"We are most likely to get angry and excited in our opposition to some idea when we ourselves are not quite certain of our own position, and are inwardly tempted to take the other side." — Thomas Mann
#ddtb
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Mann, Thomas – Buddenbrooks, 8.2 (1902) [tr. Lowe-Porter (1924)] | WIST Quotations
We are most likely to get angry and excited in our opposition to some idea when we ourselves are not quite certain of our own position, and are inwardly tempted
These are the ten most popular quotes (based on hit counts) from my WIST quotations site. Why are they the most popular? No idea. But I thought they might be of interest.
And were an epitaph to be my story, I’d have a short one ready for my own. I would have written of me on my stone: I had a lover’s quarrel with the world.
— Robert Frost (1874-1963) American poet
“The Lesson for Today,” A Witness Tree (1942)
Initially read before the Phi Beta Kappa Society, Harvard (20 Jun 1941)
Wisdom comes through suffering.
Trouble, with its memories of pain,
Drips in our hearts as we try to sleep,
So men against their will
Learn to practice moderation.
Favours come to us from gods.— Aeschylus (525-456 BC) Greek dramatist (Æschylus)
Agamemnon, l. 179Alt. trans.:
“He who learns must suffer
And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget
Falls drop by drop upon the heart,
And in our own despite, against our will,
Comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God.”The above alternate was misquoted by Robert Kennedy in his speech on the assassination of Martin Luther King (4 Apr 1968). Kennedy’s family used it as an epitaph on his grave Arlington National Cemetery:
“In our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.”
I want death to find me planting my cabbages.
— Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) French essayist
“That to Philosophize Is to Learn to Die,” Essays (1588) [tr. D. Frame (1958)]
Whether we believe the Greek poet, “it is sometimes even pleasant to be mad”, or Plato, “he who is master of himself has knocked in vain at the doors of poetry”; or Aristotle, “no great genius was without a mixture of insanity”; the mind cannot express anything lofty and above the ordinary unless inspired. When it despises the common and the customary, and with sacred inspiration rises higher, then at length it sings something grander than that which can come from mortal lips. It cannot attain anything sublime and lofty so long as it is sane: it must depart from the customary, swing itself aloft, take the bit in its teeth, carry away its rider and bear him to a height whither he would have feared to ascend alone.
— Seneca the Younger (c. 4 BC-AD 65) Roman statesman, philosopher, playwright [Lucius Annaeus Seneca]
Moral Essays, “On Tranquility of Mind [De Tranquillitate Animi]“, 17.10 [tr. W. Langsdorf (1900)]Full text. Source of this Aristotle quote.
In my heart there may be doubt that I deserve the Nobel award over other men of letters whom I hold in respect and reverence — but there is no question of my pleasure and pride in having it for myself.
— John Steinbeck (1902-1968) American writer
Nobel prize acceptance speech (10 Dec 1962)
Full text.
The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.
— Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
“The Triumph of Stupidity” (10 May 1933)
And is he dead whose glorious mind
Lifts thine on high?
To live in the hearts we leave
Is not to die!— Thomas Campbell (1777–1844) Scottish poet
“Hallowed Ground” (1825)
What separates me from most atheists is a feeling of utter humility toward the unattainable secrets of the harmony of the cosmos. The fanatical atheists are like the slaves who are still feeling the weight of their chains which they have thrown off after hard struggle. They are creatures who — in their grudge against traditional religion as the “opium of the masses” — cannot hear the music of the spheres. I prefer the attitude of humility corresponding to the weakness of our intellectual understanding of nature and our own being. Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.
— Albert Einstein (1879-1955) German-American physicist
“Science, Philosophy and Religion: a Symposium” (1941)
The true friend of property, the true conservative, is he who insists that property shall be the servant and not the master of the commonwealth; who insists that the creature of man’s making shall be the servant and not the master of the man who made it.
— Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) US President (1901-1909)
“The New Nationalism,” speech, Osawatomie, Kansas (31 Aug 1910)
Full text.
It contributes greatly towards a man’s moral and intellectual health, to be brought into habits of companionship with individuals unlike himself, who care little for his pursuits, and whose sphere and abilities he must go out of himself to appreciate.
— Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) American writer
The Scarlet Letter, “Introduction: The Custom-House” (1850)
Again, no idea why these are so popular. But there you go.
My annual checkpoint for my "WIST" (Wish I'd Said That) quotations site (http://wist.info). It's … a hobby. #ddtb
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~~Admin – Doing the Numbers: 2/2012 | WIST Quotations
Another good year of WIST since I last ran these (back last March). Let's look at the historical count:Another good, steady increase, including topping the 10K
Though I have a wide array of presidential quotations in my WIST database, I’ll focus on ones from the two presidents whose birthdays got smooshed together to make a generic “Presidents Day” here in the US.
