Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)
“The best public Measures are therefore seldom adopted from previous Wisdom but forc’d by the Occasion.”
- From The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, edited by Kenneth Silverman (Penguin Classics, 1986).
Benjamin Franklin
Odin
Odin (Norse God)
“A man mustn’t
walk without weapons
even an inch from home,
because he never knows when,
as he pursues his path,
he’ll suddenly need a spear.”
- This quote comes from stanza 38 of Hávamál (Sayings of the High One), an old poem which was preserved in the 13th-century Poetic Edda which was produced anonymously in Iceland. The translation is by David A. H. Evans (Viking Society for Northern Research, 1986).
René Descartes
René Descartes (1596-1650)
“It is free-will alone or liberty of choice which I find to be so great in me that I can conceive no other idea to be more great.”
- From René Descartes’ Meditations on the First Philosophy (Meditation IV), translated by Elizabeth Haldane and G. Ross (Cambridge University Press, 1911).
Mo Tzu
Mo Tzu (5th century BCE Chinese philosopher and theologian)
“If the worthy are not rewarded and the wicked are not punished, then there will be no way to encourage the worthy or put a stop to evil.”
- From the Basic Writings of Mo Tzu (Honoring the Worthy, part II, section 9), translated by Burton Watson (Columbia University Press, 1963).
Albert Camus
Albert Camus (1913-1960)
“In a man’s attachment to life there is something stronger than all the ills in the world.”
- From The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus, translated by Justin O’Brien (Random House, 1983).
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821-1881)
“All man wants is an absolutely free choice, however dear that freedom may cost him and wherever it may lead him to… Ha-ha-ha! But there’s really no such thing as choice.”
- From Notes from the Underground (Chapter VII) by Fyodor Dostoevsky, translated by David Magarshack (Modern Library, 1992).
The Malleus Maleficarum (Kramer and Sprenger)
The Malleus Maleficarum (Published by Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger around 1487)
“The question arises whether people who hold that witches do not exist are to be regarded as notorious heretics, or whether they are to be regarded as gravely suspect of holding heretical opinions. It seems the first opinion is the correct one.”
- From The Malleus Maleficarum (Part I, Question I) by Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger, translated by Montague Summers (Dover Publications, 1971).
Han Fei Tzu
Han Fei Tzu (c. 280-233 BCE)
“Be empty, still, and idle, and from your place of darkness observe the defects in others.”
- From Han Fei Tzu’s Basic Writings (section 5, “The Way of the Ruler”), translated by Burton Watson (Columbia University Press, 1964).
