John Quotes

The man who first abused his fellows with swear-words instead of bashing their brains out with a club should be counted among those who laid the foundations of civilization.

Actions of the last age are like almanacs of the last year.

Poetry is of so subtle a spirit, that in the pouring out of one language into another it will evaporate.

When any great design thou dost intend, Think on the means, the manner, and the end.

Who fears not to do ill fears the name, And free from conscience, is a slave to fame.

Youth, what man's age is like to be, doth show; We may our ends by our beginnings know.

Uncertain ways unsafest are, and doubt a greater mischief than despair.

Such is our pride, our folly, or our fate, That few, but such as cannot write, translate.

You prove but too clearly that seeking to know Is too frequently learning to doubt.

Nor ought a genius less than his that writ attempt translation.

Books should to one of these fours ends conduce, for wisdom, piety, delight, or use.

Search not to find things too deeply hid; Nor try to know things whose knowledge is forbid.

It is no exaggeration to say that Israeli policy in the occupied territories is not simply a matter of foreign policy - it is a matter for British domestic security policy too.

Sure there are poets which did never dream Upon Parnassus, nor did taste the stream Of Helicon; we therefore may suppose Those made not poets, but the poets those.

Whatsoever is worthy of their love is worth their anger.

We are never like angels till our passion dies.

Why is there such passion for any sort of gossipy, provocative sensual stuff? It sells!

When I wake up in the morning, I meditate immediately, before I even get out of bed.

We have our own little heartbeat, too. We already have what I would call polyrhythms going on.

People forget that public people and celebrities, they too have to go to the bathroom and get divorced.

Going first is courageous. I'm just talking on a spirit level now.

Asked if Stalin was an antisemite, Robert Conquest replied: Yes, but it hardly noticed. He was broadly and generously anti-human.

In matters editorial, I am a believer in totalitarian despotism. Most writers are lazy, difficult, selfish, thoughtless, and unreliable.

Biophobia is as much a part of a politician's basic equipment as a sharp suit.

Education is a vast sea of lies, waste, corruption, crackpot theorizing, and careerist log-rolling.

I never ponder counterfactuals.

Men will not be content to manufacture life: they will want to improve on it.

The region of the mysterious is rapidly shrinking.

We are still too close to the birth of the universe to be certain about its death.

If science were communism, was it also not possible that communism could itself become a science?

Thinking is the accurate and deliberate instituting of connections between what is done and its consequences.

Man lives in a world of surmise, of mystery, of uncertainties.

Science is a systematic means of gaining reliable knowledge.

Consensus demands communication.

As societies become more complex in structure and resources, the need of formal or intentional teaching and learning increases.

Democracy means the belief that humanistic culture should prevail.

The acquisition however perfectly of skills is not an end in itself. They are things to be put to use as a contribution to a common and shared life.

Thought is impossible without words.

Not perfection as a final goal, but the ever-enduring process of perfecting, maturing, refining is the aim of living.

Communication is a process of sharing experience till it becomes a common possession. It modifies the disposition of both the parties who partake in it.

Education must be understood as growth, or the facilitation of growth.

Men's fundamental attitudes toward the world are fixed by the scope and qualities of the activities in which they partake.

Things gain meaning by being used in a shared experience or joint action.

The conduct of schools, based upon a new order of conception, is so much more difficult than is the management of schools which walk the beaten path.

The struggle for democracy has to be maintained on as many fronts as culture has aspects: political, economic, international, educational, scientific and artistic, religious.

most notable distinction between living and inanimate beings is that the former maintain themselves by renewal.

A tribe, let us say, is warlike. The successes for which it strives, the achievements upon which it sets store, are connected with fighting and victory.

The devotion of democracy to education is a familiar fact. . . . [A] government resting upon popular suffrage cannot be successful unless those who elect . . . their governors are educated.

In general, every stimulus directs activity. It does not simply excite it or stir it up, but directs it toward an object.

A man really living alone (alone mentally as well as physically) would have little or no occasion to reflect upon his past experience to extract its net meaning.