First, George Washington:
It is now no more that toleration is spoken of as if it were the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights, for, happily, the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens in giving it on all occasions their effectual support.
— “Letter to the Hebrew Congregation at Newport,” Rhode Island (17 Aug 1790)The bosom of America is open to receive not only the Opulent and respectable Stranger, but the oppressed and persecuted of all Nations And Religions; whom we shall wellcome to a participation of all our rights and previleges, if by decency and propriety of conduct they appear to merit the enjoyment.
— “Letter to the members of the Volunteer Association and other Inhabitants of the Kingdom of Ireland who have lately arrived in the City of New York” (2 Dec 1783)Should, hereafter, those incited by the lust of power and prompted by the Supineness or venality of their Constituents, overleap the known barriers of this Constitution and violate the unalienable rights of humanity: it will only serve to shew, that no compact among men (however provident in its construction and sacred in its ratification) can be pronounced everlasting and inviolable, and if I may so express myself, that no Wall of words, that no mound of parchm[en]t can be so formed as to stand against the sweeping torrent of boundless ambition on the side, aided by the sapping current of corrupted morals on the other.
— First Inaugural Address, draft (Apr 1789)While we are contending for our own Liberty, we should be very cautious of violating the Rights of Conscience in others, ever considering that God alone is the Judge of the Hearts of Men, and to him only in this Case, they are answerable.
— Letter to Col. Benedict Arnold (14 Sep 1775)
And now Abe Lincoln, who is eminently more quotable (albeit a lot of his quotations are anecdotal), so I won’t be able to keep the numbers down to George’s:
As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is no democracy.
— “On Slavery and Democracy” (fragment) (1858?)I do the very best I know how — the very best I can; and I mean to keep doing so until the end. If the end brings me out all right, what is said against me won’t amount to anything. If the end brings me out wrong, ten angels swearing I was right would make no difference.
— Attributed, in Francis Carpenter, Six Months at the White House (1867)The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep’s throat, for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as his liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty.
— AttributedPeople who like this sort of thing will find this the sort of thing they like.
— Attributed by a number of folks to Lincoln, as a polite comment about a book on spiritualism, a very sentimental story, or a set of poems presented to him by their author.I am not at all concerned about that, for I know that the Lord is always on the side of the right; but, it is my constant anxiety and prayer that I, and this nation, should be on the Lord’s side.
— Attributed 1862 statement to a clergyman who said he hoped the Lord was on their side. In Francis B. Carpenter, Six Months at the White House with Abraham Lincoln (1867)A majority held in restraint by constitutional checks and limitations … is the only true sovereign of a free people. Whoever rejects it does of necessity fly to anarchy or to despotism.
— First Inaugural Address (1861)As a nation we began by declaring that “all men are created equal.” We now practically read it “all men are created equal, except Negroes.” When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read “all men are created equal, except Negroes and foreigners and Catholics.” When it comes to this, I shall prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretence of loving liberty — to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy.
— Letter (1855)This is a world of compensation; and he who would be no slave must consent to have no slave. Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves, and, under a just God, cannot long retain it.
— Letter to H. L. Pierce et al. (6 Apr 1859)Must a government, of necessity, be too strong for the liberties of its own people, or too weak to maintain its own existence?
— Message to Congress (4 Jul 1861)The true rule, in determining to embrace, or reject any thing, is not whether it haveany evil in it; but whether it have more of evil, than of good. There are few thingswholly evil, or wholly good. Almost every thing, especially of governmental policy, is an inseparable compound of the two; so that our best judgment of the preponderance between them is continually demanded.
— Remarks in the House of Representatives (20 Jun 1848)I am approached with the most opposite opinions and advice, and that by religious men, who are equally certain that they represent the Divine will. I am sure that either the one or the other class is mistaken in the belief, and perhaps in some respects both. I hope it will not be irreverent for me to say that if it is probable that God would reveal his will to others, on a point so connected with my duty, it might be supposed he would reveal it directly to me; for, unless I am more deceived in myself than I often am, it is my earnest desire to know the will of Providence in this matter. And if I can learn what it is I will do it! These are not, however, the days of miracles, and I suppose it will be granted that I am not to expect a direct revelation. I must study the plain physical facts of the case, ascertain what is possible and learn what appears to be wise and right. The subject is difficult, and good men do not agree.
