George Bernard Shaw (c. 1856-1950)
“You see things; and you say ‘Why?’ But I dream things that never were; and I say ‘Why not?'”
- From Part I, Act 1, of George Bernard Shaw’s play, Back to Methuselah (1921).
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (c. 1809-1894)
“The young man knows the rules, but the old man knows the exceptions.”
- From a Valedictory Address by Oliver Wendell Holmes, delivered to the graduating class of the Bellevue Hospital College on March 2, 1871.
Gregory of Nazianzus
Gregory of Nazianzus (c. 329-390)
“A man’s character is the most persuasive thing of all.”
- From Gregory of Nazianzus’ Three Poems, translated by Denis Molaise Meechan (Catholic University of America Press, 1987).
Dionysus (by Euripides)
Euripides (c. 484-406 BCE)
“Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish.”
- From The Bacchae (approximately line 480), by the poet Euripides. Translated by William Arrowsmith (University of Chicago Press, 1959).
Albert Camus
Albert Camus (c. 1913-1960)
“All great deeds and all great thoughts have a ridiculous beginning.”
- From The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus, translated by Justin O’Brien (Alfred A. Knopf/Random House/Penguin, 1955,1983).
Odin (from Hamaval)
“Cattle die,
kin die
self dies too;
a good name,
if you get one,
goes on forever”
- This quote comes from stanza 76 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).
Erasmus
Erasmus (c. 1466-1536)
“There are no vices that are more dangerous than those that have the veneer of virtue.”
- “Inner Faith Is Better Than Mere Ritual” from The Handbook of the Militant Christian, reprinted in The Western World: Age of the Protestant Reformation Primary Readings, edited by Mark Kishlansky Et al. Boston: Pearson, 2010.
Sir Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Churchill (c. 1874-1965)
“Never till now were great communities afforded such ample means of measuring their approaching agony. Never have they seemed less capable of taking effective measure to prevent it.”
- From Winston Churchill’s “Stop it now!” (1936), included in Winston S. Churchill Step By Step: Political Writings 1936-1939 (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2015).
