Edward Said, on culture
“Just as none of us is outside or beyond geography, none of us is completely free from the struggle over geography. That struggle is complex and interesting because it is not only about soldiers and cannons but also about ideas, about forms, about images and imaginings.”
David McCullough, on history
“History is a guide to navigation in perilous times. History is who we are and why we are the way we are. “
Bill Gates, on learning
“It’s fine to celebrate success, but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure.”
Bill Bryson, from A Short History of Nearly Everything
“It is easy to overlook this thought that life just is. As humans we are inclined to feel that life must have a point. We have plans and aspirations and desires. We want to take constant advantage of the intoxicating existence we’ve been endowed with. But what’s life to a lichen? Yet its impulse to exist, to be , is every bit as strong as ours-arguably even stronger. If I were told that I had to spend decades being a furry growth on a rock in the woods, I believe I would lose the will to go on. Lichens don’t. Like virtually all living things, they will suffer any hardship, endure any insult, for a moment’s additions existence. Life, in short just wants to be.”
Paulo Freire, on the oppressed (from Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 1968)
“The oppressed, instead of striving for liberation, tend themselves to become oppressors.”
Babe Ruth, on fear
“Never let the fear of striking out get in your way.”
Thomas Paine, from The American Crisis
“What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives everything its value.”
Mary Lou Wood, after Milan, Ind., won the 1954 state basketball title
“It’s nice to be important, but it’s more important to be nice.”
George Bancroft, on change (1876)
“Institutions may crumble and governments fall, but it is only that they may renew a better youth, and mount upwards like the eagle.”
Ely S. Parker to Robert E. Lee, at Appomattox, Virginia, on 9 April 1865
“Sir, we are all Americans.”
(Lee had said to Parker, a Native American: “It is good to have one real American here.”)