— Reply to Emancipation Memorial Presented by Chicago Christians of All Denominations (13 Sep 1862)What constitutes the bulwark of our own liberty and independence? It is not our frowning battlements, our bristling sea coasts, the guns of our war steamers, or the strength of our gallant and disciplined army. These are not our reliance against a resumption of tyranny in our fair land. All of them may be turned against our liberties, without making us stronger or weaker for the struggle. Our reliance is in the love of liberty which God has planted in our bosoms. Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as the heritage of all men, in all lands, every where. Destroy this spirit, and you have planted the seeds of despotism around your own doors.
— Speech, Edwardsville, Illinois (11 Sep 1858)
Happy Presidents Day!
That Orwell — he said a lot of interesting things.
"All nationalists have the power of not seeing resemblances between similar sets of facts. A British Tory will defend self-determination in Europe and oppose it in India with no feeling of inconsistency. Actions are held to be good or bad, not on their own merits, but according to who does them, and there is almost no kind of outrage — torture, the use of hostages, forced labour, mass deportations, imprisonment without trial, forgery, assassination, the bombing of civilians — which does not change its moral colour when it is committed by 'our' side. The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them."
— George Orwell
#ddtb
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Orwell, George – “Notes on Nationalism” (May 1945) | WIST Quotations
All nationalists have the power of not seeing resemblances between similar sets of facts. A British Tory will defend self-determination in Europe and oppose it
Despite some folks calling the Occupy movement (etc.) the "politics of envy," for the majority of folks concerned over things like economic insecurity and income inequality. their concern is less with what the rich are making than the sense that they are making it at the expense of everyone else, through manipulation of the of the tax code, of the political system, through fraud and injustice.
Most people aren't Levelers. They just want to know that their own hard work will be rewarded, that everyone's being treated in a fair "square deal," and that both good times and bad times will affect us all together. #ddtb
Reshared post from +T.R. Almanac
… are We The People ready, hungry, and eager for a Square Deal?
I maintain a quotations database as a hobby and labor of love, and I just rolled over the 10,000 entries mark. It's always nice (and/or frightening) to see one's compulsive activities reach some new plateau of over-achievement. #ddtb
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~~Admin – 10,000 quotations, huzzah! | WIST Quotations
Sometime over the last week, WIST gained its 10,000th quotation. There's a count kept in the sidebar, but it's a bit deceptive because it includes
I'm a quotations wonk (http://wist.info). Pulling elided phrases out of context to provide a meaning not originally meant irks the hell out of me.
In this case, we have the National Prayer Breakfast folk absconding with Jefferson's love for the moral code preached by Jesus to make it sound like Jefferson would be an enthusiastic modern-day evangelical Christian. Which he most certainly would not be (nor would he attend such a breakfast, I strongly suspect). #ddtb
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Doubting Thomas: Prayer Breakfast Theocrats Try To Baptize Jefferson | Americans United
"It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their selfish purposes. Distinctions in society will always exist under every just government. Equality of talents, of education, or of wealth can not be produced by human institutions. In the full enjoyment of the gifts of Heaven and the fruits of superior industry, economy, and virtue, every man is equally entitled to protection by law; but when the laws undertake to add to these natural and just advantages artificial distinctions, to grant titles, gratuities, and exclusive privileges, to make the rich richer and the potent more powerful, the humble members of society — the farmers, mechanics, and laborers — who have neither the time nor the means of securing like favors to themselves, have a right to complain of the injustice of their government."
— Andrew Jackson
#ddtb
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Jackson, Andrew – Veto Mesage Regarding the Bank of the United States (10 Jul 1832) | WIST Quotations
It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their selfish purposes. Distinctions in society will always exist
Some words of possible wisdom, from a variety of sources.
A journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it.
John Steinbeck (1902-1968) American writer
Travels With Charley: In Search of America, Part 1 (1962)
Marriage resembles a pair of shears, so joined that they can not be separated; often moving in opposite directions, yet always punishing anyone who comes between them.
Sydney Smith (1771-1845) English clergyman, essayist, wit
Lady Holland’s Memoir, Vol. I, ch. 11 (1855)
Full text.
The most important thing a man can know is that, as he approaches his own door, someone on the other side is listening for the sound of his footsteps.
Clark Gable (1901-1960) American film actor [b. William Clark Goebel]
(Attributed)
In Ronald Reagan, Where’s the Rest of Me?, ch. 18 (1965). Quoted as something Reagan wrote to his first son, Michael, before his marriage
No long-term marriage is made easily, and there have been times when I’ve been so angry or so hurt that I thought my love would never recover. And then, in the midst of near despair, something has happened beneath the surface. A bright little flashing fish of hope has flicked silver fins and the water is bright and suddenly I am returned to a state of love again — till next time. I’ve learned that there will always be a next time, and that I will submerge in darkness and misery, but that I won’t stay submerged. And each time something has been learned under the waters; something has been gained; and a new kind of love has grown. The best I can ask for is that this love, which has been built on countless failures, will continue to grow. I can say no more than that this is mystery, and gift, and that somehow or other, through grace, our failures can be redeemed and blessed.
