quotes of day Friday, July 24, 2026

“So the case stands, and under all the passion of the parties and the cries of battle lie the two chief moving causes of the struggle. Union means so many millions a year lost to the South; secession means the loss of the same millions to the North. The love of money is the root of this as of many many other evils ... the quarrel between North and South is, as it stands, solely a fiscal quarrel.”

“I pay attention only to what people do or say. I never pay attention to what they think.”

“I want to write something so simply about love or about pain that even as you are reading you feel it and as you read you keep feeling it and though it be my story it will be common, though it be singular it will be known to you so that by the end you will think— no, you will realize— that it was all the while yourself arranging the words, that it was all the time words that you yourself, out of your heart had been saying.”

“[Perfection] is only possible if the mind of man is changed, if he, of his own sweet will, changes his mind; and the great difficulty is, neither can he force his own mind.”

“In time of war, soldiers, however sensible, care a great deal more on some occasions about slaking their thirst than about the danger of enteric fever. Better known as typhoid, the disease is often spread by drinking contaminated water.”

“Give me a country where it is the most natural thing in the world for a government that does not understand you to let you alone.”

“There is desire in those who love to hear about their loved ones' pains.”

“Be not sick too late, nor well too soon”

“Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake.”

“I mean I like to be passionate and sincere but I also like to have fun and act like a dork.”

“Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love.”

“[FBI] philosophy is "Go ahead and make the story you want to make, and hopefully we'll love it." So that's that.”

“If you have to compromise, be sure to compromise up.”