quotes of day Friday, July 31, 2026

“The American people cannot close their eyes to abuses of human rights and injustice, whether they occur among friend or adversary or even on our own shores.”

“A great man scarcely knows how he dines, how he dresses; but without railing or precision, his living is natural and poetic.”

“I should have no objection to go over the same life from its beginning to the end: requesting only the advantage authors have, of correcting in a second edition the faults of the first.”

“Writing is the clumsy attempt to find symbols for wordlessness.”

“Don't use your mind for a filing cabinet. Use your mind to work out problems and find answers; file away good ideas in your journal.”

“A true gentleman makes demands upon himself but not upon others.”

“There's no use running if you're on the wrong road.”

“It is very important to remember what other people tell you, not so much what you yourself already know.”

“My philosophy of life is that if we make up our mind what we are going to make of our lives, then work hard toward that goal, we never lose - somehow we win out.”

“I think this is exactly where the action is, is in the middle. I have seen it when I was governor of the state of California. I have seen it firsthand, that the only way we brought Democrats and Republicans together, we could really solve very important issues. I remember that's how we really started rebuilding California and invested $60 billion in infrastructure.”

“How do you tell a valuable French book?' 'First there are the pictures. Then it is a question of the quality of the pictures. Then it is the binding. If a book is good, the owner will have it bound properly. All books in English are bound, but bound badly. There is no way of judging them.”

“Our cause is just. Our union is perfect. ... With hearts fortified ... we most solemnly, before God and the world, declare that... we will, in defiance of every hazard, with unabating firmness and perseverence, employ for the preservation of our liberties; being with one mind resolved to die freemen rather than to live slaves.”

“Harmony, liberal intercourse with all Nations, are recommended by policy, humanity and interest. But even our Commercial policy should hold an equal and impartial hand: neither seeking nor granting exclusive favours or preferences; consulting the natural course of things; diffusing and diversifying by gentle means the streams of Commerce, but forcing nothing; establishing with Powers so disposed; in order to give trade a stable course.”

“Our task must be to free ourselves by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty.”

“We must be careful not to confuse data with the abstractions we use to analyse them.”

“Must one dread what others dread?”

“The essence of management is to make knowledge productive.”