Madeleine L’Engle (1918-2007) American writer
“The Irrational Season” (1977)
I used to believe that marriage would diminish me, reduce my options. That you had to be someone less to live with someone else when, of course, you have to be someone more.
Candice Bergen (b. 1946) American actress
(Attributed)
Marriage is a coming together for better or for worse, hopefully enduring, and intimate to the degree of being sacred.
Justice William O. Douglas (1898-1980) US Supreme Court (1939-75)
Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 US 470 (1965) (7 Jun 1965)
Marriage is a lot like life, only with more fun parts …. The only secret is showing up every day with an open heart.
Jon Carroll (b. 1943)
San Francisco Chronicle, “New Ideas on the Culture War” (6 Jul. 1999)
1. Don’t, don’t nag.
2. Don’t try to make your partner over.
3. Don’t criticize.
4. Give honest appreciation.
5. Pay little attentions.
6. Be courteous.
7. Read a good book on the sexual side of marriage.Dale Carnegie (1888-1955) American writer, lecturer
How to Win Friends and Influence People, “Seven Rules for Making Your Home Life Happier” (1936)
Marriage has no guarantees. If that’s what you’re looking for, go live with a Sears battery.
Erma Bombeck (1927-1996) American humorist
(Attributed)
The pride of the peacock is the glory of God.
The lust of the goat is the bounty of God.
The wrath of the lion is the wisdom of God.
The nakedness of a woman is the work of God.William Blake (1757-1827) English poet, mystic, artist
“The Marriage of Heaven and Hell” (1790 – 1793)
Marriage must continually vanquish the monster that devours everything, the monster of habit.
Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850) French novelist, playwright
Physiology of Marriage (1829)
Companionship, partnership, mutual reassurance, someone to laugh with and grieve with, loyalty that accepts foibles, someone to touch, someone to hold your hand — these things are marriage, and sex is but the icing on the cake.
Robert A. Heinlein (1909-1988) American writer
Time Enough for Love [Lazarus] (1973)
It is not lack of love but lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages.
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) German philosopher and poet
Chains do not hold a marriage together. It is threads, hundreds of tiny threads which sew people together through the years. That is what makes a marriage last — more than passion or even sex!
Simone Signoret (1921-1985) German-French actress [b. Simone Kaminker]
Daily Mail (London) (4 Jul 1978)
What makes a marriage last is for a man and a woman to continue to have things to argue about.
Rex Stout (1886-1975) American writer
One advantage of marriage, it seems to me, is that when you fall out of love with him, or he falls out of love with you, it keeps you together until maybe you fall in again.
Judith Viorst (b. 1931) American writer
This is why you get married. You run into a difficult situation, can’t seem to find a way out and — TAG — your partner jumps in and fixes everything. A good marriage isn’t just about love and friendship, it’s about sharing your talents and making the struggle of life a little bit easier.
Okay. That sounds like a load of crap. So I’ll just say that even if life is a constant mess, you’ve got some company to kill the time. Better?Michael Jantze (b. 1962) American cartoonist
The Norm, “Norm’s Daily Journal” (7 Sep. 2003)
Let your fountain be blessed, and rejoice in the wife of your youth, a lovely deer, a graceful doe. May her breasts satisfy you at all times; may you be intoxicated always by her love.
The Bible (14th C BC – 2nd C AD) Christian sacred scripture
Proverbs 5:18-19
Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor: If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up. Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm. But how can one keep warm alone? Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.
The Bible (14th C BC – 2nd C AD) Christian sacred scripture
Ecclesiastes 4:9-12
I had rather live and love where death is king, than have eternal life where love is not.
Robert Green Ingersoll (1833-1899) American lawyer and orator
“At A Child’s Grave” (eulogy) (8 Jan 1882)
It is a splendid thing to think that the woman you really love will never grow old to you. Through the wrinkles of time, through the mask of years, if you really love her, you will always see the face you loved and won. And a woman who really loves a man does not see that he grows old; he is not decrepit to her; he does not tremble; he is not old; she always sees the same gallant gentleman who won her hand and heart. I like to think of it in that way; I like to think that love is eternal.
Robert Green Ingersoll (1833-1899) American lawyer and orator
“The Liberty of Man, Woman, and Child” (1877)
It is not necessary to be great to be happy; it is not necessary to be rich to be just and generous and to have a heart filled with divine affection. No matter whether you are rich or poor, treat your wife as though she were a splendid flower, and she will fill your life with perfume and with joy.
