"The Proverbs of Solomon" were a guide to me from my earliest youth, ever teaching me to think correctly.  Yet these are available in every King James Bible, so I will not bother to repeat them here.  Instead I will reserve this space for other wisdom I have managed to gather over the years:


Crime is not the outcome of free will, but rather a natural phenomenon
which can only disappear or diminish when its natural factors are
eliminated. --ENRICO FERRI, "Criminal Sociology."

Those who represent themselves as born to ill luck can usually trace the
ill luck to errors or shortcomings of their own. --HORATIO ALGER, JR.,
"DRIVEN FROM HOME, OR CARL CRAWFORD'S EXPERIENCE."

DOWN WITH THE CITIES! by Nakashima Tadashi:

If we do not get rid of the cities, the human race will disappear from the
face of the Earth.

If urbanization continues in this manner, the entire surface of the Earth
will in time be covered with cities.

I suppose no boy of twenty really loves a WOMEN, but loves only his
etherealised extract of woman, entirely free from earthy adulteration.
--RICHARD LE GALLIENNE, "THE QUEST OF THE GOLDEN GIRL."

Anybody who promises you health by buying a certain product is a quack.
--Dr.  Erny Portner of Honolulu.

Although we cannot all be writers, we all want to be critics. --Dr.
Martin Luther, "A treatise on Good Works," 1520.

HERETICS, by Gilbert K.  Chesterton:

Never has there been so little discussion about the nature of men as now,
when, for the first time, any one can discuss it.  The old restriction
meant that only the orthodox were allowed to discuss religion.  Modern
liberty means that nobody is allowed to discuss it.  Good taste, the last
and vilest of human superstitions, has succeeded in silencing us where all
the rest have failed.

the most practical and important thing about a man is still his view of
the universe.

Vigorous organisms talk not about their processes, but about their aims.

they thought of the end like men, not of the process like paralytics.

our modern educationists are trying to bring about a religious liberty
without attempting to settle what is religion or what is liberty.

There is no such thing on earth as an uninteresting subject; the only
thing that can exist is an uninterested person.

The military man gains the civil power in proportion as the civilian loses
the military virtues.

we have effected simultaneously the deterioration of the man and the
fantastic perfection of the arms.

The modern army is not a miracle of courage; it has not enough
opportunities, owing to the cowardice of everybody else.  But it is really
a miracle of organization.

Millions of mild black-coated men call themselves sane and sensible merely
because they always catch the fashionable insanity, because they are
hurried into madness after madness by the maelstrom of the world.

every instant of conscious life is an unimaginable prodigy.

the thing which is valuable and lovable in our eyes is man--the old
beer-drinking, creed-making, fighting, failing, sensual, respectable man.
And the things that have been founded on this creature immortally remain;
the things that have been founded on the fancy of the Superman have died
with the dying civilizations which alone have given them birth.

It is the humble man who does the big things.

What has health to do with care?  Health has to do with carelessness.

The one defect in his splendid mental equipment is that he does not
sufficiently allow for the stuff or material of men.

a permanent possibility of selfishness arises from the mere fact of having
a self, and not from any accidents of education or ill-treatment.

Unless you are going deliberately to prevent a thing being good, you
cannot prevent it being worth fighting for.

even in the act of saying that things change, we say that there is
something unchangeable.

The strong cannot be brave.  Only the weak can be brave.

A great man is not a man so strong that he feels less than other men; he
is a man so strong that he feels more.

(Devin note: In the above, "feels" means "suffers", or "hurts".)

when Nietszche says, "A new commandment I give to you, "be hard," he is
really saying, "A new commandment I give to you, "be dead."

Sensibility is the definition of life.

The strong old literature is all in praise of the weak.

this defiance of the statu quo, this constant effort to alter the existing
balance, this premature challenge to the powerful, is the whole nature and
inmost secret of the psychological adventure which is called man.  It is
his strength to disdain strength.

The forlorn hope is not only a real hope, it is the only real hope of
mankind.

All the colours mixed together in purity ought to make a perfect white.
Mixed together on any human paint-box, they make a thing like mud.

while the brutes have all the useful things, the things that are truly
human are the useless ones.

A man who has faith must be prepared not only to be a martyr, but to be a
fool.

It is absurd to say that a man is ready to toil and die for his
convictions when he is not even ready to wear a wreath round his head for
them.

The absence from modern life of both the higher and lower forms of faith
is largely due to a divorce from nature and the trees and clouds.

Man cannot love mortal things.  He can only love immortal things for an
instant.

if we are to be truly gay, we must believe that there is some eternal
gaiety in the nature of things.

Ultimately a man cannot rejoice in anything except the nature of things.

he who wishes to be strong must despise the strong.

When modern sociologists talk of the necessity of accommodating one's self
to the trend of the time, they forget that the trend of the time at its
best consists entirely of people who will not accommodate themselves to
anything.  At its worst it consists of many millions of frightened
creatures all accommodating themselves to a trend that is not there.

Every man makes his contribution negative under the erroneous impression
that the next man's contribution is positive.

a man cannot enjoy himself and continue to enjoy anything else.

Honour is a luxury for aristocrats, but it is a necessity for
hall-porters.

When a wealthy nation like the English discovers the perfectly patent fact
that it is making a ludicrous mess of the government of a poorer nation
like the Irish, it pauses for a moment in consternation, and then begins
to talk about Celts and Teutons.

Thus in all extensive and highly civilized societies groups come into
existence founded upon what is called sympathy, and shut out the real
world more sharply than the gates of a monastery.  There is nothing really
narrow about the clan; the thing which is really narrow is the clique.

A big society exists in order to form cliques.  A big society is a society
for the promotion of narrowness.  It is a machinery for the purpose of
guarding the solitary and sensitive individual from all experience of the
bitter and bracing human compromises.  Sociability, like all good things,
is full of discomforts, dangers, and renunciations.

If we were to-morrow morning snowed up in the street in which we live, we
should step suddenly into a much larger and much wilder world than we have
ever known.  And it is the whole effort of the typically modern person to
escape from the street in which he lives.

He is forced to flee, in short, from the too stimulating society of his
equals--of free men, perverse, personal, deliberately different from
himself.

Every man has hated mankind when he was less than a man.

The men and women who, for good reasons and bad, revolt against the
family, are, for good reasons and bad, simply revolting against mankind.

Sarah wishes to find a world wholly consisting of private theatricals;
George wishes to think the Trocadero a cosmos.  I do not say, for a
moment, that the flight to this narrower life may not be the right thing
for the individual, any more than I say the same thing about flight into a
monastery.  But I do say that anything is bad and artificial which tends
to make these people succumb to the strange delusion that they are
stepping into a world which is actually larger and more varied than their
own.

So long as you have groups of men chosen rationally, you have some special
or sectarian atmosphere.  It is when you have groups of men chosen
irrationally that you have men.

The thing which keeps life romantic and full of fiery possibilities is the
existence of these great plain limitations which force all of us to meet
the things we do not like or do not expect.

A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us
the truth about its author.  It does much more than that, it tells us the
truth about its readers; and, oddly enough, it tells us this all the more
the more cynical and immoral be the motive of its manufacture.  The more
dishonest a book is as a book the more honest it is as a public document.

For a hearty laugh it is necessary to have touched the heart.

About what other subjects can one make jokes except serious subjects?

Democracy is not founded on pity for the common man; democracy is founded
on reverence for the common man, or, if you will, even on fear of him.

Men trust an ordinary man because they trust themselves.  But men trust a
great man because they do not trust themselves.  And hence the worship of
great men always appears in times of weakness and cowardice; we never hear
of great men until the time when all other men are small.

the thing which is really required for the proper working of democracy is
not merely the democratic system, or even the democratic philosophy, but
the democratic emotion.

It is a sufficient proof that we are not an essentially democratic state
that we are always wondering what we shall do with the poor.  If we were
democrats, we should be wondering what the poor will do with us.

There is no more need to study the psychology of poverty than to study the
psychology of bad temper, or the psychology of vanity, or the psychology
of animal spirits.  A man ought to know something of the emotions of an
insulted man, not by being insulted, but simply by being a man.  And he
ought to know something of the emotions of a poor man, not by being poor,
but simply by being a man.  Therefore, in any writer who is describing
poverty, my first objection to him will be that he has studied his
subject.  A democrat would have imagined it.

A man cannot be wise enough to be a great artist without being wise enough
to wish to be a philosopher.

In real life the people who are most bigoted are the people who have no
convictions at all.

Ideas are dangerous, but the man to whom they are least dangerous is the
man of ideas.

Ideas are dangerous, but the man to whom they are most dangerous is the
man of no ideas.

Even if we think religion insoluble, we cannot think it irrelevant.  Even
if we ourselves have no view of the ultimate verities, we must feel that
wherever such a view exists in a man it must be more important than
anything else in him.

We have a right to distrust a man who is in a different kind of
municipality; but we have no right to mistrust a man who is in a different
kind of cosmos.  This sort of enlightenment is surely about the most
unenlightened that it is possible to imagine.  To recur to the phrase
which I employed earlier, this is tantamount to saying that everything is
important with the exception of everything.  Religion is exactly the thing
which cannot be left out-- because it includes everything.

We have a general view of existence, whether we like it or not; it alters
or, to speak more accurately, it creates and involves everything we say or
do, whether we like it or not.  Every man in the street must hold a
metaphysical system, and hold it firmly.  The possibility is that he may
have held it so firmly and so long as to have forgotten all about its
existence.

The modern world is filled with men who hold dogmas so strongly that they
do not even know that they are dogmas.

The dogmas we really hold are far more fantastic, and, perhaps, far more
beautiful than we think.

There are no rationalists.  We all believe fairy-tales, and live in them.

End "HERETICS", by Gilbert K.  Chesterton.

Juan de Luna:

He'll turn as red as a maiden who is caught doing it by candlelight.

I smiled at him more than a cat at a tripe stand.

I made him more promises than a sailor in a storm.

Manon Lescaut, by the Abbe Prevost:

love, though it often deludes, never holds out other than hopes of bliss
and joy, whilst religion exacts from her votaries mortification and
sorrow.

It is an inherent principle in our nature that our felicity consists only
in pleasure.

the false and fantastic notions of dignity, which have raised me up an
enemy in my own father.

Any nation that expects to be ignorant and expects to be free expects what
never will be. --Thomas Jefferson.

arcanum, n., pl.  -na or -nums.  1 A profound secret; mystery.  2 the
reputed great secret of nature that alchemists sought to find.  3 An
elixir.  Lat.  arcanus, secret.  ^see arcane.

Catriona, by Robert Louis Stevenson:

He that will not when he may, When he will  he shall have nay.

Never ASK womenfolk.  They're bound to answer 'No'; God never made the
lass that could resist the temptation.  It's supposed by divines to be the
curse of Eve:

because she did not say it when the devil offered  her the apple, her
daughters can say nothing else."

There is not anything more bitter than to lose a fancied friend."

There's just the two sets of  them - them that would sell their coats for
ye, and them that never  look the road ye're on.  That's a' that there is
to women; ...

Essays of Travel, by Robert Louis Stevenson:

Culture is not measured by the  greatness of the field which is covered by
our knowledge, but by the  nicety with which we can perceive relations in
that field, whether  great or small.

It is not by  a man's purse, but by his character that he is rich or poor.

They think only to argue, not to reach new conclusions, ...

Ask an impertinent question, and you are on the way to a pertinent answer.
--Jacob Bernowsky.

In mathematics you don't understand things:

you just get used to them. --John Von Noiman.

Anyone who is not shocked by quantum theory has not understood it. --Niels
Bohr.

John G.  Kramer:

Our brains run on the hairy edge of instability, which is why there are so
many humans with mental problems and why so many smart people have
emotional stability problems.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. --Carl Sagan.

MEMOIRS OF EXTRAORDINARY POPULAR DELUSIONS, by CHARLES MACKAY:

(Men) go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and
one by one.

When religion teaches men to go astray, they go far astray indeed!

PRESTER JOHN, by John Buchan:

He can see the first stage of a thing, and maybe the second, but no more.
That is the native mind.

What have ye gained from the white man?  A bastard civilization which has
sapped your manhood; a false religion which would rivet on you the chains
of the slave.  Ye, the old masters of the land, are now the servants of
the oppressor.

I knew then the meaning of the white man's duty.  He has to take all
risks, recking nothing of his life or his fortunes, and well content to
find his reward in the fulfilment of his task.  That is the difference
between white and black, the gift of responsibility, the power of being in
a little way a king; and so long as we know this and practise it, we will
rule not in Africa alone but wherever there are dark men who live only for
the day and their own bellies.  ...  in the towns, where men sit in
offices and see the world through a mist of papers.

ARIZONA SKETCHES, by Joseph A.  Munk:

We believe that we can benefit them, which is doubtless true, but might
they not also teach us some useful lessons?  It would sometimes be more to
our credit if we were less anxious to teach others, and more willing to
learn ourselves.

