I collect quotes. I have thousands of them. On topics such as freedom, freedom of speech, economics, war, love, and motherhood, among others. When I find one that strikes me as profound, in a book, movie, or elsewhere, I make note of it and add it to the list.
A profound quote is a beautiful thing. It’s like a haiku (I have some these in my collection): it can succinctly provide staggering insight, reveal profound truths, and bring into painfully necessary focus the reality of the human condition, both good and bad. In some cases, it can make you not feel alone in knowing that someone else came up with the same notion as you did. In essence, a great quote is a distillation of life down into a concentrated bouillon cube of brilliant pithiness.
Here are thirteen of my favorite ones.
Quote 1
“The victims of cruelty or injustice are not only no better than their tormentors; they are more often than not just waiting to change places with them.”
Kanan Makiya
Today’s society is awash in a witch’s brew of victimhood fetishism and identity politics. Many of the so-called victims wield power vastly disproportionate to their numbers (e.g., transfascists) and are afforded excuses for bad behavior and given privileges galore. The are allowed to commit their own crimes and atrocities with impunity. They exhibit all the behavior they perhaps were once themselves subjected to, but now they do the same with their own moral certitude, ignorant of the fact that those who did likewise to them were imbued with equally destructive sanctimony.
Mr. Makiya warns us of the neverending cycle of mistreatment and atrocity. I don’t see us listening.
Quote 2
“The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.”
L.P. Hartley, The Go-Between
There is another harmful fetish: blaming the past. To what end? These long-dead scapegoats are gone, and any punishment meted out must be done to those who did not commit these past crimes. The argument is made that the descendants benefited from past misdeeds and must someone be held directly responsible for the sins of their forebears; so-called “white privilege” is the latest fad in this regard.
Even if the benefit is true, they benefited from being born in a place and time they had no control over, nor responsibility for. There is no means of due process against the actual perpetrator, but punishment against a proxy is an ill-advised substitute. The result is for past victims to become victimizers by proxy, something Mr. Makiya warned us about.
Study the past and learn from it. Do not use it as an excuse to indict those in the present. The way forward is to hopefully not make the same mistakes, such as blaming someone for the misfortune of birth, which is exactly what the Woke do today.
Quote 3
“We learn that we are neither devils nor divines.”
Maya Angelou, “A Brave and Startling Truth”
Anyone claiming sainthood, and this includes the tiresome virtue-signaler, is certainly full of his own share of devils. We humans are a flawed species and must admit it. The key is doing our best despite our inner devils. A good start is not assuming we are angels or that cringey performative theater is virtue.
Quote 4
“Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.”
Confucius
The desire for revenge is innate in humans. I often feel its pull. But one should give long thought beforehand in order to decide if it’s really worth it, as one risks destroying oneself in the process.
Quote 5
“Do not fall down, for whoever falls, falls forever.”
Aztec lament
I have my own version of this: To kneel once is to kneel forever. This is true for anyone or any institution that has knelt to the Woke mob. There is no amount of genuflection that will satisfy the Woke’s bloodlust.
Quote 6
“The majority of fools remain invincible.”
Albert Einstein
Amen, Albert. They truly are.
Quote 7
“There are times when something like harshness is the greatest humanity.”
Editorial in the London Times, 1846
This was written in response to the Irish famine, with the crass intent of justifying the suffering of the Irish people due to the indifference of their British overlords. But it is also true that at times this is good advice. The rub is knowing when.
Quote 8
“Why should the nucleus of an atom know anything about the speed of light?”
Arthur Stanley Eddington
This is a staggering question. We can also ask how does an electron know it’s an electron? This is not anthropomorphizing the electron, but to suggest how little we actually know.
Quote 9
“…It’s just a baby…It’s just a little baby. It’s a little baby in the dark. It’s not even born yet, and it doesn’t know about what’s happened. About money and politics and somebody wanting to be a senator. It doesn’t know about anything—about how it came to be—about what that girl did…it’s just a little baby, and nothing its fault.”
Robert Penn Warren, All The King’s Men
I used to be strongly pro-choice. Reading this quote and some other experiences gave me pause and made me realize there are issues without a good solution.
Quote 10
“For the truth is a terrible thing.”
Robert Penn Warren, All The King’s Men
Yup. Especially nowadays.
Quote 11
“Truth shines by its own light, and minds are not enlightened by the flames of the stake.”
Voltaire, Candide
The Woke are obsessed with punishing anyone who deviates from or dares challenge their ideology. They are the modern Inquisition. Unfortunately, a very shrill and childish one.
Quote 12
“Is a man who chooses the bad perhaps in some way better than a man who has the good imposed upon him?”
Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange
There are a lot of fascist Ms. Manners turned loose to run amok in our world. They believe brutal enforcement of their idea of enlightenment and compassion makes for a better world. It’s not a better place because of their relentless persnicketiness. Quite the contrary: it’s a meaner, pettier, nastier world.
Quote 13
“…where do all the tears come from…”
James Clavell, Gai-Jin
Everyone sheds their share tears, even if the cheeks remain dry. Some people shed far more than their fair share. Perhaps the goal should be to reduce the unnecessary ones as much as possible. “Which ones are the unnecessary ones?” you ask. That indeed is the conundrum.
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