Robert Green Ingersoll (1833-1899) American lawyer and orator
“The Liberty of Man, Woman, and Child” (1877)
You had better be the emperor of one loving and tender heart, and she the empress of yours, than to be king of the world. The man who has really won the love of one good woman in this world, I do not care if he dies in the ditch a beggar, his life has been a success.
Robert Green Ingersoll (1833-1899) American lawyer and orator
“The Liberty of Man, Woman, and Child” (1877)Full text.
Best of everything, you two crazy kids.
Vengeance is counterproductive, always. Not to mention the fact it gets your soul all sticky.
— Spider Robinson (b. 1948) American-Canadian author
Callahan’s Con, ch. 2 [Lady Sally] (2003)
I cannot find it in myself to mourn the passing of Osama Bin Ladin. He was a vile zealot who self-righteously delighted in sowing fear and death among innocents, and I am quite satisfied that he will not longer be able to do so.
But I worry a bit over all the jovial, gleeful, jingoistic celebration going on about his fittingly violent passing. It just feels … sticky, to use Lady Sally’s terms. OBL’s passing isn’t the end of a war. It may or may not be a strategic victory in the War on Terror, depending on how much you think OBL was still calling the shots. Certainly there’s a visceral feeling of justice and closure …
When the Egyptians were drowning in the Red Sea, the angels in heaven began to break forth in songs of jubilation, but the Holy One, blessed be He, silenced them: “My creatures are perishing — and ye are ready to sing!”
— The Talmud (AD 200-500)
… but I worry a bit when it all turns into spontaneous jubilation and shouts of “USA! USA!” It’s not the angels of our better natures talking (or chanting) there, nor is it a celebration of any special virtue that distinguishes our nation from others. Anyone can shoot a bullet through an enemy’s head.
What it is is tribalism, plain and simple. It’s vengeance. He hit us, we hit him back. He killed our people, we killed him. It’s seductive, because it feels so good, so certain, so hot and bloody and plain and simple and we won and he’s dead.
Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends.
— J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973) English writer, fabulist, philologist, academic [John Ronald Reuel Tolkien]
The Fellowship of the Ring, Book 1, ch. 2 “The Shadow of the Past” [Gandalf] (1954)
I don’t expect that OBL would ever have taken up knitting and philanthropy, but I don’t know that, nor do I know what else he might have done with his life, or what good might possibly have come of it. On the other hand, he reaped as he sowed, and there’s a satisfaction there, too.
But let’s not go overboard. This guy wasn’t Hitler, or Stalin, or even Mussolini. He was responsible for the deaths of thousands, but killing him doesn’t kill his cause, or mean that no more will die at the hands of al Qa’eda’s butchers. This isn’t V-E Day. It isn’t an occasion for a huge sigh of giddy national relief that the conflict is done.
Bottom line, while I’m not unhappy he’s been killed (heck, even Gandalf was known to slay enemies in battle, right?), it just doesn’t feel right to be celebrating by waving a flag and chanting about how it proves that “We’re Number One! We’re Number One!”
That Talmud passage keeps coming back to me.
Or, as David Sirota put it today (h/t Stan):
For decades, we have held in contempt those who actively celebrate death. When we’ve seen video footage of foreigners cheering terrorist attacks against America, we have ignored their insistence that they are celebrating merely because we have occupied their nations and killed their people. Instead, we have been rightly disgusted — not only because they are lauding the death of our innocents, but because, more fundamentally, they are celebrating death itself. That latter part had been anathema to a nation built on the presumption that life is an “unalienable right.”
But in the years since 9/11, we have begun vaguely mimicking those we say we despise, sometimes celebrating bloodshed against those we see as Bad Guys just as vigorously as our enemies celebrate bloodshed against innocent Americans they (wrongly) deem as Bad Guys. Indeed, an America that once carefully refrained from flaunting gruesome pictures of our victims for fear of engaging in ugly death euphoria now ogles pictures of Uday and Qusay’s corpses, rejoices over images of Saddam Hussein’s hanging and throws a party at news that bin Laden was shot in the head.
To paraphrase Nietzsche, when you party it up in the abyss, the abyss parties it up in you.
That’s not what we’re fighting for, is it?
No one can understand history without continually relating the long periods which are constantly mentioned to the experiences of our own short lives. Five years is a lot. Twenty years is the horizon to most people. Fifty years is antiquity. To understand how the impact of destiny fell upon any generation of men one must first imagine their position and then apply the time-scale of our own lives.
— Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965) British statesman and author.