You Samoans may fight, you may conquer twenty times, and thirty times, and
all will be in vain.  There is but one way to defend Samoa.  Hear it,
before it is too late.  It is to make roads and gardens, and care for your
trees, and sell their produce wisely; and, in one word, to occupy and use
your country.  If you do not, others will.  .  .  . --Robert Louis
Stevenson.

...every man is not only himself; there have been many Diogenes, and as
many Timons, though but few of that name; men are lived over again; the
world is now as it was in ages past; there was none then, but there hath
been some one since, that parallels him, and is, as it were, his revived
self.

(It is amazing that this very individuality and personal freedom, which so
horrified our forbears, should turn out to be precisely what they needed
most of all.  But have we really learned anything at all?  Aren't people
now horrified in precisely the same way at the prospect of a disintegrated
Yugoslavia or "Republic of Indonesia?" --Joe)

...this, I think, is no vulgar part of faith, to believe a thing not only
above, but contrary to, reason, and against the arguments of our proper
senses.

(and THIS, methinks, is precisely what our stupid forebears always wanted
us to do. --Joe)

...for my part, I have ever be- lieved, and do now know, that there are
witches.

When I met him in Honolulu, Mapa Maleta, who had lived both naked and half
naked in the open high country of Sulawesi, wore a jacket in the hot
midday sun for fear of the wind getting into him, and, with his warm
jacket about him, would not spend more than five minutes on Waikiki Beach
because it was too hot for his taste. --Joe Devin.

The Bible In Spain, by George Borrow:

The Moors of Barbary seem to care but little for the exploits of their
ancestors: their minds are centred in the things of the present day, and
only so far as those things regard themselves individually.  Disinterested
enthusiasm, that truly distinguishing mark of a noble mind, and admiration
for what is great, good, and grand, they appear to be totally incapable of
feeling.  It is astonishing with what indifference they stray amongst the
relics of ancient Moorish grandeur in Spain.  No feelings of exultation
seem to be excited by the proof of what the Moor once was, nor of regret
at the consciousness of what he now is.  More interesting to them are
their perfumes, their papouches, their dates, and their silks of Fez and
Maraks, to dispose of which they visit Andalusia; and yet the generality
of these men are far from being ignorant, and have both heard and read of
what was passing in Spain in the old time.  Cabrera, moreover, was a
dastardly wretch, whose limited mind was incapable of harbouring a single
conception approaching to grandeur; whose heroic deeds were confined to
cutting down defenceless men, and to forcing and disembowelling unhappy
women; and yet I have seen this wretched fellow termed by French journals
(Carlist of course) the young, the heroic general.

To think nothing of symmetry and much of convenience; never to remove an
anomaly merely because it is an anomaly; never to innovate except when
some grievance is felt; never to innovate except so far as to get rid of
the grievance; never to lay down any proposition of wider extent than the
particular case for which it is necessary to provide; these are the rules
which have, from the age of John to the age of Victoria, generally guided
the deliberations of our two hundred and fifty Parliaments. --Macaulay on
the constitution of England.

Ideas are only formed in their natural and normal surroundings; the
promotion of the growth is effected by the innumerable impressions
appealing to the senses which a young man receives daily in the workshop,
the mine, the law court, the study, the builder's yard, the hospital; at
the sight of tools, materials, and operations; in the presence of
customers, workers, and labour, of work well or ill done, costly or
lucrative.  In such a way are obtained those trifling perceptions of
detail of the eyes, the ear, the hands, and even the sense of smell,
which, picked up involuntarily, and silently elaborated, take shape within
the learner, and suggest to him sooner or later this or that new
combination, simplification, economy, improvement, or invention.  The
young Frenchman is deprived, and precisely at the age when they are most
fruitful, of all these precious contacts, of all these indispensable
elements of assimilation.  For seven or eight years on end he is shut up
in a school, and is cut off from that direct personal experience which
would give him a keen and exact notion of men and things and of the
various ways of handling them. --M.  Taine.  ...the absence of passion
might easily be mistaken for the strength of reason.--Edward Gibbon, Esq.
Out of these infant peoples come the oldest voices of the earth. --Maxim
Gorky.

The spirit of analysis, that untiring Satan who continually questions and
denies, must sooner or later look for proof of religious dogmas. --P.  J.
PROUDHON.

Gain the affection of the people, and you gain empire.  Lose the affection
of the people, and you lose empire. --Confucius.

He admitted that the command was disputed inside the fort, but no stranger
must approach. --A.  Sorel.

In war more than at any other time there is no better inspiring force than
hatred; it was hatred that made Blucher victorious over Napoleon.  Analyse
the most wonderful manoeuvres, the most decisive operations, and if they
are not the work of an exceptional man, a Frederick or a Napoleon, you
will find they are inspired by passion more than by calculation.
--Commandant Colin.

Man is a being naturally good, loving justice and order. --Rousseau.

In reality we are continuing an action which was imperiously imposed upon
our savage ancestors by the harsh necessities of existence, during which
they had either to kill or die of hunger, while to- day there is no longer
any legitimate excuse for it.  ...  The gentlest and prettiest creatures,
the song-birds, the charm of our springtime, fall to our guns or are
choked in our snares, and not a shudder of pity troubles our pleasure at
seeing them terrified, bleeding, writhing in the horrible suffering we
inflict on them, seeking to flee on their poor broken paws or desperately
beating their wings, which can no longer support them. --Cunisset-Carnot.
The true method of government is to employ the aristocracy, but under the
forms of democracy.--Napoleon Bonaparte.

Given the present constitution of the world, they must cultivate in their
children the military ideal, and accept gracefully the cost and trouble
which militarism entails, or they will be let in for a cruel struggle for
life with a rival worker of whose success there is not the slightest
doubt.  There is only one means of refusing Asiatics the right to
emigrate, to lower wages by competition, and to live in our midst, and
that is the sword.  If Americans and Europeans forget that their
privileged position is held only by force of arms, Asia will soon have
taken her revenge.  -General Hamilton, ex- military attache to the
Japanese army.

Fear of danger is ten thousand times more terrifying than danger itself.
--Daniel Defoe.

It is never too late to be wise. --Daniel Defoe.

the expectation of evil is more bitter than the suffering, especially if
there is no room to shake off that expectation or those apprehensions.
--Daniel defoe.

There are some secret springs in the affections which, when they  are set
a-going by some object in view, or, though not in view, yet  rendered
present to the mind by the power of imagination, that  motion carries out
the soul, by its impetuosity, to such violent,  eager embracings of the
object, that the absence of it is  insupportable. --Daniel Defoe.

I was as happy in not  knowing my danger as if I had never really been
exposed to it. --Daniel Defoe.

How infinitely good that Providence is,  which has provided, in its
government of mankind, such narrow  bounds to his sight and knowledge of
things; and though he walks in  the midst of so many thousand dangers, the
sight of which, if  discovered to him, would distract his mind and sink
his spirits, he  is kept serene and calm, by having the events of things
hid from  his eyes, and knowing nothing of the dangers which surround him.
--Daniel Defoe.

The Crossing, by Winston Churchill (the author, and not the politician):

A poem is not a poem unless it be well spoken.

I hope our happy form of government is to be perpetual.  But, if it is to
be preserved, it must be by the practice of virtue, by justice, by
moderation, by magnanimity, by greatness of soul, by keeping a watchful
and steady eye on the Executive; and, above all, by holding to a strict
accountability the military branch of the public force. --Henry Clay (On
the Seminole War).

Progress is ever the result of slow and ceaseless labour. --HENDRIK VAN
LOON, PH.D, in "The Story of Mankind."

The way to be comfortable is to make others comfortable.  The way to make
others comfortable is to appear to love them.  The way to appear to love
them is to love them in reality. --Bill Jeremy Bentham, 1831.

PROPOSED ROADS TO FREEDOM, BY BERTRAND RUSSELL:

The more unfortunate sections of the population have been ignorant,
apathetic from excess of toil and weariness, timorous through the imminent
danger of immediate punishment by the holders of power, and morally
unreliable owing to the loss of self-respect resulting from their
degradation.

The impatient idealist--and without some impatience a man will hardly
prove effective--is almost sure to be led into hatred by the oppositions
and disappointments which he encounters in his endeavors to bring
happiness to the world.

Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of
chains and slavery?  Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course
others may take, but as for me, GIVE ME LIBERTY, Or GIVE ME DEATH!
--Patrick Henry.

Thomas Jefferson:

Compulsion makes hypocrites, not converts.

Truth stands by itself; error alone needs the support of government.

The Essential Principles of Government:

Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion,
religious or political.

peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling
alliances with none.

the support of the state governments in all their rights, as the most
competent administrations for our domestic concerns, and the surest
bulwarks against anti-republican tendencies.

the preservation of the general government in its whole constitutional
vigor, as the sheet-anchor of our peace at home and safety abroad.

a jealous care of the right of election by the people.

a mild and safe corrective of abuses which are lopped by the sword of
revolution, where peaceable remedies are unprovided.

absolute acquiescence in the decisions of the majority, the vital
principle of republics, from which is no appeal but to force, the vital
principle and immediate parent of despotism.

a well- disciplined militia, our best reliance in peace and for the first
moments of war, till regulars may relieve them.

the supremacy of the civil over the military authority.

economy in the public expenditure, that labor may be lightly burdened.

the honest payment of our debts, and sacred preservation of the public
faith.

encouragement of agriculture, and of commerce as its handmaiden.

the diffusion of information and arraignment of all abuses at the bar of
the public reason.

freedom of religion, freedom of the press, and freedom of person, under
the protection of the Habeas Corpus.

trial by juries impartially selected.

These principles form the bright constellation which has gone before us,
and guided our steps through an age of revolution and reformation.  The
wisdom of our sages and the blood of our heroes have been devoted to their
attainment.  They should be the creed of our political faith, the text of
civic instruction, the touchstone by which to try the services of those we
trust; and should we wander from them in moments of error or of alarm, let
us hasten to retrace our steps and regain the road which alone leads to
peace, liberty, and safety.

The fault is not in our stars, but in ourselves that we are underlings.
--Cassius.

To part is the unavoidable fate of the traveller. --Madame Ida Pfeiffer,
A Visit to Iceland and the Scandinavian North.

Robert Bontine Cunninghame Graham (1852-1936), A Vanished Arcadia:

The best right that a man can have is to be happy after the way that
pleases him the most.

all they worked for lost (as happens usually with the efforts of
disinterested men).

Nothing is bad enough for those who dare to speak the truth.

the hard tropical enamel of green foliage, on which time has no lien, and
but the arts of all-destroying man are able to deface.

the non-judicial and uncritical public which takes all upon trust?

reformers of all sorts have not infrequently in times of scarcity and
danger been taken by their proteges for the authors of their trials and
stoned, whilst the smug Government which caused the ruin, well bolstered
up in the affection of its "taxables" chuckled, serenely confident in the
unending folly of mankind.

they show that capacity for action which is a sure bar to advancement
either in Church or State.

No matter whether a man make his career with Indians in the wilds of
Paraguay or amongst the so-called reasoning people in more sophisticated
lands, if he once show himself superior to the ordinary run of men, there
is something of an invidious character certain to be attributed to him by
those who think that genius is the worst attribute that man can have.

Courage and prudence and inalterable kindness are the three virtues which
have most moved the world.

As a general rule, the Indian (unlike the negro) cares little for dogma,
but places his belief entirely in good works.

A calumny is hard to kill; mankind in general cherish it; they never let
it die, and, if it languishes, resuscitate it under another form; they
hold to it in evil and in good repute, so that, once fairly rooted, it
goes on growing like a forest-tree throughout the centuries.

An introduction to new and grand objects of Nature enlarges the human
mind. --Humboldt.

If we know what is good, we shall incline to do it. --Zeno.

The solid content of a sphere is two-thirds that of its circumscribing
cylinder. --Archimedes.

John William Draper, History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science:
On a country to which in its political extremity the indigenous gods have
been found unable to give any protection, a change of faith is impending.

The Museum of Alexandria was thus the birthplace of modern science.

Paradise will be found in the shadow of the crossing of swords.
--Mohammed.

A nation may recover the confiscation of its provinces, the confiscation
of its wealth; it may survive the imposition of enormous war-fines; but it
never can recover from that most frightful of all war-acts, the
confiscation of its women.

IN the course of my long life, I have often observed that men are more
like the times they live in than they are like their fathers. --Khalif Ali
(son-in-law of Mohammed).

Though the personal, the bodily lineaments of a man may indicate his
parentage, the constitution of his mind, and therefore the direction of
his thoughts, is determined by the environment in which he lives.

The elect of God, his best and most useful servants, are they whose lives
are devoted to the improvement of their rational faculties.  The teachers
of wisdom are the true luminaries and legislators of this world, which,
without their aid, would again sink into ignorance and barbarism. --Khalif
Al-Mamun.

Civilization cannot exist without writing, or the means of record in some
shape.

