Winning
Winning.
Sourced
- All games are basically hostile. Winners and losers. We see them all around us: the winners and the losers. The losers can oftentimes become winners, and the winners can very easily become losers.
- William S. Burroughs, "The War Universe", taped conversation, first published in Grand Street, No. 37 (1991).
- "These children...well, they have no concept. None. All they want to do is win. That is your culture. America spoils chess, as it spoils all things. Art? What art? Winning, all you Americans can think of is winning. Winning and getting rich. Your country is too young to have so much power. Too immature. Yet, because of your power, everybody pays attention. Everybody. You are teaching the world that only one thing matters!"
- Stephen L. Carter, The Emperor of Ocean Park (2002), Ch. 26, Sam Loyd's Challenge ("Karl").
- If we win, nobody will care. If we lose, there will be nobody to care.
- Winston Churchill, secret session, House of Commons, June 25, 1941. Winston S. Churchill: His Complete Speeches, 1897–1963, ed. Robert Rhodes James (1974), vol. 6, p. 6438.
- I will not only give 'em battle, I will lick 'em!
- Richard William Dowling, , purported remark to a Confederate council of war urging him not to fight. May M. Pray, Dick Dowling's Battle (1936), chapter 10, p. 108. Reported as unverified in Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations (1989). During the Battle of Sabine Pass, September 8, 1863, the Confederates at Fort Griffin did defeat the Union forces trying to occupy southeast Texas. In forty-five minutes, Dowling and his forty-six men captured 350 prisoners, cannon, and two gunboats, while crippling a third, without suffering any casualties.
- You make your own luck, Gig.
You know what makes a good loser? Practice.- Ernest Hemingway, speaking to his son. Reported in Gregory H. Hemingway, Papa, a Personal Memoir (1976), p. 4.
- Whoever can surprize well must Conquer.
- John Paul Jones, letter to the American commissioners to France, February 10, 1778. Papers of Benjamin Franklin, American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Reproduced courtesy of the APS Library. This appears as "Who can surprise well must conquer" in John Paul Jones, Fighter for Freedom and Glory by Lincoln Lorenz, p. xiii (1943).
- Whether you like it or not, history is on our side. We will bury you.
- Nikita Khrushchev, remark at a Polish embassy reception following the signing of a Moscow-Warsaw joint declaration in Moscow, November 18, 1956.—The Washington Post, November 19, 1956, p. 1. Khrushchev later explained what he had meant in response to a question at the National Press Club, Washington, D.C., September 16, 1959: "The expression I used was distorted, and on purpose, because what was meant was not the physical burial of any people but the question of the historical force of development. It is well known that at the present time no one social or economic system is dominant throughout the world, but that there are different systems, social systems in different countries. And those systems change. At one time the most widespread system of society in the world was feudalism. Then capitalism took its place…. We believe that Karl Marx, Engels and Lenin gave scientific proof of the fact that the system, the social system of socialism, would take the place of capitalism … that is why I said that looking at the matter from the historical point of view, socialism, communism, would take the place of capitalism and capitalism thereby would be, so to speak, buried."—Transcript of Khrushchev's address and subsequent question-and-answer session (simultaneous translation), The New York Times, September 17, 1959, p. 18, col. 8.
- Diane: Coach has lost his sweet disposition. he's turned into a tyrant.
Sam: Yeah, but he's winning Diane and winning is the most important thing here.
Diane: Well, I don't think winning is the most important thing here.
Sam: Well good then, you won't mind losing this argument.- Earl Pomerantz, Cheers, Manager Coach [2.8] (air date November 24, 1983).
- For when the One Great Scorer comes to mark against your name,
He writes—not that you won or lost—but how you played the Game.- Grantland Rice, "Alumnus Football," last two lines, Only the Brave and Other Poems, p. 144 (1941).
- Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing.
