Quotes to inspire and reflect

[ On the reconquest of South Georgia in the Falklands War :] Just rejoice at that news and congratulate our forces and the Marines. Rejoice!

They’ve [the Labor Government] got the usual Socialist disease—they’ve run out of other people’s money.

In the twenty-first century the robot will takethe place which slave labor occupied in ancientcivilization.

When wireless is perfectly applied the whole earth will be converted into a huge brain, which in fact it is, all things being particles ofa real and rhythmic whole. We shall be able to communicate with one another instantly, irrespective of distance. Not only this, butthrough television and telephony we shall seeand hear one another as perfectly as though we were face to face, despite intervening distances of thousands of miles; and the instrumentsthrough which we shall be able to do thiswill be amazingly simple compared with ourpresent telephone. A man will be able to carryone in his vest pocket.

Ere many generations pass, our machinery willbe driven by a power obtainable at any point of the universe. . . . Throughout space there is energy . . . it is a mere question of time when men will succeed in attaching their machinery to the very wheelwork of nature.

I die because I do not die.

Much wished, hoped little, and demanded nought.

[ Of Napoleon’s costly victory at the Battle of Borodino, 1812 :] C’est le commencement de la fin . This is the beginning of the end.

You can do anything with bayonets except sit on them.

[ Response to the tsar of Russia’s criticism of those who “betrayed the cause of Europe” :] That, Sire, is a question of dates.

Economic, financial, and political predictors . . . are quite ashamed to say anything outlandish to their clients—and yet events, it turns out, are almost always outlandish .

Our world is dominated by the extreme, the unknown, and the very improbable(improbable according to our current knowledge)—and all the while we spend our time engaged in small talk, focusing on the known, and the repeated.

The other day we had a long discourse with[Lady Orkney] about love; and she told us asaying . . . which I thought excellent, that inmen, desire begets love ; and in women, love begetsdesire .

On the seashore of endless worlds children meet. Tempest roams in the pathless sky, ships are wrecked in the trackless water, death is abroad and children play. On the seashore of endless worlds is the great meeting of children.

I heard the little bird say so.

Although reason were intended by Providenceto govern our passions, yet it seems that, in two points of the greatest moment to the being and continuance of the world, God hath intendedour passions to prevail over reason. The first is, the propagation of our species, since no wiseman ever married from the dictates of reason.The other is, the love of life, which, from the dictates of reason, every man would despise, and wish it at an end, or that it never had abeginning.

I’m going to the Land of Nod.

There was all the World, and his Wife.

The Sight of you is good for sore Eyes.

Hobbes clearly proves, that every creature

How haughtily he lifts his nose,

A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People from Being a Burden to theirParents, or the Country, and for Making ThemBeneficial to the Public.

Ingratitude is among them a capital Crime, . . . For they reason thus: that whoever makes ill Returns to his Benefactor, must needs be a common Enemy to the rest of Mankind, from whom he hath received no Obligation; andtherefore such a Man is not fit to live.

They will never allow, that a Child is under anyObligation to his Father for begetting him, or his Mother for bringing him into the World; which, considering the Miseries of human Life, was neither a Benefit in itself, nor intended so by his Parents, whose Thoughts in their Love-encounters were otherwise employed.

Men are never so serious, thoughtful, and intent, as when they are at Stool.

It is computed, that eleven Thousand Personshave, at several Times, suffered Death, ratherthan submit to break their Eggs at the smallerEnd. Many large Volumes have been publishedupon this Controversy: But the Books of the Big-Endians have been long forbidden, andthe whole Party rendered incapable by Law ofholding Employments.

But when I behold a Lump of Deformity, and Diseases both in Body and Mind, smitten with Pride , it immediately breaks all the Measures of my Patience.

I told him . . . that we eat when we were not hungry, and drank without the Provocation of Thirst.

[ On lawyers :] I said there was a Society of Men among us, bred up from their Youth in theArt of proving by Words multiplied for thePurpose, that White is Black , and Black is White , according as they are paid. To this Society allthe rest of the People are Slaves.

It is a Maxim among these Lawyers, that whatever hath been done before, may legally be done again.

I have ever hated all nations, professions, and communities, and all my love is towardsindividuals. . . . I hate and detest that animalcalled man, although I heartily love John, Peter, Thomas, and so forth.

I cannot but conclude the Bulk of your Natives, to be the most pernicious Race of little odious Vermin that Nature ever suffered to crawl upon the Surface of the Earth.

If Heaven had looked upon riches to be avaluable thing, it would not have given them tosuch a scoundrel.

All Government without the Consent of the Governed , is the very Definition of Slavery .

So veiled and subtle,

Hence a commander who advances without any thought of winning personal fame andwithdraws in spite of certain punishment, whose only concern is to protect his people and promote the interests of his ruler, is the nation’s treasure.

He who knows the enemy and himself

The victorious army only enters battle afterhaving first won the victory, while the defeatedarmy only seeks victory after having firstentered the fray.

There has never been a state that has benefited from an extended war.

To win a hundred victories in a hundred battles is not the highest excellence; the highestexcellence is to subdue the enemy’s armywithout fighting at all.

War is a vital matter of state.

Warfare is the art of deceit.

I detest dogs, those protectors of cowardswho have not the courage to bite the assailant themselves.

I did not write it. God wrote it. I merely did His dictation.

My soul an’t yours, Mas’r! You haven’t boughtit,—ye can’t buy it! It’s been bought and paid for, by one that is able to keep it.

Every nation that carries in its bosom great and unredressed injustice has in it the elements ofthis last convulsion.

Whipping and abuse are like laudanum; you have to double the dose as the sensibilitiesdecline.

[ The character Topsy speaking :] I s’pect I growed.