“If I claim full justice for my art, it is because it is an impersonal thing — a thing beyond myself. Crime is common. Logic is rare. Therefore it is upon the logic rather than upon the crime that you should dwell. You have degraded what should have been a course of lectures into a series of tales.”
— Sherlock Holmes, in “The Adventure of the Copper Beeches”
“He says he doesn't know who he is or why he has come.”
“Well, I admire a man with an open mind.”
— Ruther and Shardovan, in “Castrovalva”
MACBETH: How now, you secret, black, and midnight hags!
— Macbeth, IV, i
“I feel disoriented.”
“This is the Disorientation Centre.”
“That makes sense.”
— The Doctor and Sarah, in “The Android Invasion”
“My dear fellow,” said Sherlock Holmes as we sat on either side of the fire in his lodgings at Baker Street, “life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent. We would not dare to conceive the things which are really mere commonplaces of existence. If we could fly out of that window hand in hand, hover over this great city, gently remove the roofs, and peep in at the queer things which are going on, the strange coincidences, the plannings, the cross-purposes, the wonderful chains of events, working through generations, and leading to the most outré results, it would make all fiction with its conventionalities and foreseen conclusions most stale and unprofitable.”
— From “A Case of Identity”
A quotation from La Rochefoucauld
We only criticize ourselves in order to win the praise of others.
[On ne se blâme que pour être loué.]
François VI, duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680) French epigrammatist, memoirist, noble
Réflexions ou sentences et maximes morales [Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims], ¶554 (1665-1678) [tr. FitzGibbon (1957), ¶524]
Sourcing, notes, alternate translations: wist.info/la-rochefoucauld-fra…
Advice can get you into more trouble than a gun can.
Will Rogers (1879-1935) American humorist
Column (1933-08-20), “Weekly Article: Don’t Get Excited,” No. 556
Sourcing, notes: wist.info/rogers-will/76269/
“Yo!” said the Dean.
“Yo what?” said Ridcully.
“It’s not a yo what, it’s just a yo,” said the Senior Wrangler, behind him. “It’s a general street greeting and affirmative with convivial military ingroup and masculine bonding-ritual overtones.”
“What? What? Like ‘jolly good’?” said Ridcully.
“I suppose so,” said the Senior Wrangler, reluctantly.
Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Reaper Man (1991)
Sourcing, notes: wist.info/pratchett-terry/3906…
Posthumous charities are the very essence of selfishness, when bequeathed by those who, when alive, would part with nothing.
Charles Caleb "C. C." Colton (1780-1832) English cleric, writer, aphorist
Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Vol. 1, § 314 (1820)
Sourcing, notes: wist.info/colton-charles-caleb…
A quotation from Samuel Johnson
I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read.
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) English writer, lexicographer, critic
In George Birkbeck Hill (ed.), Johnsonian Miscellanies, Vol. 2, “Apophthegms, Sentiments, Opinions, & Occasional Reflections” (1897)
Sourcing, notes: wist.info/johnson-samuel/19790…
Old age isn’t a battle; old age is a massacre.
Philip Roth (1933-2008) American novelist and short-story writer
Everyman (2006)
Sourcing, notes: wist.info/roth-philip/76261/
A quotation from Robert Ingersoll
Who can estimate the misery that has been caused by this most infamous doctrine of eternal punishment? Think of the lives it has blighted — of the tears it has caused — of the agony it has produced. Think of the millions who have been driven to insanity by this most terrible of dogmas. This doctrine renders God the basest and most cruel being in the universe. Compared with him, the most frightful deities of the most barbarous and degraded tribes are miracles of goodness and mercy. There is nothing more degrading than to worship such a god. Lower than this the soul can never sink. If the doctrine of eternal damnation is true, let me share the fate of the unconverted; let me have my portion in hell, rather than in heaven with a god infamous enough to inflict eternal misery upon any of the sons of men.
Robert Green Ingersoll (1833-1899) American lawyer, agnostic, orator
Lecture (1874-05-03), “Heretics and Heresies,” Free Religious Society, Kingsbury Hall, Chicago
Sourcing, notes: wist.info/ingersoll-robert-gre…
Then why not better use this proud excess
Of worthless wealth? Why lives in deep distress
A man unworthy to be poor, or why
The temples of the gods in ruins lie?
Why not of such a massy treasure spare
To thy dear country, wretch, a moderate share?
[Ergo,
quod superat non est melius quo insumere possis?
Cur eget indignus quisquam te divite? Quare
templa ruunt antiqua Deum? Cur, inprobe, carae
non aliquid patriae tanto emetiris acervo?]
Horace (65-8 BC) Roman poet, satirist, soldier, politician [Quintus Horatius Flaccus]
Satires [Saturae, Sermones], Book 2, # 2, “Quae virtus et quanta,” l. 101ff (2.2.101-105) (30 BC) [tr. Francis (1747)]
Sourcing, notes, alternate translations: wist.info/horace/76256/
We're all basically primeval slime with ideas above its station.
— The Doctor, in “Full Circle”
To be over-wise is to ossify; and the scruple-monger ends by standing stock-still.
Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) Scottish essayist, novelist, poet
Essay (1878-04), “Æs Triplex,” Cornhill Magazine, Vol. 37
Sourcing, notes: wist.info/stevenson-robert-lou…
So far as we can see, both horror and pain are necessary to the continuance of life on this planet, and it is therefore open to pessimists like Swift to say: “If horror and pain must always be with us, how can life be significantly improved?” His attitude is in effect the Christian attitude, minus the bribe of a “next world” — which, however, probably has less hold upon the minds of believers than the conviction that this world is a vale of tears and the grave is a place of rest.
George Orwell (1903-1950) English writer [pseud. of Eric Arthur Blair]
Essay (1946-09), “Politics vs. Literature: An Examination of Gulliver’s Travels,” Polemic, No. 5
Sourcing, notes: wist.info/orwell-george/76252/
“The next sign is C2. What do you make of that, Watson?”
“Chapter the second, no doubt.”
“Hardly that, Watson. You will, I am sure, agree with me that if the page be given, the number of the chapter is immaterial. Also that if page 534 finds us only in the second chapter, the length of the first one must have been really intolerable.”
— Sherlock Holmes and Watson, in “The Valley of Fear”
A quotation from Teddy Roosevelt
Nevertheless, the fact remains that exactly as true patriots should be especially jealous of any appeal to what is base under the guise of patriotism, so men who strive for honesty, and for the cleansing of what is corrupt in the dark places of our politics, should emphatically disassociate themselves from the men whose antics throw discredit upon the reforms they profess to advocate.
Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) American politician, statesman, conservationist, writer, US President (1901-1909)
Essay (1900-06), “Latitude and Longitude Among Reformers,” The Century Magazine, Vol. 60, No. 2
Sourcing, notes: wist.info/roosevelt-theodore/1…
A quotation from Thomas Carlyle
All greatness is unconscious, or it is little and naught.
Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) Scottish essayist and historian
Essay (1837-12-06), “On Sir Walter Scott,” The London and Westminster Review, No. 12/55, Art. 2 (1838-01)
Sourcing, notes: wist.info/carlyle-thomas/76248…
