These are the ten most popular quotes (based on hit counts) from my WIST quotations site. \u00a0Why are they the most popular? \u00a0No idea. \u00a0But I thought they might be of interest.<\/p>\n
And were an epitaph to be my story, I\u2019d have a short one ready for my own. I would have written of me on my stone: I had a lover\u2019s quarrel with the world.<\/p>\n
— Robert Frost<\/strong>\u00a0(1874-1963) American poet
\n\u201cThe Lesson for Today,\u201d\u00a0A Witness Tree<\/em>\u00a0(1942)<\/a>
\nInitially read before the Phi Beta Kappa Society, Harvard (20 Jun 1941)<\/p><\/blockquote>\nWisdom comes through suffering.
\nTrouble, with its memories of pain,
\nDrips in our hearts as we try to sleep,
\nSo men against their will
\nLearn to practice moderation.
\nFavours come to us from gods.<\/p>\n— Aeschylus<\/strong>\u00a0(525-456 BC) Greek dramatist (\u00c6schylus)
\nAgamemnon<\/em>, l. 179<\/a><\/p>\nAlt. trans.:
\n“He who learns must suffer
\nAnd even in our sleep pain that cannot forget
\nFalls drop by drop upon the heart,
\nAnd in our own despite, against our will,
\nComes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God.”<\/p>\nThe above alternate was misquoted by Robert Kennedy in\u00a0his\u00a0speech on\u00a0the assassination of Martin Luther King (4 Apr 1968). Kennedy’s family used it as an epitaph on his grave Arlington National Cemetery:<\/p>\n
“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.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I want death to find me planting my cabbages.<\/p>\n
— Michel de Montaigne<\/strong>\u00a0(1533-1592) French essayist
\n\u201cThat to Philosophize Is to Learn to Die,\u201d\u00a0Essays<\/em>\u00a0(1588) [tr. D. Frame (1958)]<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\nWhether we believe the Greek poet, \u201cit is sometimes even pleasant to be mad\u201d, or Plato, \u201che who is master of himself has knocked in vain at the doors of poetry\u201d; or Aristotle, \u201cno great genius was without a mixture of insanity\u201d; 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.<\/p>\n
—\u00a0Seneca the Younger<\/strong>\u00a0(c. 4 BC-AD 65) Roman statesman, philosopher, playwright [Lucius Annaeus Seneca]
\nMoral Essays<\/em>, \u201cOn Tranquility of Mind [De Tranquillitate Animi]<\/em>“, 17.10 [tr. W. Langsdorf (1900)]<\/a><\/p>\nFull\u00a0text<\/a>. Source of\u00a0this Aristotle quote<\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
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 \u2014 but there is no question of my pleasure and pride in having it for myself.<\/p>\n
— John Steinbeck<\/strong>\u00a0(1902-1968) American writer
\nNobel prize acceptance speech (10 Dec 1962)<\/a>
\nFull\u00a0text<\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\nThe fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.<\/p>\n
— Bertrand Russell<\/strong>\u00a0(1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
\n\u201cThe Triumph of Stupidity\u201d (10 May 1933)<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\nAnd is he dead whose glorious mind
\nLifts thine on high?
\nTo live in the hearts we leave
\nIs not to die!<\/p>\n— Thomas Campbell<\/strong>\u00a0(1777\u20131844) Scottish poet
\n\u201cHallowed Ground\u201d (1825)<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\nWhat 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 \u2014 in their grudge against traditional religion as the \u201copium of the masses\u201d \u2014 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.<\/p>\n
— Albert Einstein<\/strong>\u00a0(1879-1955) German-American physicist
\n\u201cScience, Philosophy and Religion: a Symposium\u201d (1941)<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\nThe 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\u2019s making shall be the servant and not the master of the man who made it.<\/p>\n
— Theodore Roosevelt<\/strong>\u00a0(1858-1919) US President (1901-1909)
\n\u201cThe New Nationalism,\u201d speech, Osawatomie, Kansas (31 Aug 1910)<\/a>
\nFull\u00a0text<\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/p>\n
It contributes greatly towards a man\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
— Nathaniel Hawthorne<\/strong>\u00a0(1804-1864) American writer
\nThe Scarlet Letter<\/em>, \u201cIntroduction: The Custom-House\u201d (1850)<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\nAgain, no idea why these are so popular. \u00a0But there you go.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"