History of the English-Speaking Peoples, Vol. 1 “The Birth of Britain” (1956-58)
I try to keep this in mind when considering politics, and the glacial movement of causes that I believe in. I think of the seemingly endless eight years of George W. Bush, or how it seems that Glenn Beck has been spouting his zaniness forever, or even matters like marriage equality and the like.
And I realize that such durations, taken from an historical perspective, will be mere blips. Fifty, a hundred, two hundred, five hundred years from now, the antics (not to mention the names) of 99% of the folks in the news today will be long-forgotten, or summarized in a few paragraphs outlining political events in North America in the Post-War or Pre-Flood or Some Other Bigger Perspective Label Era.
On the other hand, I have to live with it all now, day by day. “A hundred years hence, none of it will matter,” may or may not be true, and it can provide a bit of perspective, but the pain it causes me, and the direction it pushes that history in, fraction of a degree at a time or not, is very immediate. A century from now, nobody will know which way I drove to work, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have to keep my eyes on the road.
The reverse (which Churchill is actually talking about) is also true. When we read in history about a tyrant’s reign that lasted “only” ten years, or a period of war between two countries over fifty years, we chalk it all up to something that happened between 1348 and 1402 and it seem like such a small thing. And it is, to us, but it was a lifetime (or two or three) for the people who lived through it.
Or think of the period between WWI and WWII — something that seems a mere blip, but was 21 years long — and encompassed flappers and the Jazz Age, Prohibition, and the Great Depression. Telling someone in the middle of the era that history was just taking a pause before the next big war would be foolish. Heck, we think of six years as being a trivial period — but in Churchill’s case, I’m sure his political exile “Wilderness Years” were hardly trivial to live through, and almost certainly seemed endless.
(via WIST)
“One genetic evil of an institution of any kind is that people who have identified themselves with it are prone to make an idol of it.”
Arnold Toynbee (1889-1975) English historian
An Historian’s Approach to Religion, 2d ed., ch. 19 (1956; 1979)
(via WIST)
So in my copious free time, I run a website for collecting quotations. Or, rather, a website where I indulge that hobby of mine — WIST (Wish I’d Said That). I just did my more-or-less annual review of numbers and what quotes are most popular … and it’s remarkable to me that I’m at over 9,000 quote collected (and researched for sourcing).
Actually what’s remarkable to me is how consistent I’ve been at adding to it for the past several years.
It’s a never-ending activity, but most good hobbies are.
Well, I haven’t blogged much about the cause I’m Blogathonning for, the Denver Dumb Friends League. I did a fair amount of talking about it in the days leading up the the ‘Thon, though.
While I take a quick Sunday morning shower and change into another Blogathon shirt, here are a few quotations on animals and pets from my quotations database:
To my way of thinking there’s something wrong, or missing, with any person who hasn’t got a soft spot in their heart for an animal of some kind. With most folks the dog stands highest as man’s friend, then comes the horse, with others the cat is liked best as a pet, or a monkey is fussed over; but whatever kind of animal it is a person likes, it’s all hunkydory so long as there’s a place in the heart for one or a few of them.
The dog is a gentleman; I hope to go to his heaven, not man’s.
You can say any foolish thing to a dog, and the dog will give you this look that says, “My God, you’re right! I never would’ve thought of that!”
Though boys throw stones at frogs in sport, the frots do not die in sport, but in earnest.
The great pleasure of a dog is that you may make a fool of yourself with him, and not only will he not scold you, but he will make a fool of himself, too.
I care not for a man’s religion whose dog or cat are not the better for it.
Man is a dog’s idea of what God should be.
How we behave toward cats here below determines our status in heaven.
I recently upgraded my blogs to WordPress 2.8.1. It took me a week to realize that was a mistake in one area.
While the vast majority of customization I’ve done in WP has been to templates, there have been some exceptions. A very large one was with WIST, my quotations database.
WIST is an oddball because of how I use the data. Since I’m tracking quotations, I end up using some of the standard blog fields in an odd fashion: the post title is the citation for the quote, the category is the author, the extended “more” text area is used for additional details on the quote (sourcing, links to full text, etc.).
For the blog itself, that means I need to change around where different fields are displayed and formatted. That’s fine — non-trivial, but easily maintainable — because it’s template-based. As long as the template I use (iNove) doesn’t get broken by some future WP release, I’m golden.
RSS feeds, though, are a different matter. There are a number of folks who follow WIST along by feed, or by (through FeedBurner) email. Those aren’t handled by the theme templates; they are handled by actual WP files. And they’re a bit more complicated than normal PHP/HTML templates (Atom, especially).
And, of course, they get replaced when you upgrade WP.
I struggled quite a bit when I converted WIST to WP in getting the feeds done. But I was very careful to keep the original, unmodified versions, in case something went wrong. I was less careful, though, to keep copies of the modified versions once I had them working.
