of the written word, to make you hear, to make you feel—it is, before all, to make you see. That—and no more, and it is everything.

1897

★ 5.4

It is revolting to have no better reason for a rule of law than that so it was laid down in the time of Henry IV. It is still more revolting if the grounds upon which it was laid down have vanished long since, and the rule simply persists from blind imitation of the past.

1897

★ 5.3

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

1897

★ 4.3

Every one is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody.

Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World · 1897

★ 4.0

True irreverence is disrespect for another man's god.

Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World · 1897

★ 4.0

The man with a new idea is a Crank until the idea succeeds.

Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World · 1897

★ 4.0

Prosperity is the best protector of principle.

Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World · 1897

★ 4.0

Man is the Only Animal that Blushes. Or needs to.

Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World · 1897

★ 4.0

Let me make the superstitions of a nation and I care not who makes its laws or its songs either.

Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World · 1897

★ 3.9

The timid man yearns for full value and asks a tenth. The bold man strikes for double value and compromises on par.

Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World · 1897

★ 3.9

The secret source of Humor itself is not joy but sorrow. There is no humor in heaven.

Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World · 1897

★ 3.9

When people do not respect us we are sharply offended; yet in his private heart no man much respects himself.

Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World · 1897

★ 3.9

Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn’t.

Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World · 1897

★ 3.9

Being totally honest with oneself is a good exercise.

Sigmund Freud

1897

★ 3.9

Essay

Art is not, as the metaphysicians say, the manifestation of some mysterious idea of beauty or God; it is not, as the aesthetical physiologists say, a game in which man lets off his excess of stored-up energy; it is not the expression of man's emotions by external signs; it is not the production of pleasing objects; and, above all, it is not pleasure; but it is a means of union among men, joining them together in the same feelings, and indispensable for the life and progress toward well-being of individuals and of humanity.

Leo Tolstoy

1897

★ 3.8

Personal journal

The radical of one century is the conservative of the next. The radical invents the views. When he has worn them out the conservative adopts them.

1897

★ 3.8

Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.

Oscar Wilde

De Profundis · 1897

★ 3.7

Novel

At times I suffer from the strangest sense of detachment from myself and the world about me; I seem to watch it all from the outside, from somewhere inconceivably remote, out of time, out of space, out of the stress and tragedy of it all.

H.G. Wells

The War of the Worlds · 1897

★ 3.6

Novel

But the artist appeals to that part of our being which is not dependent on wisdom: to that in us which is a gift and not an acquisition—and, therefore, more permanently enduring. He speaks to our capacity for delight and wonder, to the sense of mystery surrounding our lives: to our sense of pity, and beauty, and pain.

The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them; thats the essence of inhumanity.

1897

★ 3.6

Play · Drama (play)

George Bernard Shaw

1897

★ 3.5

We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it—and stop there; lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove-lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove-lid again—and that is well; but also she will never sit down on a cold one any more.

Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World · 1897

★ 2.9

Be good and you will be lonesome.

Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World · 1897

★ 2.3

A human being has a natural desire to have more of a good thing than he needs.

Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World · 1897

★ 2.2

There is no such thing as "the Queen's English." The property has gone into the hands of a joint stock company and we own the bulk of the shares!

Truth is on the march, and nothing will stop it.

Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World · 1897

★ 2.2

Open letter · Letter

Emile Zola

1897

★ 2.1

A work that aspires, however humbly, to the condition of art should carry its justification in every line.

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

1897

★ 2.0

Essay

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

1897

★ 2.0

Autobiography and memoir

Whatever you are, try to be a good one.

William Makepeace Thackeray

1897

★ 2.0

Speech · Political speech

Lynchings must not be tolerated in a great and civilized country like the United States; courts, not mobs, must execute the penalties of the law.

William McKinley

First Inaugural Address of William McKinley · 1897

★ 2.0

Speech · Political speech

Our faith teaches that there is no safer reliance than upon the God of our fathers, who has so singularly favored the American people in every national trial, and who will not forsake us so long as we obey His commandments and walk humbly in His footsteps.

William McKinley

First Inaugural Address of William McKinley · 1897

★ 1.9

Play

A great nose indicates a great man- Genial, courteous, intellectual, Virile, courageous.

Edmond Rostand

1897

★ 1.9

When in doubt, tell the truth.

Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World · 1897

★ 1.4

Don't part with your illusions. When they are gone you may still exist but you have ceased to live.