By increasing the rapidity of the diffusion of ideas, and insuring their
permanence, (printing) tends to promote civilization and to unify the
human race.

Throughout the Mohammedan dominions in Asia, in Africa, and in Spain, the
lower order of Mussulmen entertained a fanatical hatred against learning.

All religions are false, although all are probably useful. --Averroes?

For Science the criterion of truth is to be found in the revelations of
Nature: for the Protestant, it is in the Scriptures; for the Catholic, in
an infallible Pope.

The two rival divisions of the Christian Church-- Protestant and
Catholic--were thus in accord on one point: to tolerate no science except
such as they considered to be agreeable to the Scriptures.

One eternal and immutable law embraces all things and all times. --Cicero.

If the resistances (factors that render human life difficult) become
inappreciable, the generative force will double a population in
twenty-five years.

Public celibacy is private wickedness.

Whenever a question arose, they (the Europeans) were skillfully taken in
detail (by the Church of Rome), and commonly mastered.

Toleration, except when extorted by fear, can only come from those who are
capable of entertaining and respecting other opinions than their own.  It
can therefore only come from philosophy.

Fanaticism is stimulated by religion, and neutralized or eradicated by
philosophy.

Science refuses to accept, unless accompanied by proof, the dicta of any
master, no matter how eminent or honored his name. --Paraphrase by Joe
Devin.

In physical inquiries, science tests the value of a hypothesis by using it
to perform computations for various special cases, and then determining
whether the predicted results agree with observation.  If they do not, the
hypothesis is rejected. --Devin.

Science insists upon agreement between calculation and observation, and
correspondence between reasoning and fact. --Devin.

Mathematics furnishes a means of predicting what has been hitherto
unobserved. --Devin.

The germ of algebra may be discerned in the works of Diophantus of
Alexandria, who is supposed to have lived in the second century of our
era.

To what remained of the mathematics of the Alexandrian School, the Arabs
carefully added improvements obtained in India, and communicated to the
subject a certain consistency and form.  The knowledge of algebra, as they
possessed it, was first brought into Italy about the beginning of the
thirteenth century. --Devin paraphrase.

The investigation of principles is quickly followed by practical
inventions.

Poverty is the greatest source of crime and the greatest obstruction to
knowledge. --Devin paraphrase.

The pursuit of riches by commerce is far better than the acquisition of
power by war.

Ignorance is the mother of devotion, but knowledge is power. --Devin
paraphrase.

Mysteries must give place to facts.

***** End John William Draper.

Superior strength is in the highest degree dangerous to the moral fiber of
its possessors. --Devin paraphrase.

Emigrants came in greater numbers to the country, and, spreading over its
surface, formed in the increasing population the most effectual barrier
against the rightful owners of the soil.

Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa, By David Livingstone:

It is far easier to travel than to write about it.

Those laws which still prevent free commercial intercourse among the
civilized nations seem to be nothing else but the remains of our own
heathenism.

Firearms render wars less frequent and less bloody.

no permanent elevation of a people can be effected without commerce.

Like all other restrictions on trade, the law of preventing friendly
tribes from purchasing arms and ammunition only injures the men who
enforce it.

The Cape government, as already observed, in order to gratify a company of
independent Boers, whose well-known predilection for the practice of
slavery caused them to stipulate that a number of peaceable, honest tribes
should be kept defenseless, agreed to allow free trade in arms and
ammunition to the Boers, and prevent the same trade to the Bechuanas.

So far from this science having any tendency to make men undervalue the
power or love of God, it leads to the probability that the exhibition of
mercy we have in the gift of his Son may possibly not be the only
manifestation of grace which has taken place in the countless ages during
which works of creation have been going on.

There seems to be a tendency in nature to afford varieties adapted to the
convenience of man.

The officers ought to receive higher pay, if integrity is expected from
them.

After long observation, I came to the conclusion that they are just such a
strange mixture of good and evil as men are every where else.

***** End Livingstone.

Understanding facts is knowledge: understanding what people THINK about
facts is genius. --Devin.

Newton made his discoveries by "intending" his mind in a certain direction
continuously. --Newton?

People of the Dark Ages "intended" their minds towards oriental
ecclesiasticism, and failed to discover anything at all. --Devin.

The constitution bears on its front the marks  of dotage. --Robert Louis
Stevenson.

The  nearest villages have suffered most; they see over the hedge the
lands of their ancestors waving with useless cocoa-palms. --Robert Louis
Stevenson.

The Life of HORATIO LORD NELSON, BY ROBERT SOUTHEY:

"Pity! Pity!" did you say? I shall live, sir, to be envied! and to that
point I shall always direct my course. --Viscount Horatio Nelson.

Their vices were the natural consequences of internal anarchy and foreign
oppression, such as the same causes would produce in any people.

Whenever an officer fails to win the affections of those who are under his
command, he may be assured that the fault is chiefly in himself.

If the service were conducted with undeviating respect to seniority, the
naval and military character would soon be brought down to the dead level
of mediocrity.

The first impulses of the public are generally founded upon just feelings,
but from want of sufficient information must frequently be erroneous.
--Devin paraphrase.

The public are easily misled, and there are always persons ready to
mislead them.

Never begin a defense of your conduct before you are accused of error.
--Devin paraphrase of Captain Ball.

I am fitter to do the action than to describe it. --Horatio Nelson.

The people of this country have no idea of anything but revenge, and to
gain a point would swear ten thousand false oaths. --Thomas Troubridge.

Nelson groaned over the spirit of over-reasoning caution and unreasoning
obedience.

The boldest measures are the safest. --Nelson.

It was Nelson's maxim that to negotiate with effect, force should be at
hand, and in a situation to act.

If anything could be secured by promptitude or resolution, Nelson never
entrusted it to the uncertainties of future developments. --Devin
paraphrase.

None but the brave deserve the fair. --Nelson.

Freedom and independence will bring with them industry and prosperity;and
wherever these are found, arts and letters will flourish, and the
improvement of the human race proceed.

In sea affairs nothing is impossible and nothing improbable. --Nelson.

***** End Life of Nelson.

THE FOUNDATIONS OF PERSONALITY, BY ABRAHAM MYERSON:

fatigue alters character.

Mood is the background of the psychic life, upon which depends the
direction of our thoughts, cheerful or otherwise, the vigor of our will
and purpose.

Exceptional individuals aside, the mass of mankind generates its mood
either in the tissues of the body or in the circumstances of life.

A child shows the onset of an illness by a complete change in character.

A child is not born merely to a father and a mother.  He is born to a
group, fiercely and definitely prejudiced in custom, belief and ideal,
with ways of doing, feeling and thinking which it seeks to impose on each
of its new members.  Family, tribe, race and nation all demand of each
accession that he accept their ideals, habits and beliefs on peril of
disapproval and even of punishment.

Man is so constituted that the approval and disapproval of his group mean
more to him even than his life.

Society is threatened at its roots by the present high birth rate of the
low grade and the low birth rate of the high grade.

The aims of a rational society, which we are born a thousand years too
soon to see, would be twofold: to control marriage and birth so that the
number of the unfit would be kept as low as possible, and then to bring
fostering influences to bear on the fit.

In every human being there are potential lines of development far
outnumbering those that can be manifested, and each environment and
tradition calls forth some and suppresses others.  Every man is a garden
planted with all kinds of seeds; tradition and teaching are the gardeners
that allow only certain ones to come to bloom.

The character of no man, as we see or know it, ever expresses in any
complete manner his innate possibilities.

From birth to death the pleasure of reward and praise and the pain of
punishment and blame are immensely powerful human motives.

The typical difficulty of middle age is to remember names, because these
have no real relationship or logical value and must be arbitrarily
remembered.

The typical senile defect is the dropping out of the recent memories,
though the past may be preserved in its entirety.

The IMPRESSIBILITY for memories can in no way be increased except through
the stimulation of interest and a certain heightening of attention through
emotion.  For the man or woman concerned with memory the first point of
importance is to find some value in the fact or thing to be learned.
Before a subject is broached to students the teacher should make clear its
practical and theoretic value to the students.

There are only a few who love knowledge for its own sake, but there are
many who become eager for learning when it is made practical.

The number of associations given to a fact determines to a large extent
its permanence in memory and the power of recalling it.

There are a few kinds of stimuli we are specialized to receive and react
to.  There may be innumerable other kinds of stimuli to which we cannot
react because they do not reach us.  The world for us is a collection of
things that we see, hear, smell, taste and feel, but there may be vast
reaches of things for which we have no avenues of approach,--completely
unimaginable things because our images are built upon our senses.

In youth the state of the organs brings a state of well feeling; in old
age there is a constant feeling of a low balance of energy and mood, and
the person is always on the verge of unpleasant feeling.

Although other brain parts may differ but little, when the cerebrum is
considered, the enormous superiority of the higher over the lower animals
becomes striking. --Devin paraphrase.

Man is probably the only animal to whom the past is a controlling force,
sometimes even an overpowering force.

Whether animals think in anything like the form our thought takes is
another matter.  We are so largely verbal in thought that speech and the
capacity to speak seem intimately related to thought.

Overconcentration is a handicap because it robs one of alertness towards
the new impressions and sources of thought necessary for growth. --Devin
paraphrase.

It is possible that we can think without words, but surely very little
thinking is possible under such circumstances.

Intelligence only becomes intellect when it is able to see the world from
the standpoint of abstract ideas, such as truth, beauty, love, honor,
goodness, evil, justice, race, individual, etc.

The wider one can generalize correctly, the higher the intellect.

The practical man rarely seeks wide generalizations because the truth of
these and their value can only be demonstrated through the course of long
periods of time, during which no good to the individual himself is seen.

But its stupendous value and effects lie in this, that in words not only
do we store up ourselves (could we be self-conscious without words?) and
things, but we are able to interchange ourselves and our things with any
one else in the world who understands our speech and writings.

If the germ plasm is the organ of biological heredity, speech and its
derivatives are the organs of social heredity!

Our thought is usually in a dialogue form with an auditor who listens and
whose applause we desire and whose arguments we meet.

All our triumphs are thought and word products; so, too, are our defeats.

Monotony is one of the most dreaded factors in the life of man.  The
internal resources of most of us are but small; we can furnish excitement
and interest from our own store for but a short time, and there then
ensues an intense yearning for something or somebody that will take up our
attention and give a direction to our thought and action.  Under monotony
the thought turns inward, there is daydreaming and introspection, which
are pleasurable only at certain times for most of us and which grow less
pleasurable as we grow older.

Stabilization of purpose and work are necessary, but a standardization
that stamps out the excitement of variety is a deadly blow to human
happiness.

Great ability expresses itself in a sustained interest; a narrow character
is one with overdeformed, too narrow interest; failure is often the
retention of the childish character of diffuse, involuntary interest.

Interest, like any other form of excitement, needs new stimuli and periods
of relaxation.  People under the driving force of necessity continue at
their work for longer periods of time and more constantly than is
psychologically possible for the maintaining of interest.  So it
disappears, and then fatigue sets in at once,--a fatigue that is increased
by the effort to work and the regret and rebellion at the change.  The
memory seems to suffer and a fear is aroused that "I am losing my memory";
the threat to success brings anguish and often the health becomes
definitely impaired.  Overconcentrated, too long maintenance of interest
brings apathy,--an apathy that cannot be dispelled except by change and
rest.  Here there is wide individual variation from those who need
frequent change and relaxation periods to those who can maintain interest
in a task almost indefinitely.  A hobby, or a secondary object of
interest, is therefore a real necessity to the man or woman battling for a
purpose, whose interest must be sustained.  It acts to relax, to shift the
excitement and to allow something of the feeling of novelty as one
reapproaches the task.

The born teacher is he who knows how to arouse and maintain and direct
interest; the born achiever is the man whose interest, quickly aroused, is
easily maintained and directs effort.  To find the activity that is
natively interesting and yet suited to one's ability is the aim in
vocational guidance.

Interest is the beginning of knowledge, and where it is discouraged
knowledge is discouraged.

A great law of feeling of whatever kind, of whatever elaboration, is this;
it tends to spread from individual to individual and excites whole groups
to the same feeling; tender feeling is contagious, and so is hate.

Self-esteem, self-confidence, hateful to others if in excess or if
obtrusive, is an essential of the leader.  His feeling is extraordinarily
contagious, and the morale of the group is in his keeping.  He must not
show fear, or self-distrust or self-lowering in any way.  He must be
deliberate, but forceful, vigorous, masterful.  If he has doubts, he must
keep them to himself or exhibit them only to one who loves him, who is not
a mere follower.  It is a law of life that the herd follows the unwounded,
confident, egoistic leader and tears to pieces or deserts the one who is
wearying.

Reliance on law is in part an effort to escape the necessity of choosing.

The tragedy of a great founder of religion like Buddha or Christ is that
though he gives out a great pure principle, his followers must have,
demand and evolve a dogmatic religion with fixed ceremonials.