- Henry Russell ("Red") Sanders, Vanderbilt University football coach, c. 1948.—Leo Green, Sportswit, p. 57 (1984). Verified by Scoop Hudgins, Vanderbilt's sports information director 1946–1948, and Fred Russell, retired sports editor of the Nashville, Tennessee, Banner and a friend of Sanders's, who quoted this phrase in his columns at the time. This remark has been widely attributed to football coach Vince Lombardi. In Vince Lombardi on Football, ed. George L. Flynn, vol. 1, chapter 1, p. 16 (1973), Lombardi is quoted, "I have been quoted as saying, ‘Winning is the only thing.' That's a little out of context. What I said is that ‘Winning is not everything—but making the effort to win is.'" Not everyone agrees. Time, September 14, 1970, p. 61, attributed this remark to Lombardi and called it his creed. Bob Rubin, Green Bay's Packers, p. 84 (1973), quotes this from Lombardi's opening talk on the first day of training camp in 1959.
- I'm so tired of pretending my life isn't perfect and bitching and just winning every second.
- Charlie Sheen, On The Alex Jones Show (February 24, 2011).
- I would rather lose in a cause that will some day win, than win in a cause that will some day lose!
- Attributed to Woodrow Wilson in Hugh A. Bone, American Politics and the Party System (1949), p. 482. Reported in Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations (1989) as not verified in the writings of Wilson.
Proverbs
- Life's battle don't always go to the stronger or faster man, but sooner or later the man who wins is the one who thinks he can.
- Lucier, T. J. (2005). How to make money with real estate options: low-cost, low-risk, high-profit strategies for controlling undervalued property-- without the burdens of ownership!, Wiley.
- Slow and steady wins the race.
- Mieder, Wolfgang; Kingsbury, Stewart A.; Harder, Kelsie B. (1992). A Dictionary of American proverbs. p. 734.
- Variant: Slowly but surely wins the race.
- Some days you get the bear, other days the bear gets you.
- Meaning: Some days you win, and some days you lose.
- (2002). The economist, Economist Newspaper Ltd.
- He laughs best who laughs last.
- Meaning: He who wins in the end wins.
- Ammer, Christine (1997). The American Heritage dictionary of idioms. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. p. 368. 039572774X.
- He who dares wins.
- Mieder, Wolfgang; Kingsbury, Stewart A.; Harder, Kelsie B. (1992). A Dictionary of American proverbs. p. 174.
Attributed
- Don't fight a battle if you don't gain anything by winning.
- Authorship disputed. Attributed to George S. Patton in Patton's Principles : A Handbook for Managers Who Mean It! (1982) by Porter B. Williamson as well as Leadership (1990) by William Safire and Leonard Safir, p. 47, but is also attributed to Erwin Rommel from his Infanterie Greift An [Infantry Attacks] (1937) in World War II : The Definitive Visual History (2009) by Richard Holmes, p. 128, and Timelines of History (2011) by DK Publishing, p. 392.
RQ topics
To do
Bruce Barton (1886–1957) QUOTATION: In his first years in the White House, Mr. Roosevelt apologized for each annual deficit. Each new budget message explained that, because of unforeseen circumstances, the promise of the previous year had not been met, but next year things would be better; next year there would be a balanced budget…. The 1938 congressional elections were uncomfortably near at hand…. it was announced that the President would deliver a Fireside Chat. In it our startled ears caught the opening accents of a grand new liturgy. Spending would be resumed, but let not the heart be troubled. Spending was no longer the rock of unsound finance on which so many liberal governments had been wrecked; it was not danger, but security. Debt, if owed to ourselves, was not debt but investment. ATTRIBUTION: BRUCE BARTON, “A Businessman’s Doubts on Government Spending,” Fortune, February 1943, p. 136.
Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) QUOTATION: And to preserve their independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude. ATTRIBUTION: THOMAS JEFFERSON, letter to Samuel Kercheval, July 12, 1816.—The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Paul L. Ford, vol. 10, p. 41 (1899).
Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) QUOTATION: I am for a government rigorously frugal & simple, applying all the possible savings of the public revenue to the discharge of the national debt; and not for a multiplication of officers & salaries merely to make partisans, & for increasing, by every device, the public debt, on the principle of it’s being a public blessing. ATTRIBUTION: Vice President THOMAS JEFFERSON, letter to Elbridge Gerry, January 26, 1799.—The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Paul L. Ford, vol. 7, p. 327 (1896).
Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) QUOTATION: I, however, place economy among the first and most important of republican virtues, and public debt as the greatest of the dangers to be feared. ATTRIBUTION: THOMAS JEFFERSON, letter to William Plumer, July 21, 1816.—The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Andrew A. Lipscomb, vol. 15, p. 47 (1903).
Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) QUOTATION: I wish it were possible to obtain a single amendment to our constitution. I would be willing to depend on that alone for the reduction of the administration of our government to the genuine principles of it’s constitution; I mean an additional article, taking from the federal government the power of borrowing. ATTRIBUTION: Vice President THOMAS JEFFERSON, letter to John Taylor, November 26, 1798.—The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Paul L. Ford, vol. 7, p. 310 (1896).
Abraham Lincoln (1809–65) QUOTATION: As an individual who undertakes to live by borrowing, soon finds his original means devoured by interest, and next no one left to borrow from—so must it be with a government. ATTRIBUTION: ABRAHAM LINCOLN, campaign circular from Whig Committee, March 4, 1843.—The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, ed. Roy P. Basler, vol. 1, p. 311 (1953).
Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800–59) QUOTATION: Such was the origin of that debt which has since become the greatest prodigy that ever perplexed the sagacity and confounded the pride of statesmen and philosophers. At every stage in the growth of that debt the nation has set up the same cry of anguish and despair. At every stage in the growth of that debt it has been seriously asserted by wise men that bankruptcy and ruin were at hand. Yet still the debt went on growing; and still bankruptcy and ruin were as remote as ever. ATTRIBUTION: THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY, History of England, vol. 8 (The Complete Writings of Lord Macaulay, vol. 8), chapter 19, p. 70 (1899).
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882–1945) QUOTATION: Our national debt after all is an internal debt owed not only by the Nation but to the Nation. If our children have to pay interest on it they will pay that interest to themselves. A reasonable internal debt will not impoverish our children or put the Nation into bankruptcy. ATTRIBUTION: President FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, address to the American Retail Federation, Washington, D.C., May 22, 1939.—The Public Papers and Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1939, p. 351 (1941).
Harvey G. Cox (1929–) QUOTATION: Somewhere deep down we know that in the final analysis we do decide things and that even our decisions to let someone else decide are really our decisions, however pusillanimous. ATTRIBUTION: HARVEY G. COX, On Not Leaving It to the Snake, p. viii (1967). Quoted as “Not to decide is to decide” in Peter’s Quotations by Laurence J. Peter, p. 297 (1977).
Laurence Johnston Peter (1919–90) QUOTATION: Some problems are so complex that you have to be highly intelligent and well informed just to be undecided about them. ATTRIBUTION: LAURENCE J. PETER, Peter’s Almanac, entry for September 24 (1982).
Jonathan Westover, a fictitious person QUOTATION: We have a choice: to plow new ground or let the weeds grow. ATTRIBUTION: Attributed to Jonathan Westover, a fictitious person. This sentence originally appeared in a Virginia Department of Agriculture report for fiscal year 1958–1959 entitled Plowed Ground. When the authors were pushed by a deadline and unable to find the kind of quotation they wanted, they made one up. In January 1970 the sentence was used on the cover of a Virginia Mental Health Commission report, This Commonwealth’s Commitment. An effort to learn more about Westover after this report appeared uncovered the origin of the sentence.—Richmond Times-Dispatch, January 26, 1970, p. B1.
Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) QUOTATION: But man is not made for defeat. A man can be destroyed but not defeated. ATTRIBUTION: ERNEST HEMINGWAY, The Old Man and the Sea, p. 113 (1952).
