Mastodawn

A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the lustre of the firmament of bards and sages. Yet he dismisses without notice his thought, because it is his.
In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts; they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty. Great works of art have no more affecting lesson for us than this. They teach us to abide by our spontaneous impression with good-humored inflexibility then most when the whole cry of voices is on the other side. Else to-morrow a stranger will say with masterly good sense precisely what we have thought and felt all the time, and we shall be forced to take with shame our own opinion from another.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
Essay (1841), “Self-Reliance,” Essays: First Series, No. 2

More about this quote: wist.info/emerson-ralph-waldo/…

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Emerson, Ralph Waldo - Essay (1841), "Self-Reliance," Essays: First Series, No. 2 | WIST Quotations

WIST Quotations

WIST Quotations Has Moved!Nov 26

A quotation from Thomas Fuller

Never trust a malicious Man upon the Account that thou hast done him good Offices: For thou hast but fed a Dragon that will devour thee, if ever thou comest within his reach.

Thomas Fuller (1654-1734) English physician, preacher, aphorist, writer
Introductio ad Prudentiam, Vol. 1, # 948 (1725)

More about this quote: wist.info/fuller-thomas-1654/8…

#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #thomasfuller #badperson #betrayal #evilperson #faithlessness #favor #malice #quidproquo #selfbetrayal #transaction #trust #trustworthiness

Introductio ad Prudentiam, Vol. 1, # 948 (1725) - Fuller, Thomas (1654) | WIST Quotations

Never trust a malicious Man upon the Account that thou hast done him good Offices: For thou hast but fed a Dragon that will devour thee, if ever thou comest within his reach. Fuller repeated this item as # 2443 in his second volume (1727), slightly altered: Never trust a…

WIST Quotations

WIST Quotations Has Moved!Jul 31, 2025

A quotation from Moliere

ELMIRE: No, amorous men are gullible. Their conceit
So blinds them that they’re never hard to cheat.

[Non; on est aisément dupé par ce qu’on aime.
Et l’amour-propre engage à se tromper soi-même.]

Molière (1622-1673) French playwright, actor [stage name for Jean-Baptiste Poquelin]
Tartuffe, or the Hypocrite [Le Tartuffe, ou L’Imposteur], Act 4, sc. 3 (1669) [tr. Wilbur (1963)]

Sourcing, notes, other translations: wist.info/moliere/78138/

#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #moliere #tartuffe #amorousness #conceit #ego #folly #gullibility #love #lust #pride #selfbetrayal #selfdeceit #selfdeception #selflove #foolingyourself

WIST Quotations Has Moved!May 30, 2025

A quotation from Robert Ingersoll

On every hand are the enemies of individuality and mental freedom. Custom meets us at the cradle and leaves us only at the tomb. Our first questions are answered by ignorance, and our last by superstition. We are pushed and dragged by countless hands along the beaten track, and our entire training can be summed up in the word –suppression. Our desire to have a thing or to do a thing is considered as conclusive evidence that we ought not to have it, and ought not to do it. At every turn we run against cherubim and a flaming sword guarding some entrance to the Eden of our desire. We are allowed to investigate all subjects in which we feel no particular interest, and to express the opinions of the majority with the utmost freedom. We are taught that liberty of speech should never be carried to the extent of contradicting the dead witnesses of a popular superstition. Society offers continual rewards for self-betrayal, and they are nearly all earned and claimed, and some are paid.

Robert Green Ingersoll (1833-1899) American lawyer, agnostic, orator
Lecture (1873-12) “Individuality,” Chicago Free Religious Society

Sourcing, notes: wist.info/ingersoll-robert-gre…

#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #robertingersoll #uniformity #religiousintolerance #conformity #groupthink #intolerance #orthodoxy #regulation #religion #selfbetrayal #society #suppression #tyrannyofthemajority

Leisureguy Jan 7, 2024

Anne Applebaum had a long and interesting article in the Atlantic in the July/August 2020 issue (toward the end of Trump's presidency but before the election) that describes how the authoritarian virus infects and then destroys a democratic nation, and how that process played out in Germany after WWII and in America today. Well worth reading.

https://archive.ph/rbSUU

#Trump #democracy #collaboration #selfBetrayal