Man, on the whole, does not want to choose; he wants to have the feeling
that he ought to do this or that according to a code laid down by
authority.

Duty may demand a man's life, and that sacrifice seems easier for men to
make than the giving up of power and pelf.  (In the late war it was no
great trouble to pass laws conscripting life; it was impossible to pass
laws conscripting wealth.  It was easier for a man to allow his son to go
to war than to give up his wealth en masse.

Other ages have placed responsibility on the Church, on God and on the
State.  We are commencing to place duty on the individual. --Devin
paraphrase.

This feeling (of energy) is excited by the society of others, by the
herd-feeling, and depressed by long-continued solitude or loneliness.

Hope and courage are in part organic, in part are due to the belief that a
desired goal can be reached.

In the presence of the hopeless it is hard to maintain one's own feeling
of energy and that is why the average man shuns them.

Cheer up, the worst is yet to come! --Popular saying.

The difference between the trusting and the suspicious is that one
responds with energy and belief to the manifestations of friendliness in
everybody, and the other has no such inner response to guide his energy
and his actions.

If one wishes to destroy the energy of any one, the best way to do it is
to sow the seeds of doubt.  "Your ideal is a fine one, my friend,
but--isn't it a little sophomoric?" "A nice piece of work, but--who wants
it?" On the other hand, to one obsessed by doubt it may happen that a
whole-hearted endorsement, a resolution of the doubt, brings with it first
relief and then a swing of energy into the channels of action.

Introduce a definite system of rivalry into a school or an office, and you
release energies never manifested before.

Solitary pleasures and satisfactions such as reading, exploring, a row on
the river or a walk in the woods cannot arouse those who can play no game
unless there is competition. --Devin paraphrase.

Early success, unless it brings too high a self-valuation, which is its
great danger, is remarkably valuable in releasing energy, and failure
establishes a precedent that may bring doubt, fear and the attendant
inhibition of energy.  Of course, failure may bring with it caution and a
recasting of plans and thus constitute the most valuable of experiences.
But if it is too great, or if there is lacking a certain fortitude, it may
act as a paralyzer of energy thenceforth.

Every animal that bristles and snarls as it faces a foe is, unconsciously,
attempting to paralyze with fear its opponent, to render it helpless
through the inhibition of action.

The correct response to fear is successful fight or flight--never
paralysis. --Devin.

The energy of fear can cause physical reactions enabling feats that would
ordinarily be impossible. --Devin.

Because fear is highly contagious, the presence of a coward can cause
grave danger during fires in public places or during action in a military
unit.  Panic is disastrous. --Devin paraphrase.

Fear of the bad opinion of others is the most powerful deterrent force in
the world.

Man is the only animal that foresees death and he is the only one to
elaborate ethics and religion.

Morbid attention to health often results in an evil worse than sickness.

In the use of fear as a weapon there is always the danger that it might
change quite readily into the fighting spirit. --Devin paraphrase.

Anger is the backbone of the fighting spirit. --Devin paraphrase.

The world owes its progress to those whose anger, sustained and
intellectualized, becomes the power behind reform.

Anger cannot be eliminated without endangering personality.

When a man (or woman) finds himself continually getting apprehensive and
irritable, then it is the time to ask, "What's the matter with me," and to
get expert opinion on the subject.

The underlying idea underneath courtesy and social regulations is to avoid
anger and humiliation.

With satisfaction of desire, the inhibiting forces come to their own, and
the violence of repentance and disgust may be extreme.

Raising standards in things material cannot increase the happiness or
contentment of the world, for it merely makes men impatient and disgusted
at lesser standards.

We cannot hope to increase happiness through the material improvements of
civilization.

For the most of us youth is the most joyous period because youth finds in
its pleasures a novelty and freshness that tend to disappear with
experience.

Mankind must see clearly in order to rid itself of unnecessary suffering.
Hiding one's head (and brains) in a desert of optimism merely perpetuates
evil, even though one sufferer here and there is deluded into happiness.

To get so "controlled" that one rarely laughs or shows sadness or anger is
to atrophy, to dry up.

In all wit and humor surprise is part of the technique and constitutes
part of the pleasure.

Surprise usually heightens the succeeding feeling, whether of joy, sorrow,
anger, fear, pleasure or pain, or in any form.

Training teaches resources against the unexpected. --Devin paraphrase.

" The cautious in character minimize the number of surprises they may get
by preparing.

The impulsive, who rarely prepare, are always in danger from the
unforeseen.

The tired soldier has lessened resources in wit and courage when
surprised, for fatigue heightens the confusion and numbness of surprise
and decreases the scope of intelligent conduct.

All the world admires vigor, strength, courage and endurance,--and these
in their physical aspects.

Physical courage resides more with the fierce races than with the gentle.

Those who feel themselves superior in strength and energy are much more
apt to be courageous than those who feel themselves inferior.

The impatient are very often those of small purposes and are rarely those
of great achievement.

Impatient of evil, men seek to annihilate it by denying its existence or
by loudly chanting that good thoughts will destroy it.  These are typical
impatient solutions in the sphere of religion.

One meets every day men and women who help injustice and iniquity by their
patience.

Organized wrong and oppression owe their existence mainly to the habitual
patience of the oppressed.

The East, bearing a huge burden of misery and essentially pessimistic,
exhorts patience.  The West, eager and full of hope, is impatient.

To wish much is the first step in acquiring much,--but only the first
step.

It is the disappearance of passion, eagerness and enthusiasm that is the
tragedy of old age and which really constitutes getting old.

In the chemistry of life, passion and enthusiasm arise; sickness, fatigue,
experience and time are their antagonists.

Great purposes are the surest to maintain enthusiasm, little purposes
become flat.

All life seeks, and the more mobile a living thing is the more it seeks.

The strong man always has followers though he be a villain, and in fact
the history of man is to a large extent based on the fact that the strong
man evokes enthusiasm and obedience.

Without credulity there could be no organization of society, no rituals,
no ceremonials, no religions and customs,--but without the questioning
spirit there could be no progress.

The authorities, recognizing that their power lay in unquestioning belief,
have always sanctified it and made the pious, non-skeptical type the ideal
and punished the non-believer with death or ostracism.

There are many who start on their careers with the feeling and belief that
money is a minor value, that to be useful and of service is greater than
to be rich.  But this idealistic ambition in only a few cases stands up
against the strain of life.  Unless money comes, a man cannot marry, or if
he marries, then his wife must do without ease and leisure and pretty
things, and he must live in a second-rate way.  Sooner or later the
idealist feels himself uneasily inferior, and though he may compensate by
achievement or by developing a strong trend towards seclusiveness, more
often he regrets bitterly his idealism and in his heart envies the rich.
For they, ignorant and arrogant, may purchase his services, his brains and
self-sacrifice and buy these ingredients of himself with the air of one
purchasing a machine.  So the idealist finds himself condemned to a meager
life, unless his idealism brings him wealth, and he drifts in spirit away
from the character of his youth.  It is the strain of life, the fear of
old age and sickness, the silent pressure of the deprivations of a man's
beloved ones, the feeling of helplessness in disaster and the silent
envious feeling of inferiority that makes inroads in the ranks of the
idealists so that at twenty there are ten idealists to the one found at
forty.

The world is built up on the sacrifices of the idealists, and eternally it
crucifies them.

The genius to make money may be, and often is, an exploiting type of
ability, a selfishly practical industry, which neither invents nor is of
great service.

The men who now do the basic work in invention and scientific work in
laboratories are poorly paid and only now and then honored.

It is not true that "competition is the life of trade."  Cooperation is
its life.

Competition is the SPUR of trade; its mighty sinews, its strong heart and
stout lungs are cooperative.

If a man specializes in fellowship aims, without learning the secret of
power, he is usually futile and sterile of results.  If a man seeks power
only and disregards fellowship, he is hated and is a tyrant, cruel and
without pity.

The practical seek their own welfare or the welfare of others through
direct means, through exerting the power and the influence that is money
and station.  Rarely do they build for a distant future, and their goal is
in some easily and popularly understood good.

We must be prepared to tear off a mask before we understand the most of
our fellows, for society and all of life is permeated with disguise.

The world yields to superiority such immense tribute that to obtain
recognition as superior becomes a dominant motive.

Whoever preaches force as the first weapon in any struggle is either
deluded as to its value or an enemy of mankind.

" Success is so highly prized and admired that the means of obtaining it
becomes secondary in the eyes of the majority.

The strategist tends to be quite cynical, and his effect on his fellow men
is to increase cynicism and pessimism.

Though a function of intelligence, the power to speak (and write)
convincingly and easily, is not at all related to other phases of
intelligence.

The persuader seeks to discover the obstacles to agreement with him in the
minds of others and to remove or nullify them.

Every good speaker or writer who seeks to reach the mass of people needs
the effect of the great feelings--of patriotism, sympathy and humor--needs
flattery, gross or subtle, makes people laugh or smile or feel kindly
disposed to him before he attempts to get their cooperation.  He must
place himself on their level, be regarded as one of them; fellowship and
the cooperative tendencies must be awakened before logic will have value.

The capacity to understand others and to sway them, to impress them
according to their make-up, is a trait of great importance for success or
failure.

Whether as hunter or fisher or nomad herdsman, man lived in the open air,
slept in caves or in rudely constructed shelters and knew nothing of those
purposes that keep men working from morning till night.

The burden of steadiness in labor is new to the race, and it is only
habit, necessity and social valuation that keeps most men to their wheel.

Put any person of adult age or younger in a room with nothing to do but
think, and you reduce him to abject misery and restlessness.

Loyalty in the inferior may be awakened by many things, but to be
permanent the follower must sooner or later feel himself a part of the
program.  He must have not only duties and responsibilities but benefits,
and he must be given a visible symbol of membership.  A child becomes
loyal when he is given a badge or title, and so do men.  This is the
meaning of uniforms, badges, titles and privileges; they are symbols of
"belonging" and so become symbols of loyalty.

The industrial world revolves around those who resist temptation, who work
faithfully, who give honest measure and seek no unfair advantage.

Controversy is the enemy of truth, and when the fighting spirit is
aroused, candor disappears.

The advance of civilization is marked by the appearance of toleration, the
recognition that belief is a private right, especially as concerns
religion, and that sincerity in belief is more important than the nature
of belief.

The sincere of purpose must always keep his sincerity from wounding too
deeply; he must always be careful and include his own foibles and failings
in his attack, and he must make his efforts witty, so that he may have the
help of laughter.

The expert in human relations is he who can overcome distrust; the genius
in human relations is he who inspires trust.

To the great majority, at least of men, sex desire is almost a hunger, and
unsatisfied it brings about a restlessness and dissatisfaction that enters
into all the mental life.

The effect of too affectionate a home training, too assertive parenthood,
is to dwarf the individuality of the child and make him a sort of
parasite, out of contact with his contemporaries, seclusive and odd.

Humor usually points at the folly and absurdity of other people's conduct,
thought, logic and customs. --Devin paraphrase.

To be entertained, to entertain, to escape from fatigue, monotony,
inhibition, to seek excitement, to while away the time and thus to escape
from failure, regret and sorrow are parts of the life and character of
all.  They who have nothing else but these activities in their lives are
to be pitied, and they are unwise who allow themselves too little
amusement and recreation.

When people ate with their fingers there was little to be disgusted at in
eating; when people need spotless linen and eight or ten forks, knives,
and spoons for a meal, a single disarrangement, a spot on the linen, is
intolerable.  The higher one builds one's needs and tastes, the more
opportunities for disgust, disappointment and discontent.

To the majority, acquisition, the multiplication of needs, desires and
tastes constitute progress and seem to be the roads to happiness.

Desires grow with each acquisition, the capacity for satisfaction
diminishes with every gratification, novelty disappears and with the
growth of taste little disharmonies offend deeply.

The joy of life is in robust tastes not easily offended and easily
gratified.

Faith is beautiful in the abstract, but in the concrete it is often the
origin of superstition and amazing folly.  However crudely intelligence
and honest scientific effort may work, they soar in a heaven far above the
abyss of credulity.

Then there is the strictly modern type of person to whom right conduct is
held to have nothing to do with religious belief and who measures
Christian, Jew, Mohammedan and agnostic by their acts and not at all by
their dogma, and who thus relegates religion, in the ordinary use of the
word, to a rather useless place in human life.

There is no sharp line between the "normal" and "pathological" in
character.

Certain deviations from the normal are useful, as the assemblage of
qualities that make the genius or the reformer of certain types.  Others
are not useful, or at least not useful in the environment and age in which
the deviated person finds himself.

We cannot separate energy display from enthusiasm, courage, intelligence,
persistent purpose, etc.

The fear of death is behind an enormous amount of men's deeds and beliefs.

The average balanced person is apt to weigh consequences to himself, but
the paranoid does not; and so, when accident or circumstances enlist him
in a good cause, he is a fighter without fear and is enormously valuable.