So after the 2.8 and 2.8.1 update got put in, WIST trundled along for about a week with feeds and email updates that showed quotes and sources, but no authors. Yikes!
(I wish there was a place in the WP control panel where you could put notes, along the lines of, “Hey, don’t forget you modified these modules so that they don’t get overwritten when you update the system.” Yeah, that would be useful. Something similar for)
It took me a few hours yesterday to recreate what I’d done, make sure it was fully commented, and make sure I have the modified versions on my hard drive so that they don’t get zorched in the future. Good change management is time consuming up front, but a serious time and quality saver downstream.
The only silver lining here is that they’re actually done up better than when I did the original WP conversion, since they aren’t the last thing I had to get done after a long effort.
Lesson learned. This time.
WIST (“Wish I’d Said That”) is my quotations database/blog. I’ve had it running in Movable Type the past couple of years, but my own mania for WordPress, plus my MT installation getting kinda broken (so that I couldn’t update it through the MT control panel), plus my current computer woes (so that I couldn’t update it through ecto/Linear) meant my “Gosh, I should do that project someday” plans turned into a crash conversion.
Which is more difficult than at first blush, because I do all sorts of weird stuff, blogwise, with WIST, essentially treating a blog as a content management system, and doing weird stuff like using the Title for citations and the Category for the author (and the Category Description for the extended author info).
All of which meant some substantial tweaking of the templates, plus a lengthy effort converting over the Category Descriptions, plus figuring out how to deal with the difference between normal and extended post text in MT (two separate fields) and WP (one field with a tag in the middle of them).
Etc., etc., cry me a river, but … I’m now live on WP over at WIST. There’s still a lot of clean-up and tweaking to do, but the site is functional and usable and the RSS feeds work and I can get back into the quote-posting biz (at 7,000 at this point and still going strong) as of tomorrow morning.
Oh, and for the record, I seriously hate working in IE6.
I’m pretty happy with where DDtB is right now, in terms of my WordPress conversion. There are still a few things I need to get done on it, but they’re mostly secondary priority:
So, again, no particular emergencies here at the moment. I just need to build a to-do list and tackle it over time (that’s the subject for another post).
The bigger question is who/what next. I do want to migrate my bigger blogs over from MT to WP, less because there’s a crushing need (with this blog off of MT, the impact of spammers has been greatly reduced) but because it will be less messy and I’ll only have to maintain one skill set.
I really want to move WIST over, sooner rather than later. Between the search functionality (limited), the posting speed, and some clumsiness in the implementation around how I’ve pushed MT to do some stuff, I think it would be a keen idea. There are also a number of plug-ins that I’m jonesing to add to the mix that would enhance the “WIST Experience.”
There are problems, though. Of course. Again, because I’m pushing the database in some odd ways (making extensive use of category descriptions, for example, for full author info), it’s going to take a lot of work to make it happen. Part of that is especially because the Movable Type to WordPress conversion routines really don’t do much with categories (losing the hierarchy and the descriptions) — which means I need to figure out how to do a more thorough conversion of that data — probably a combination of copying stuff over, then doing all sorts of funky SQL stuff to rebuild the hierarchy and bring over the category descriptions, etc. (Actually, on consideration, I probably need to do a more manual export of that data, then manipulate it externally, then import it to the WP setup. Hrm. Maybe. Problem is keeping the keys lined up with the quotations.)
I need to learn more about the WP database structure, clearly.
I don’t even know if WP will plotz with the couple of thousand categories (authors) I have. I heard dire warnings about MT, but it seems to be working okay; will WP be more of a problem?
I also know that I will have to do a lot of template tweaking, both to change how the posts themselves display (category description as the title, then the post, then the title as the attribution), but also tweak the RSS feeds to accurately show things the way I want. Plus I have multiple category archive formats (by author, but also lists of authors) that I’d need to figure out how to juggle. All of which means learning a lot more about the templating setup.
Another problem is the permalink format I use, which are in the format http://www.wist.info/t/twain_mark/026560.html. The category part is doable (indeed, the %category% tag in file links forces the whole hierachy), but retaining the post numbers is more problematic. It’s doable (from the descriptions I saw), but may be more trouble than it’s worth.
Because that raises the question of whether I should go to the effort of retaining the same permalinks. I have a few cross-references within the existing database (a quote that points to another, similar quote), but those can be fixed. More important is that Google and Yahoo (the latter more than the former) have both crawled my site, and since it’s a reference site, I really don’t want their links to break. The question then becomes, if I do break all their old links, how long will it take for them to re-crawl? If people come to WIST and it brings up its own WP 404 page, do I simply put a search form in there and suggest that people can look up what they were searching for.