It is characteristic of all paranoid philosophy and schemes that they
despise real experimentation, that they start with some postulate that has
no basis in work done and go on with a minute hyper-logic that deceives
the unsophisticated.

Science has outstripped morals.

***** End THE FOUNDATIONS OF PERSONALITY.

The very sensitiveness that stimulates an artist to work keeps him alive
to suffering. --Samuel Morse.

We are not here to be happy, but to be good. --Fleeming Jenkin.

It's a cold home where a dog is the only representative of a child.
--Fleeming Jenkin.

It is said that at age 12 Thomas Edison proposed to master the whole
collection of the Detroit library shelf by shelf.  He worked his way
through fifteen feet of the bottom one before he began to select his fare.
If he did not understand the problems which have puzzled some of the
greatest minds, he read them religiously, and pressed on.  This indicates
that just by reading, without necessarily understanding anything of what
is read, a man can learn. --Devin.

Men of routine are apt to look with disfavour on men of originality. --J.
Munro, "Heros of the Telegraph."

"Allan Quatermain," by H. Rider Haggard:

It is a depressing conclusion, but in all essentials the savage and the
child of civilization are identical.

Civilization is only savagery silver-gilt.

Man's cleverness is almost indefinite, and stretches like an elastic band,
but human nature is like an iron ring.

Nature as she was in the age when creation was complete, undefiled as yet
by any human sinks of sweltering humanity.

Men and women, empires and cities, thrones, principalities, and powers,
mountains, rivers, and unfathomed seas, worlds, spaces, and universes, all
have their day, and all must go.

Madagascar, which is of course the ancient Ebony Isle of the ARABIAN
NIGHTS.

the meaning is vague, and I doubt if the phrase conveys any very clear
impression to their minds.

beauty, dependent as it is to a certain extent upon the imagination, is
never so beautiful as when it is half hid.

no more dreadful fate can befall a man than to become the tool of an
unscrupulous woman, or indeed of any woman.  There is but one end to it:
when he is broken, or has served her purpose, he is thrown away--turned
out on the world to hunt for his lost self-respect.

It is not wise to neglect the present for the future, for who knows what
the future will be?

*****End "Allan Quatermain," by H. Rider Haggard.

Light reflected from a hundred facets dissipates itself in space and is
lost; that concentrated in one tremendous ray pierces to the stars.
--Haggard.

A well-organised, well-motivated guerrilla group fighting on a terrain
they know well, with the support of local people, cannot be beaten. The
Americans in Vietnam, British in Northern Ireland, Soviets in Afghanistan,
Portuguese in their African colonies and Indonesians in East Timor have
all experienced that fact of modern military life.  In a guerrilla
campaign, a group can win the war while losing every battle. The
occupation force eventually gets sick of the fighting and goes home.
--Keith Suter, "The Age," Melbourne.

H. Rider Haggard, in "Montezuma's Daughter":

Do not speak ill of the religion of the land, or make a mock of it by your
way of life, lest you should learn how cruel men can be when they think
that it is pleasing to their gods.

What does it matter if the road has been good or bad when we have reached
the goal?

While you live there is hope, but the dead come back no more.

***** End H. Rider Haggard, in "Montezuma's Daughter".

Weakness invites invasion. --Art Bell.

Any demonstration of weakness will invite attack. --Art Bell.

H. Rider Haggard, in "Nada the Lily":

People learned how to die then and not make a noise about it. What does it
matter? They would have been dead now anyway. It does not matter; nothing
matters, except being born. That is a mistake, my father.

Take only a man whom you can love, and be faithful to him alone, for thus
shall a woman find happiness.

The world is a thorny wilderness, my daughter, and its thorns are watered
with a rain of blood, and we wander in our wretchedness like lost
travellers in a mist; nor do I know why our feet are set on this
wandering.

He who cries to kings for justice sometimes finds death.

There are no ghosts there. The ghosts live only in their cowardly hearts.

Bold looks melt the hearts of foes.

It is the bold thrower who oftenest wins.

This, Umslopogaas, is the way of witches, be they of stone or flesh--when
you draw near to them they change their shape.

We think that we can shape our fate, but it is fate that shapes us, and
nothing befalls except fate will it.

All men, white and black, seek that which is beautiful, and when at last
they find it, then it passes swiftly away, or, perchance, it is their
death. For great joy and great beauty are winged, nor will they sojourn
long upon the earth.

She who hides her beauty often seems the loveliest.

Time flies fast when blows fall thick.

***** End H. Rider Haggard, in "Nada the Lily".

Today's map of Africa is an artifact of vanished colonial empires.
--National Geographic.

Colonial powers carved up Africa with little regard to ethnic, religious,
or tribal boundaries. --National Geographic.

The great melting pot of America, the place where we are all made
Americans of (sic), is the public school; where men of every race and of
every origin and of every station of life send their children, or ought to
send their children; and where, being mixed together, they are all infused
with the American spirit, and developed into the American man and the
American woman. --Woodrow Wilson, 1913.

In general, if there is any skill which varies from man to man, then that
skill will be more developed in nations having larger populations, and
therefore greater diversity among its citizens.  Because of this, the
likelihood of any smaller nation beating any larger nation at any game
requiring such a skill is small.  The best hope of smaller nations engaged
in combat with larger nations is therefore to avoid any contest requiring
such skills which the larger nation will be able to perfect by selection
or training, and to focus upon unexpected strategies and methods.  And
since the selecting and developing of skills require time, even equally
matched nations are able to benefit greatly from the surprise application
of new strategies and methods requiring the application of hitherto
undeveloped skills. --C. Devin.

H. Rider Haggard in "Marie":

The future must take care of itself.  We cannot control it, and its events
are not in our hand.

What is it that makes marriage in the sight of God?  It is that male and
female should declare themselves man and wife before all folk, and live as
such.

But what will happen between the storm of the morning and the peace of the
night?

***** End H. Rider Haggard in "Marie".

H. Rider Haggard in "Child of Storm":

I dare say that a time may come when the perfected generations--if
Civilisation, as we understand it, really has a future and any such should
be allowed to enjoy their hour on the World--will look back to us as
crude, half-developed creatures whose only merit was that we handed on the
flame of life.

At one end of the ladder is the ape-man, and at the other, as we hope, the
angel.

In him (the savage), nakedly and forcibly expressed, we see those eternal
principles which direct our human destiny.

When your Watcher (God) sowed my seed (created me)--if thus he did--he
sowed the dreams that are a part of me also, and I shall only bring him
back his own, with the flower and the fruit by way of interest.

By what exact right do we call people like the Zulus savages?

Now, let him who is highly cultured take up a stone to throw at the poor,
untaught Zulu, which I notice the most dissolute and drunken wretch of a
white man is often ready to do, generally because he covets his land, his
labour, or whatever else may be his.

A clever man or woman among the people whom we call savages is in all
essentials very much the same as a clever man or woman anywhere else.

I will have nothing to do with the massacre of women and children, which
must happen in an assault.

It is not wise to confuse natives by giving too many orders.

What a tricky and uncomfortable thing is conscience, that nearly always
begins to trouble us at the moment of, or after, the event, not before,
when it might be of some use.

Truly the paths of violence were profitable!

I did not make these forces, Macumazahn; I did but guide them towards a
great end.

***** End H. Rider Haggard in "Child of Storm".

The United States has a sliding scale of human rights and a sliding scale
of human values. --Amnesty International official speaking about Turkish
state terror.

H. Rider Haggard., in "Finished":

It is the lot of life, Heda, that we should lose what we love.

Zikali was never one to suffer fools.

We know what the white men think, so there is no need to ask Macumazahn to
sing us an old song.

What man is there that a veiled woman does not interest?  Indeed, does not
half the interest of woman lie in the fact that her nature is veiled from
man, in short a mystery which he is always seeking to solve at his peril,
and I might add, never succeeds in solving?

***** End H. Rider Haggard., in "Finished".

The Path of the King, by John Buchan:

The things we call aristocracies and reigning houses are the last places
to look for masterful men. They began strongly, but they have been too
long in possession. They have been cosseted and comforted and the devil
has gone out of their blood.

John Buchan in "The Moon Endureth":

Our most honest convictions are not the children of pure reason, but of
temperament, environment, necessity, and interest.  Most
of us take sides in life and forget the one we reject.

***** End John Buchan in "The Moon Endureth".

The savage (Andaman) Papuans, who are in the lowest scale of humanity, but
are not, as has been asserted, cannibals, did not make their appearance.
--Around the World in 80 Days.

Science finds, industry applies, man conforms. --1933 Chicago World's Fair
slogan.

How can I know the meaning of hopelessness as long as I still have any
glimmer of hope? --Devin.

How can good flow from my being except I be crushed by those things I most
love?  But if I be broken and crushed, then from my being will flow the
purest essence of that humanity which is in me, and I will be able to
create as I have never created before. --Devin.

If I can manage to experience all of these implacable terrors and yet to
remain the child that I was, then I shall have become a truly great man.
--Devin.

If people are willing to perpetrate and suffer the cruelest of physical
mutilations in order to conform to social norms, then it is clear that
they will do the same or worse things to their spirits for the same cause.
Is this not why the bright eyes of children become the dull eyes of
adults? --Devin.

Genius is found among certain peoples at certain times, but madness is the
essential characteristic of all peoples at all times. --Devin.

Beware of convictions, because history says that people can be convinced
to do anything the human mind can imagine. --Devin.

Beware of what you are taught, because history says that the things you
are taught can kill you. --Devin.

The best defense is a good offense. --Vince Lombardi.

The Time Machine, by Herbert George Wells [1898]:

where violence comes but rarely and off-spring are secure, there is less
necessity--indeed there is no necessity--for an efficient family, and the
specialization of the sexes with reference to their children's needs
disappears.

There is a sentiment arising, and it will grow, against connubial
jealousy, against fierce maternity, against passion of all sorts;
unnecessary things now, and things that make us uncomfortable, savage
survivals, discords in a refined and pleasant life.

Under the new conditions of perfect comfort and security, that restless
energy that with us is strength would become weakness.

This has ever been the fate of energy in security; it takes to art and to
eroticism, and then come languor and decay.

We are kept keen on the grindstone of pain and necessity.

Intellectual versatility is the compensation for change, danger, and
trouble.

Nature never appeals to intelligence until habit and instinct are useless.
There is no intelligence where there is no change and no need of change.
Only those animals partake of intelligence that have to meet a huge
variety of needs and dangers.

***** End The Time Machine.

The tragedy of social interaction is that we are usually judged not by
what we are but by what people like us are commonly expected to be.
--Devin.

We are judged not for the mettle that is in us, but for the mettle that is
absent in our peers. --Devin.

We are judged to be whatever the movies and the newspapers stereotype
people who look like us to be. --Devin.

My primary struggle has always been against the petty bonds my peers have
thrown upon me in the name of religion, nationality, propriety, social
standing, social values, or whatever. --Devin.

A primary preoccupation of two-legged asses is to discover ways of making
others look like asses. --Devin.

Simple people do dote upon complexity and loath simple theorems capable of
collapsing the complex structures they devise. --Devin.

Beauty, when incorrectly cultivated, leads quickly to monkeyhood. --Devin.

Truth arises more readily from error than from confusion. --Francis Bacon.

Human beings are their own worst enemies. --(cold fusion) Eugene Malov.

They were not interested in truth.  They were interested in a preconceived
notion. --Eugene Malov.

The present well being of mankind should predominate over religious
considerations in civil affairs and public education. --From an AHD
definition of secularism.

Christianity has yet to prove itself the religion of love; at present it
is the religion of exclusion. --Edna Lyall, in "We Two."

Mark Twain, in "What Is Man?"

No man ever originates anything.  All his thoughts, all his impulses,
come FROM THE OUTSIDE.

A man's brain is so constructed that IT CAN ORIGINATE NOTHING WHATSOEVER.  It can only use material obtained OUTSIDE.  It is merely a machine; and it works automatically, not by will-power.  IT HAS NO COMMAND OVER ITSELF, ITS OWNER HAS NO COMMAND OVER IT.

If Shakespeare had been born and bred on a barren and unvisited rock in the ocean his mighty intellect would have had no OUTSIDE MATERIAL to work with, and could have invented none; and NO OUTSIDE INFLUENCES, teachings, moldings, persuasions, inspirations, of a valuable sort, and could have invented none; and so Shakespeare would have produced nothing.

A man is never anything but what his outside influences have made him.

The only impulse that ever moves a person to do anything is the impulse to CONTENT HIS OWN SPIRIT and WIN ITS APPROVAL. --Devin paraphrase.

No SINGLE outside influence can make a man do a thing which is at war with
his training.  The most it can do is to start his mind on a new tract and
open it to the reception of NEW influences--as in the case of Ignatius
Loyola.

the mind is independent of the man.

I think the mind is purely a machine, a thoroughly independent machine, an
automatic machine.

If I would leave my mind to its own devices it would find things to think
about without any of my help, and thus convince me that it was a machine,
an automatic machine, set in motion by exterior influences, and as
independent of me as it could be if it were in some one else's skull.

There are none but temporary Truth-Seekers.  A permanent one is a human
impossibility.  As soon as the Seeker finds what he is thoroughly
convinced is the Truth, he seeks no further, but gives the rest of his
days to hunting junk to patch it and caulk it and prop it with, and make
it weather-proof and keep it from caving in on him.  Hence the
Presbyterian remains a Presbyterian, the Mohammedan a Mohammedan, the
Spiritualist a Spiritualist, the Democrat a Democrat, the Republican a
Republican, the Monarchist a Monarchist; and if a humble, earnest, and
sincere Seeker after Truth should find it in the proposition that the moon
is made of green cheese nothing could ever budge him from that position;
for he is nothing but an automatic machine, and must obey the laws of his
construction. --Devin paraphrase.

I think that the rat's mind and the man's mind are the same machine, but
of unequal capacities--like yours and Edison's; like the African pygmy's
and Homer's; like the Bushman's and Bismarck's.

My idea of the meaningless term "instinct" is, that it is merely PETRIFIED
THOUGHT; solidified and made inanimate by habit; thought which was once
alive and awake, but it become unconscious--walks in its sleep, so to
speak.

To me, Man is a machine, made up of many mechanisms, the moral and mental
ones acting automatically in accordance with the impulses of an interior
Master who is built out of born-temperament and an accumulation of
multitudinous outside influences and trainings; a machine whose ONE
function is to secure the spiritual contentment of the Master, be his
desires good or be they evil; a machine whose Will is absolute and must be
obeyed, and always IS obeyed.

Nations do not THINK, they only FEEL. They get their feelings at second
hand through their temperaments, not their brains.  A nation can be
brought-- by force of circumstances, not argument--to reconcile itself to
ANY KIND OF GOVERNMENT OR RELIGION THAT CAN BE DEVISED; in time it will
fit itself to the required conditions; later, it will prefer them and will
fiercely fight for them.

I see no great difference between a man and a watch, except that the man
is conscious and the watch isn't, and the man TRIES to plan things and the
watch doesn't.

No man has a wholly undiseased mind.  In one way or another all men are
mad. --Devin paraphrase.

Many are mad for money.  When this madness is in a mild form it is
harmless and the man passes for sane; but when it develops powerfully and
takes possession of the man, it can make him cheat, rob, and kill; and
when he has got his fortune and lost it again it can land him in the
asylum or the suicide's coffin.

Many are mad for money.  When this madness is in a mild form it is
harmless and the man passes for sane; but when it develops powerfully and
takes possession of the man, it can make him cheat, rob, and kill; and
when he has got his fortune and lost it again it can land him in the
asylum or the suicide's coffin.  Love is a madness; if thwarted it
develops fast; it can grow to a frenzy of despair and make an otherwise
sane and highly gifted prince, like Rudolph, throw away the crown of an
empire and snuff out his own life.  All the whole list of desires,
predilections, aversions, ambitions, passions, cares, griefs, regrets,
remorses, are incipient madness, and ready to grow, spread, and consume,
when the occasion comes.  There are no healthy minds, and nothing saves
any man but accident--the accident of not having his malady put to the
supreme test.  One of the commonest forms of madness is the desire to be
noticed, the pleasure derived from being noticed.  Perhaps it is not
merely common, but universal.  In its mildest form it doubtless is
universal.  Every child is pleased at being noticed; many intolerable
children put in their whole time in distressing and idiotic effort to
attract the attention of visitors; boys are always "showing off";
apparently all men and women are glad and grateful when they find that
they have done a thing which has lifted them for a moment out of obscurity
and caused wondering talk.  This common madness can develop, by nurture,
into a hunger for notoriety in one, for fame in another.  It is this
madness for being noticed and talked about which has invented kingship and
the thousand other dignities, and tricked them out with pretty and showy
fineries; it has made kings pick one another's pockets, scramble for one
another's crowns and estates, slaughter one another's subjects; it has
raised up prize-fighters, and poets, and villages mayors, and little and
big politicians, and big and little charity-founders, and bicycle
champions, and banditti chiefs, and frontier desperadoes, and Napoleons.
Anything to get notoriety; anything to set the village, or the township,
or the city, or the State, or the nation, or the planet shouting,
"Look--there he goes--that is the man!"  And in five minutes' time, at no
cost of brain, or labor, or genius this mangy Italian tramp has beaten
them all, transcended them all, outstripped them all, for in time their
names will perish; but by the friendly help of the insane newspapers and
courts and kings and historians, his is safe and live and thunder in the
world all down the ages as long as human speech shall endure!  Oh, if it
were not so tragic how ludicrous it would be!

In that day (Marion, Missouri, 1845), for a man to speak out openly and
proclaim himself an enemy of negro slavery was simply to proclaim himself
a madman. For he was blaspheming against the holiest thing known to a
Missourian, and could NOT be in his right mind.

It is the atmosphere we are reared in that determines how our inclinations
and aspirations shall tend.

When even the brightest mind in our world has been trained up from
childhood in a superstition of any kind, it will never be possible for
that mind, in its maturity, to examine sincerely, dispassionately, and
conscientiously any evidence or any circumstance which shall seem to cast
a doubt upon the validity of that superstition.

Whenever we have been furnished a fetish, and have been taught to believe
in it, and love it and worship it, and refrain from examining it, there is
no evidence, howsoever clear and strong, that can persuade us to withdraw
from it our loyalty and our devotion.

I cannot call to mind a single instance where I have ever been irreverent,
except towards the things which were sacred to other people.

King David of Scotland . . . under color of religion caused his followers
to deal most barbarously with the English.  They ripped open women, tossed
children on the points of spears, butchered priests at the altars, and,
cutting off the heads from the images on crucifixes, placed them on the
bodies of the slain, while in exchange they fixed on the crucifixes the
heads of their victims.  Wherever the Scots came, there was the same scene
of horror and cruelty:  women shrieking, old men lamenting, amid the
groans of the dying and the despair of the living.

But the English got the victory.

Then the chief of the men of Lothian fell, pierced by an arrow, and all
his followers were put to flight.  For the Almighty was offended at them
and their strength was rent like a cobweb.

Offended at them for what?  For committing those fearful butcheries?  No,
for that was the common custom on both sides, and not open to
criticism.
***** End "What Is Man?"

When you talked about notching ears and slitting noses I judged that that
was your own embellishment, because white men don't take that sort of
revenge. But an Injun! That's a different matter altogether.  --Mark
Twain, in "Adventures of Tom Sawyer."

I find that principles have no real force except when one is well fed.
--Mark Twain, in "Extracts from Adam's Diary."

*****       A CONNECTICUT YANKEE IN KING ARTHUR'S COURT, by MARK TWAIN:

Arguments have no chance against petrified training; they wear it as
little as the waves wear a cliff.

No people in the world ever did achieve their freedom by goody- goody talk
and moral suasion: it being immutable law that all revolutions that will
succeed must BEGIN in blood, whatever may answer afterward.

Old habit of mind is one of the toughest things to get away from in the
world. It transmits itself like physical form and feature.

For a man in those days to have had an idea that his ancestors hadn't had
would have brought him under suspicion of being illegitimate.

Men write many fine and plausible arguments in support of monarchy, but
the fact remains that where every man in a State has a vote, brutal laws
are impossible.

People long debased by monarchy are poor material for a republic, yet no
nation is ever incapable of self-government, self-government always being
better than the alternative when it is really self-government. --Devin
paraphrase.

The master minds of all nations, in all ages, have sprung in affluent
multitude from the mass of the nation, and from the mass of the nation
only -- not from its privileged classes; and so, no matter what the
nation's intellectual grade was; whether high or low, the bulk of its
ability was in the long ranks of its nameless and its poor, and so it
never saw the day that it had not the material in abundance whereby to
govern itself.

Which is to assert an always self-proven fact: that even the best governed
and most free and most enlightened monarchy is still behind the best
condition attainable by its people; and that the same is true of kindred
governments of lower grades, all the way down to the lowest.

A man is a man, at bottom. Whole ages of abuse and oppression cannot crush
the manhood clear out of him. Whoever thinks it a mis- take is himself
mistaken. Yes, there is plenty good enough material for a republic in the
most degraded people that ever existed -- even the Russians; plenty of
manhood in them -- even in the Germans -- if one could but force it out of
its timid and suspicious privacy, to overthrow and trample in the mud any
throne that ever was set up and any nobility that ever supported it. We
should see certain things yet, let us hope and believe.

***** End "A Connecticut Yankee"

FROM HIS CRADLE TO HIS GRAVE A MAN NEVER DOES A SINGLE THING WHICH HAS ANY FIRST AND FOREMOST OBJECT BUT ONE--TO SECURE PEACE OF MIND, SPIRITUAL COMFORT, FOR HIMSELF.

***** The Vision Splendid, by William M. Raine:

The following are some Devin paraphrases:

The world sees things as being right because these things have come to be accepted.

Some minds refuse to accept the inevitable conclusions to which their own processes push them.

There is a courage that comes from intellectual honesty.

Some minds are unable to lie to themselves.

Age alone lends sanctity to the ghosts of dead yesterdays that rule today.

Whoso would be a man must be a non-conformist. He who would gather immortal palms (prizes) must not be hindered by the name of goodness, but must explore if it be goodness. Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own min." --Emerson.

The showier gifts go further than scholarship.

Some know when to defer and when to ride roughshod to the end.

Some have a gift for absorbing new ideas superficially and dressing them up smartly.

Most of us have mixed motives.

Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel. --Johnson.

James K.'s biggest achievement will always be James K.

He's always sitting to himself for his own portrait.

Respectability is the most damning thing on earth.

A fellow ought to do well whatever he undertakes to do.

Some are not strongly fortified with a sense of humor.

The profs don't like strange, unsettling notions.

If you must have ideas, then soft pedal them.

Be sure to soft pedal your ideas unless they happen to be accepted ones.

A caste system has been growing up in America.

Why poverty at all?

Some men are willing to live in plenty while their brothers are in poverty.  They exploit those weaker than themselves to help them get along.

Some believe that it is not right to set one's opinion up against those who know better.

Lies need only age to make them respectable. Given that, they become traditions and are put upon a pedestal. Then the gentlest word for him who attacks them is traitor.

Great corporations finance the political machinery that permits vice and corruption in order to secure special priveleges.

Between the American people and an independent press stand the big advertisers, which promote conservatism, an unfair point of view, and a slant in both news recording and news interpretation.

A mind not anchored to conventions is forever asking questions and seeking answers.

Preventable poverty stares at us from all sides.

Our social fabric is thrown together in the most haphazard fashion, without scientific organization, with the greatest waste, in such a way that non-producers win all the prizes while the toilers do without.

Art, learning, beauty, and truth ought all to walk hand in hand with our daily lives; but this is impossible so long as disorder and cruelty and disease are in the world unnecessarily.

There is no way out of unnecessary disorder, disease, and cruelty which does not offer an equality of opportunity refused by the whole cruel system of today.

Individuals are effects of systems.

Some minds move among a group of orthodox and accepted ideas, and always view every new idea as if it were a time bomb set to go off shortly.  They not only suspicion new ideas: they actually fear them.

Society wants to go along comfortably without being disturbed by anything unpleasant or capable of harrowing the feelings.  It wants to hear as little about the distresses of other people as possible.

All of life's a compromise, a horrible unholy giving up as unpractical all the best things. It's a denial of love, of Christ, of God.

A man's a slave so long as his means of livelihood is dependent on some other man.

Men who get on don't question the fundamentals of our social system.

The cure for the evils of Democracy is more Democracy. --De Tocqueville.

Nobody is so blind to the future as practical politicians and business men.

The extremes of virtue and vice find common ground when the blasphemer raises his voice against intrenched capital.

There's no moral distinction between the man who has paid and the man who hasn't paid for his sins toward society. There is good and there is bad in all of us, closely intertwined, knit together into the very warp and woof of our lives. We're all good and we're all bad.

Let a man bow down to the dead hand of custom and he can never again be true to what he thinks and knows.

Communities are loaded to the guards with respectable cowards.

The trouble with our whole manmade world is that the game is played with loaded dice.  The cards have been stacked against the poor, the weak, and the unfortunate.

A tremendous percentage is in favor of the crook, the scoundrel, the smug robber of industry by whom the hands are dealt.

Legislatures, Congress, the courts, all the machinery of government, answer to the crack of the whip wielded by Big Business.

Until we mutiny against the timidity of our times Democracy and Prosperity will be dreams.

In that new world which is to be MEN and not THINGS will be supreme, property a means and not an end.

Americans are eager for hero worship.

"Nobody is big enough to kill slander.

Many business men of every community are respectable cowards.

Power is to the strong.

In the money centers one can't respect the rights of one's fellows and win.

People will soon forget how you got money when you have money.

We've got to forge the tools of freedom before we can use them.