Hmmm. To ponder.
The biggest problem is that I want to do this now, and it’s clearly something I need to plan and work on over a series of several days (or, more likely, multiple weeks). The only pain there is that then I either have to double-enter quotes for that period from the initial conversion to go-live, or else do two conversions. Since I expect the conversion is going to be a major pain in the patootie, I’m a bit reluctant to go with that course.
(Hey, listen to me — I sound like an application project manager. Go fig.)
On the other hand, it has to be done sooner or later.
In the meantime, what other blogs do I have to convert?
The other bloglets I have in MT are either already converted, or are minor jobs at best, or can wait for a long time longer.
Just pondering. WIST remains high in my attention (since I deal with it daily). I suspect it’s going to be one of those projects I worry over in my brain until it springs forth in full fury when the time is ripe. Or some mixed metaphor like that.
Today’s passel of presidential quotes from WIST. A government of laws, and not of men. ¶ John Adams (1735-1826) US President (1797-1801) “Novanglus” #7, Boston Gazette (6 Mar 1775)…
Today’s passel of presidential quotes from WIST.
A government of laws, and not of men.
¶ John Adams (1735-1826) US President (1797-1801)
“Novanglus” #7, Boston Gazette (6 Mar 1775)
Adams credited the line to James Harrington (1611-77), who wrote of “the empire of laws and not of men” (The Commonwealth of Oceana (1656)). Adams later used the term in the Massachusetts Constitution, Bill of Rights, article 30 (1780).
We stand today on the edge of a new frontier — the frontier of the 1960s, a frontier of unknown opportunities and paths, a frontier of unfulfilled hopes and threats. … The new frontier of which I speak is not a set of promises — it is a set of challenges. It sums up not what I intend to offer the American people, but what I intend to ask of them.
¶ John Fitzgerald Kennedy (1917-1963) US President (1961-63)
Presidential nomination acceptance speech, Los Angeles (15 Jul 1960)
I pledge you, I pledge myself, to a new deal for the American people. Let us all here assembled constitute ourselves prophets of a new order of competence and of courage. This is more than a political campaign; it is a call to arms. Give me your help, not to win votes alone, but to win in this crusade to restore America to its own people.
¶ Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882-1945) US President (1933-1945)
Presidential nomination acceptance speech, Chicago (2 Jul 1932)
We must act upon the motto of all for each and each for all. There must be ever present in our minds the fundamental truth that in a republic such as ours the only safety is to stand neither for nor against any man because he is rich or because he is poor, because he is engaged in one occupation or another, because he works with his brains or because he works with his hands. We must treat each man on his worth and merits as a man. We must see that each is given a square deal, because he is entitled to no more and should receive no less.
¶ Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) US President (1901-1909)
Speech, New York State Agricultural Association, Syracuse (7 Sep 1903)
Full text.
Every segment of our population and every individual has a right to expect from his government a fair deal.
¶ Harry S Truman (1884-1972) US President (1945-53)
State of the Union Message (5 Jan 1949)
… if seemingly very short. FRIDAY Relatively quiet evening at home that turned into a Very Late Night. I got sucked into doing quotation research (tracked down some pretty…
… if seemingly very short.
FRIDAY
Relatively quiet evening at home that turned into a Very Late Night. I got sucked into doing quotation research (tracked down some pretty tricky ones, and culled several more for future WIST installments), and looked up to realize it was after 1 a.m.
I still claimed moral victory over Margie, though, who had gotten up at 10 saying she was heading for bed, started checking her e-mail, etc., and was still at it when I finally declared I was going to bed.
SATURDAY
Slept in until 10:30, which was not my intent, but as late as I could sleep with the phone ringing for various reasons every hour or so from 8 a.m.
We went out and did some errands that I’d expected would take about an hour-plus, and basically ran us to the end of the day. Got some solar-powered yard lights to try out, as well as some other stuff we’d been looking for at Target. We also bought some Christmas storage boxes for our more valuable/fragile ornaments.
Got home in enough time to do some prep work for our parish Hungry Flock dinner thang. Jackie swung by with Kaylee to pick up Katherine. Dinner party thang was fun as usual, and then we had a chance to chat with Jackie a bit before heading home.
Fell asleep on the couch with Margie watching Colbert.
SUNDAY
Got up and did churchy stuff. I got to do the reading for Genesis 1:1-5, which is pretty iconic.
Did the January watering out front. Yay!
Spent the afternoon doing bills.
Doyce and Kate invited me and family out for dinner for my birthday. We went to Big Bill’s, which was yummy as usual.
Came home, caught up on some blogging, and hit the sack at a reasonable hour.