Great changes are most easily brought about under the old forms. Men's minds in the mass move slowly. They can see only a little truth at a time.

The single greatest crime is poverty, beside which all others pale into insignificance.

Poverty stamps out hope and love and aspiration, all that is fine and true in life.

The Juggernaut of progress is forever wasting humanity.

There is a kind of slavery that flourishes under the very forms of freedom.   All the product of labor is taken from it except enough to sustain a mere animal existence.

Given proper conditions, men will rise by lending a hand to the unfortunate instead of trampling each other down.

The whole social fabric is made up of lies, compromises, injustice. The only reason it has hung together so long is that people have been trained to think along certain lines like show animals.

Things improve as men's hearts grow slowly wiser and better.

You can't change men's hearts until you change the conditions under which they live.

The plain truth is better than the tricks of a demagogue.

The price of any success worth while is paid for in the failure of others.

Men who do a great work for the public are entitled to great rewards.

Some men haven't the slightest respect for law merely as law. When it's on their side they're a stickler for it.  When it isn't they say nothing, but brush it aside as if it did not exist. In either case they get what they want.  In either case, they get what they want.

Results are always more important than any number of theories.

Anybody can throw mud--and some of it is bound to stick.

Our wealthy class has no social consciousness.

He thinks the submerged are lost because they are thriftless and that all would be right if they wouldn't drink.

I suppose all new ideas are likely to make trouble.

Man bursts the chains that his own hands have made;   Hurls down the blind, fierce gods that in blind years He fashioned, and a power upon them laid   To bruise his heart and shake his soul with fears. --Edwin Markham.

We make our own poverty.  God and nature have nothing to do with it.

Society cannot change its nature in a day.

We must recognize how interdependent we are and work together for the common good.

***** end The Vision Splendid, by William M. Raine.

Only the proud can be truly humble, as only the strong may know the fullness of gentleness. --Jack London in "The Valley of the Moon."

They always played too big a game and missed the thousand little chances right under their noses. --Devin paraphrase of Jack London.

"Huh! We ain't Chinks. We're white folks. Does a Chink ever want to ride a horse, hell-bent for election an' havin' a good time of it? Did you ever see a Chink go swimmin' out through the breakers at Carmel?--or boxin', wrestlin', runnin' an' jumpin'for the sport of it? Did you ever see a Chink take a shotgun on his arm, tramp six miles, an' come back happy with one measly rabbit? What does a Chink do? Work his damned head off. That's all he's good for. To hell with work, if that's the whole of the game--an' I've done my share of work, an' I can work alongside of any of 'em. But what's the good? If they's one thing I've learned solid since you an' me hit the road, Saxon, it is that work's the least part of life. God!--if it was all of life I couldn't cut my throat quick enough to get away from it. --Jack London.

What's the good of life if they ain't no fun? --Jack London.

A man can't fight without a good second to take care of him. --JL.

Melancholy remark made when Einstein faced death: For us believing physicists, the distinction between the past, the present, and the future is only an illusion. --Albert Einstein.

Persons who have been subjected to unfairness, maltreatment, and hardship are not apt to escape developing means of coping such as lying, scheming, disloyalty, betrayal, stealing, etc., in order to have survived. --Devin.

The Evil Genius, by Wilkie Collins:

Hardened by a life of drudgery, under conditions of perpetual scolding, the servant stood her ground, and recovered the use of her tongue.

I remember what a life she has led, and I ask myself if any human creature could have suffered as that girl has suffered without being damaged by it. Among those damnable people--I beg your pardon, my dear; Mr. Norman sometimes used strong language, and it breaks out of me now and then--the good qualities of that unfortunate young person can _not_ have always resisted the horrid temptations and contaminations about her. Hundreds of times she must have had deceit forced on her; she must have lied, through ungovernable fear; she must have been left (at a critical time in her life, mind!) with no more warning against the insidious advances of the passions than--than--I'm repeating what Mr. Presty said of a niece of his own, who went to a bad school at Paris; and I don't quite remember what comparisons that eloquent man used when he was excited.

In one form or another, the horrid necessity for deceit had followed, and was still following, that first, worst act of falsehood--the elopement from Mount Morven.

"The good qualities of that unfortunate young creature" (she had said) "can _not_ have always resisted the horrid temptations and contaminations about her. Hundreds of times she must have lied through ungovernable fear."

Opening the door for his companion, Linley paused before he followed her in. A girl brought up by a careful mother would have understood and appreciated his hesitation; she would have concealed any feeling of embarrassment that might have troubled her at the moment, and would have asked him to come back and let her know when the rising of the sun began. Neglected by her mother, worse than neglected by her aunt, Sydney's fearless ignorance put a question which would have lowered the poor girl cruelly in the estimation of a stranger. "Are you going to leave me here by myself?" she asked. 'Why don't you come in?"  Linley thought of his visit to the school, and remembered the detestable mistress. He excused Sydney; he felt for her. She held the door open for him. Sure of himself, he entered the summer-house.

***** End The Evil Genius, by Wilkie Collins.

Jack London, in The Human Drift:

Man early discovered death.  As soon as his evolution permitted, he made himself better devices for killing than the old natural ones of fang and claw.  He devoted himself to the invention of killing devices before he discovered fire or manufactured for himself religion.  And to this day, his finest creative energy and technical skill are devoted to the same old task of making better and ever better killing weapons.

more rose by the sword than perished by it, else man would not to-day be over-running the world in such huge swarms.

they who did not rise by the sword did not rise at all.

by killing, incessant killing, by making a shambles of the planet, those ape-like creatures have developed even into you and me.

More destructive of life than war, is industry.

In all civilised countries great masses of people are crowded into slums and labour-ghettos, where disease festers, vice corrodes, and famine is chronic, and where they die more swiftly and in greater numbers than do the soldiers in our modern wars.

The safest place for a working man is in the army.  The common soldier on the front line of battle has a better chance for survival than the laborer at home. --Devin paraphrase.

man is exceedingly fecund and very tough.

While man's increasing efficiency of food-production, combined with colonisation of whole virgin continents, has for generations given the apparent lie to Malthus' mathematical statement of the Law of Population, nevertheless the essential significance of his doctrine remains and cannot be challenged.

no matter how rapidly subsistence increases, population is certain to catch up with it.

The only reason that the Yellow River periodically drowns millions of Chinese is that there is no other land for those millions to farm.

It is more expensive to be ready to kill than it used to be to do the killing.

"The abysmal fecundity" of life has not altered.  Given the food, and life will increase.

Even if, as of old, man should wander hungrily, sword in hand, slaying and being slain, the relief would be only temporary.  Even if one race alone should hew down the last survivor of all the other races, that one race, drifting the world around, would saturate the planet with its own life and again press against subsistence.

in the saturated populations of the future, when life is suffocating in the pressure against subsistence, that new, and ever new, hosts of destroying micro- organisms will continue to arise and fling themselves upon earth- crowded man to give him room.

Of what ledger-account is the tiny life of man in a vastness where stars snuff out like candles and great suns blaze for a time-tick of eternity and are gone?

Socialism promises, for a time, to give all men, women, and children all they want to eat, and to enable them to eat all they want as often as they want. Subsistence will be pushed back, temporarily, an exceedingly long way.  In consequence, the flood of life will rise like a tidal wave.  There will be more marriages and more children born.  The enforced sterility that obtains to-day for many millions, will no longer obtain.  Nor will the fecund millions in the slums and labour-ghettos, who to-day die of all the ills due to chronic underfeeding and overcrowding, and who die with their fecundity largely unrealised, die in that future day when the increased food-getting efficiency of socialism will give them all they want to eat.  It is undeniable that population will increase prodigiously-just as it has increased prodigiously during the last few centuries, following upon the increase in food-getting efficiency.  The magnitude of population in that future day is well nigh unthinkable.  But there is only so much land and water on the surface of the earth.  Man, despite his marvellous accomplishments, will never be able to increase the diameter of the planet.  The old days of virgin continents will be gone.  The habitable planet, from ice-cap to ice-cap, will be inhabited.  And in the matter of food-getting, as in everything else, man is only finite.  Undreamed-of efficiencies in food-getting may be achieved, but, soon or late, man will find himself face to face with Malthus' grim law.

if a man is a born sailor, and has gone to the school of the sea, never in all his life can he get away from the sea again.

***** End The Human Drift.

Jack London in The Jacket:

Our dreams are grotesquely compounded of the things we know.

Intelligent men are cruel.  Stupid men are monstrously cruel.

strong minds are never docile.

The stupid men, the fearful men, the men ungifted with passionate rightness and fearless championship--these are the men who make model prisoners.

Memory is the thing one forgets with. --Devin paraphrase.

To be able to forget means sanity.  Incessantly to remember, means obsession, lunacy.

men are killed in prisons today as they have always been killed since the first prisons were built by men.

The Asiatic is a cruel beast, and delights in spectacles of human suffering.

In general, any woman has fundamental charm for any man.  When this charm becomes particular, then we call it love.

Man is different from woman.  She is close to the immediate and knows only the need of instant things.  We know honour above her honour, and pride beyond her wildest guess of pride.  Our eyes are far-visioned for star-gazing, while her eyes see no farther than the solid earth beneath her feet, the lover's breast upon her breast, the infant lusty in the hollow of her arm.

Unlike the other animals, man was for ever gazing at the stars.  Many gods he created in his own image and in the images of his fancy.

It required man, with his imagination, aided by his mastery of matter, to invent the deadly sins.  The lesser animals, the other animals, are incapable of sin.

***** End "The Jacket."

Jack London, in "The Iron Heel:"

With the introduction of machinery and the factory system in the latter part of the eighteenth century, the great mass of the working people was separated from the land.

The press of the United States?  It is a parasitic growth that battens on the capitalist class.  Its function is to serve the established by moulding public opinion, and right well it serves it.

The sun of the small capitalists is setting.  It will never rise again.

Combination is stronger than competition.

It is combination versus competition, a thousand centuries long struggle, in which competition has always been worsted.  Whoso enlists on the side of competition perishes.

the tide of evolution never flows backward.  It flows on and on, and it flows from competition to combination,

Social evolution is exasperatingly slow,

Heaven and hell may be the prime factors of zeal in the religion of a fanatic; but for the great majority of the religious, heaven and hell are incidental to right and wrong.  Love of the right, desire for the right, unhappiness with anything less than the right--in short, right conduct, is the prime factor of religion.

The oligarchs believed their ethics, in spite of the fact that biology and evolution gave them the lie;

Whenever strong proletarians asserted their strength in the midst of the mass, they were drawn away from the mass by the oligarchs and given better conditions by being made members of the labor castes or of the Mercenaries.  Thus discontent was lulled and the proletariat robbed of its natural leaders.

Choice of work was denied them.  Likewise was denied them the right to move from place to place, or the right to bear or possess arms.  They were not land serfs like the farmers.

***** End "The Iron Heel"

Jack London in "War of the Classes:"

the warm human, fallible and frail, sordid and petty, absurd and contradictory, even grotesque, and yet, withal, shot through with flashes and glimmerings of something finer and God-like, with here and there sweetnesses of service and unselfishness, desires for goodness, for renunciation and sacrifice, and with conscience, stern and awful, at times blazingly imperious, demanding the right,--the right, nothing more nor less than the right.

people are prone to believe in the reality of the things they think ought to be so.

This comes of the cheery optimism which is innate with life itself;

he cares more for men and women and little children than for imaginary geographical lines.

Shoot the bolts and drop the bars in place. --Jack London.

The existence of anything is sufficient vindication of its fitness to exist. --Jack London, pooh poohing the attitudes of popular culture.

They think they think, and such thinkless creatures are the arbiters of the lives of the few who really think. --Jack London.

Every portal to success in literature is guarded by those watch-dogs, the failures in literature.  The editors, sub-editors, associate editors, most of them, and the manuscript-readers for the magazines and book- publishers, most of them, nearly all of them, are men who wanted to write and who have failed. --Jack London.

Too much is written by the men who can't write about the men who do write. --Jack London.

And now, what do you know of matter, according to your own positive science?  You know it only by its phenomena, its appearances.  You are aware only of its changes, or of such changes in it as cause changes in your consciousness. --Jack London.

he had an ideal, namely, of achieving that excellence of the perfect reporter who is able to make something - even a great deal - out of nothing. --Jack London.

***** End Martin Eden.

the cunning chemistry of a plant urges it toward the sun. --Jack London.

He oppressed the weak, but he respected the strong.

it is on power that godhead rests.

it is upon feeling, more often than thinking, that animals act.

All life likes power.

***** End White Fang.

she knew no more about the world than I do of the fourth dimension, or the fifth. --Jack London.

the unpunished and shameless grafts of a thousand cities perpetrated by the spidery and vermin-like creatures of the machines. --Jack London.

Then there were the fools who took the organized bunco game seriously, honoring and respecting it.  They were easy game for the others, who saw clearly and knew the bunco game for what it was.

whether it was a sack of potatoes, a grand piano, or a seven-passenger touring car, it came into being only by the performance of work.  Where the bunco came in was in the distribution of these things after labor had created them. --Jack London.

but in his heart he was wondering about God, that allowed so many suckers to be born and that did not break up the gambling game by which they were robbed from the cradle to the grave. --Jack London.

computer systems are increasingly set up to give absentee operators control over the people actually using the computer system. --Richard Stallman, 1996.

Let us honor the wifehood of our native land. It is the fountain of all truth and righteousness, and if the fountain should become impure, all is lost. --John N. Reynolds in "The Twin Hells."

When a woman falls she generally descends to the lowest plane. --John N. Reynolds.

It used to appear to me that the small number of cultivated, rich and idle men, of whom I was one, composed the whole of humanity, and that the millions and millions of other men who had lived and are still living were not in reality men at all. --Count Tolstoi.

I can look forward to no blissful prospect for a race of men that, under the dominion of the State, at the cost of all freedom of action, at the cost, indeed, of their own true selves, shall enjoy, if one will, a fair abundance of the material blessings of life. --Benjamin Cardozo.

Altruism cannot be the rule of life.  Its logical result is the dwarfing of the individual. --Benjamin Cardozo, 1898.

An offence to our humanity, and to our prated love of liberty, and to our God. --Richard Harding Davis.

All the suave insolence of the Oriental. --Richard Harding Davis.

there are thoughts that will haunt us in spite of ourselves, and to which it is in vain to say, Begone, and let me be merry. --Sir Walter Scott.

He has the more need to have those about him who are unscrupulous in his service, and who, because they know that his fall will overwhelm and crush them, must wager both blood and brain, soul and body, in order to keep him aloft. --Sir Walter Scott.

He that is head of a party is but a boat on a wave, that raises not itself, but is moved upward by the billow which it floats upon.

The Romish was a comfortable faith; Lambourne spoke true in that.  A man had but to follow his thrift by such ways as offered--tell his beads, hear a mass, confess, and be absolved.

A woman--to be brief--IS a woman, and changes her lovers like her suit of ribands, with no better reason than mere fantasy.

Do we not know one another?  I believe thee to be so perfect--so very perfect--in the mystery of cheating, that, having imposed upon all mankind, thou hast at length in some measure imposed upon thyself, and without ceasing to dupe others, hast become a species of dupe to thine own imagination.

No one but thyself could have gulled thee; and thou hast gulled the whole brotherhood of the Rosy Cross besides--none so deep in the mystery as thou.

The unfortunate Countess of Leicester had, from her infancy upwards, been treated by those around her with indulgence as unbounded as injudicious.

That fatal error which ruined the happiness of her life had its origin in the mistaken kindness that had spared her childhood the painful but most necessary lesson of submission and self-command.

This aching of the heart, this languishing after a shadow which has lost all the gaiety of its colouring, this dwelling on the remembrance of a dream from which we have been long roughly awakened, is the weakness of a gentle and generous heart.

He himself at length became sensible of the necessity of forcing other objects upon his mind.

Moral monsters who contrive to lull to sleep the remorse of their own bosoms, and are drugged into moral insensibility by atheism.

The wisest clerks are not the wisest men. --Chaucer.

There was a timid disposition to withdraw from her companion, which external gesture in females often indicates exactly the opposite tendency in the secret mind.

It is the nature of persons in her disorder ... to be ever most inveterate in their spleen against those whom, in their better moments, they hold nearest and dearest.

The moon is at the fullest, and men's brains are working like yeast.

The party that loves most is always most willing to acknowledge the greater fault.

Be like a true English gentleman, knight, and earl, who holds that truth is the foundation of honour, and that honour is dear to him as the breath of his nostrils.

Be yourself, superior to those storms of passion which wreck inferior minds.

Let her be as if she had not been--let her pass from your memory, as unworthy of ever having held a place there.

The light yet strong buckler and the short two-edged sword, the use of which had made them (the Romans) victors of the world.

The fanatical zeal which animated the followers of the Cross and of the Crescent against each other.

When you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there. --Friedman.

I cannot strike where there is neither fear nor resistance.

The bureaucracy overcame even common sense. --Steven Quail.

No sure dungeon but the grave.

The sage fears nothing but Heaven, but ever expects from wicked men the worst which they can do.

Fortune may raise up or abase the ordinary mortal, but the sage and the soldier should have minds beyond her control.

Love exists not without hope.

He (the hound) hath a share of man's intelligence, but no share of man's falsehood.

Fancy being idle when one has such a little time to live. --Rider Haggard.

The only thing to do is to work and stifle thought. --Rider Haggard.

Death cannot be worse than life is for most of us. --Rider Haggard.

In your impatience you have flown to learning for refuge, and it has completed your overthrow, for it has induced you to reject as non-existent all that you cannot understand. Because your finite mind cannot search infinity, because no answer has come to all your prayers, because you see misery and cannot read its purpose, because you suffer and have not found rest, you have said there is naught but chance, and become an atheist, as many have done before you.

women folk are hard to teach; they never learn nothing till it's too late, they don't, and then when they've been and done it they're sorry, but what's the good o' that? --Rider Haggard.

It is of the women who already weary them and of their infidelity that men are so ready to make examples, not of those who do not belong to them, and whom they long for night and day. To these they can be very merciful. --Rider Haggard.

Besides I daresay that the poor child is happier dead than he would have been had he lived. It is not an altogether pleasant world for most of us. --Rider Haggard.

I found, or I thought that I found, the same springs of superstition in them all-- superstitions arising from elementary natural causes, and handed on with variations from race to race, and time to time. In some I found the same story, only with a slightly altered face, and I learned, moreover, that each faith denied the other, and claimed truth for itself alone. --Rider Haggard.

And so, you see, what between these causes and the continual spectacle of human misery which to my mind negatives the idea of a merciful and watching Power, at last it came to pass that the only altar left in my temple is an altar to the 'Unknown God. --Rider Haggard.

The starry heavens no more prove anything than does the running of the raindrops down the window-pane. It is not a question of size and quantity. --Rider Haggard.

In the sea of Doubt she saw another buoyed up, if it were but on broken pieces of the ship. --Rider Haggard.

when the heart rises in rebellion against the intelligence it must be suppressed. --Rider Haggard.

Their sin is that they will, most of them, allow themselves to be put in positions favourable to the development of these disagreeable influences. It is not safe to light cigarettes in a powder factory. --Rider Haggard.

Many years have now passed since that event, and to some extent time has softened the old grief, though Heaven knows it is still keen enough. --Rider Haggard.

it is want of imagination that makes people fools; they won't believe what they can't understand. --Rider Haggard.

Ah, how beautiful is nature before man comes to spoil it!

no man should run away from happiness (the happiness of women) because of the sorrow. --Rider Haggard.

What is life but loss, loss upon loss, till life itself be lost? --Rider Haggard.

when we find we lose, and when we seem to lose, then we shall really find.

Better first to love, and then to die! --Rider Haggard.

And yet you will still choose this better part: you will still "live and love, and lose.

With sleep thought ends. --Haggard.

I am young and strong, and I want to see things, natural things-- not those made by man, you know--the things I remember as a child.

There is no such thing as a spirit, an identity that survives death. But there is such a thing as the subconscious self, which is part of the animating principle of the universe, and, if only its knowledge can be unsealed, knows all that has passed and all that is passing in that universe. One day perhaps you will read the works of my compatriot, Hegel, and there you will find it spoken of. --Haggard.

in madness is much wisdom, and in wisdom much madness. --Rider Haggard.

There is no oath that can bind a woman's tongue.

As their glory is, so shall their shame be.

With love comes sorrow.

He was a patriot indeed, asking nothing for himself, and giving all things to his cause.

Those who sin deceive themselves, striving to lay the burden of their evil deeds upon the back of Fate, striving to believe their wickedness may compass good, and to murder Conscience with the sharp plea of Necessity.

The shame of one whom we have loved must in some sort become our shame, and must ever cling to us, because we blindly held a thing so base close to our inmost heart.

all things end in darkness and in ashes, and those who sow in folly shall reap in sorrow.

Unhappy, therefore, are the Great, for they may fall!

Woman being grown hath two ills to fear--Death and Marriage; and of these twain is Marriage the more vile; for in Death we may find rest, but in Marriage, should it fail us, we must find hell.

Love counts not its labour, Charmion, nor can it weight its tenderness on the scale of purchase. That which it has it gives, and craves for more to give and give, till the soul's infinity be drained.

Pity is love's own twin.

But the more high the love, the deeper the gulf whereinto it can fall--ay, and thence soar again to heaven, once more to fall! Poor woman! thou art thy passion's plaything: now tender as the morning sky, and now, when jealousy grips thy heart, more cruel than the sea.

the Love Divine is Love Eternal, which cannot be extinguished, though it be everlastingly estranged.

what man is there who does not prize that gift most rare and beautiful, that one perfect thing which no gold can buy--a woman's unfeigned love?

Pity has no place in politics.

He who loved me clung to me as a drunkard to the cup which ruins him.

For though that thing we worship doth bring us ruin, and Love being more pitiless than Death, we in turn do pay all our sorrow back; yet we must worship on, yet stretch out our arms towards our lost Desire, and pour our heart's blood upon the shrine of our discrowned God.  For Love is of the Spirit, and knows not Death.

Even friendship has its price.

Money gives everything for which men strive--honour, and place, and comfort, and the friendship of kings.

women love those best who beat them, be it with the tongue or with the fist.

Well, let us thank the gods that made men foolish, and gave us women wit to profit by their folly.

Misfortunes are the master of man, not man of his misfortunes.

There is no journey upon this earth that a man may not make if he sets his heart to it.

Man must die. At the worst he can but die a little sooner.

Out of the dark we came, into the dark we go.

At last the time came, as it ever comes to him who can wait for it.

Fortune favors the brave.

The eyes of mankind are blind to the discredited, and he who is defenceless and fallen finds few friends and little mercy.

Truly wealth, which men spend their lives in acquiring, is a valueless thing at the last.

That which flies in the air loves not to run along the ground; the white man loves not to live on the level of the black or to house among his kraals.

Money is nothing when compared with honor.

This is how African superstitions are kept alive. Sooner or later some saying of the sort fulfils itself and then the instance is remembered and handed down for generations, while other instances in which nothing out of the common has occurred are not heeded, or are forgotten.

I dare say it is a form of selfishness, but what every man desires is something that cares for him /alone/, which is just why we are so fond of dogs.

The woman who as we believed adored us solely has probably in the course of her career adored others, or at any rate other things.

The sublime and the ridiculous are so very near akin.

In this world most changes are for the worse.

the best way to hold love is to be faithless to him who loves.

After all, what was life as we knew it? A passing breath! Well, as the body breathes many million times between the cradle and the grave, so I believed the soul must breathe out its countless lives, each ending in a form of death.

The fallen have no friends.

Oh! what marplot of a devil rules our destinies?

a wife and children are the most terrible gifts of God, if the most blessed, for they turn our hearts to water.

But what is life? A bubble that any pin may prick.

let's get out of this before I grow superstitious, as men who believe in nothing sometimes do, because after all they must believe in something, I suppose.

In my leisure I have examined into the various religious systems and found them to be rubbish.

I am convinced that we are but highly-developed mammals born by chance, and when our day is done, departing into the black nothingness out of which we came.

Everything else, that is, what is called the higher and spiritual part, I attribute to the superstitions incident to the terror of the hideous position in which we find ourselves, that of gods of a sort hemmed in by a few years of fearful and tormented life.

I was brought up as an Evangelical, and although I haven't given much thought to these matters of late years--well, we don't shake them off in a hurry.

there are plenty of true things in the world besides those which we believe.

when he beholds anything strange, the first impulse of a savage is to bring it to its death.

Just how artificial must people become before they realize they are sick in the head? --Devin.

How long will Honolulu keep my body alive while destroying my spirit? --Devin.

Now at last at sixty, I know evil, and see it all about me where once Christianity made me blind, and this be wisdom. --Devin.

What is the good of gold," she asked of Alan, "except to make things of, or the bright stones except to play with? What is the good of anything except food to eat and power and wisdom that can open the secret doors of knowledge, of things seen and things unseen, and love that brings the lover joy and forgetfulness of self and takes away the awful loneliness of the soul, if only for a little while? --H. Rider Haggard.

Powder very great 'vention, especially when enemy hain't got none.

in a woman's heart passion is the door by which King Folly enters.

the loftier the spirit the greater is the fall.

she was not as other women are, but greater for good or evil.

what is power? It is a rod wherewith we beat the air that straightway closes on the stroke.

ever those who seek love lose, and those who seek not find.

Little I fear the rush of battle and the blows men deal in anger, Lady, though a man may fear the Gods without shame.

Time brings thought.

if a woman be but beautiful enough she may drag all men to ruin.

one man dead gives another bread.

It ain't the kings we admire, it's their crowns; it ain't the millionaires, it's their millions.

no one should