Abraham Lincoln (1809–65) QUOTATION: He said that he felt “like the boy that stumped his toe,—‘it hurt too bad to laugh, and he was too big to cry.’” ATTRIBUTION: Attributed to ABRAHAM LINCOLN by John T. Morse, Jr., Abraham Lincoln, vol. 1, p. 149 (1893), referring to Lincoln’s defeat by Senator Stephen Douglas in the 1858 senatorial campaign in Illinois.
Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, November 22, 1862, p. 131, attributed this reply to President Lincoln, when asked how he felt about the result of the New York election [where the Democratic candidate won the governorship]: “Somewhat like that boy in Kentucky, who stubbed his toe while running to see his sweetheart. The boy said he was too big to cry, and far too badly hurt to laugh.”
Adlai Stevenson told this story in his nationally-televised concession speech after the 1952 presidential election: “Someone asked me, as I came in, down on the street, how I felt, and I was reminded of a story that a fellow-townsman of ours used to tell—Abraham Lincoln. They asked him how he felt once after an unsuccessful election. He said that he was too old to cry, but it hurt too much to laugh.”—The Papers of Adlai E. Stevenson, ed. Walter Johnson, vol. 4, p. 188 (1974). The speech was delivered at the Leland Hotel, Springfield, Illinois, in the early hours of November 5, 1952.
National security is the maintenance of the survival of the state through the presence of armed forces and the use of economic power, diplomacy, power projection and political power.
Harold Brown (1927– ) QUOTATION: The Soviets have really been quite single-minded. They increased their defense expenditures as we increased ours. And they increased their defense expenditures as we decreased ours. ATTRIBUTION: HAROLD BROWN, secretary of defense, testimony, January 31, 1979.—Department of Defense Appropriations for Fiscal Year 1980, hearings before a Subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations, United States Senate, 96th Congress, 1st session, p. 278 (1979).
More succinctly, Brown noted, “Soviet spending has shown no response to U.S. restraint—when we build they build; when we cut they build,” in a statement before a joint meeting of the House and Senate Budget Committees in early 1979 regarding the fiscal 1980 budget.
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (1874–1965) QUOTATION: I do not hold that we should rearm in order to fight. I hold that we should rearm in order to parley. ATTRIBUTION: Prime Minister WINSTON CHURCHILL, radio broadcast, London, October 8, 1951.—Winston S. Churchill: His Complete Speeches, 1897–1963, ed. Robert Rhodes James, vol. 8, p. 8257 (1974).
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (1874–1965) QUOTATION: Today is Trinity Sunday. Centuries ago words were written to be a call and a spur to the faithful servants of Truth and Justice: “Arm yourselves, and be ye men of valor, and be in readiness for the conflict; for it is better for us to perish in battle than to look upon the outrage of our nation and our altar. As the Will of God is in Heaven, even so let it be.” ATTRIBUTION: WINSTON CHURCHILL, first radio address as prime minister, London, May 19, 1940.—Winston S. Churchill: His Complete Speeches, 1897–1963, ed. Robert Rhodes James, vol. 6, p. 6223 (1974).
He was referring to the heroism of the biblical Maccabees found in I Maccabees (Apocrypha) 3:58–60.
wight David Eisenhower (1890–1969) QUOTATION: The worst to be feared and the best to be expected can be simply stated.
The worst is atomic war.
The best would be this: a life of perpetual fear and tension; a burden of arms draining the wealth and the labor of all peoples; a wasting of strength that defies the American system or the Soviet system or any system to achieve true abundance and happiness for the peoples of this earth.
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
This world in arms is not spending money alone.
It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.
The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities.
It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population.
It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals.
It is some 50 miles of concrete highway.
We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat.
We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.
This, I repeat, is the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking.
This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.
ATTRIBUTION: President DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER, “The Chance for Peace,” address delivered before the American Society of Newspaper Editors, Washington, D.C., April 16, 1953.—Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1953, p. 182.
Gerald Rudolph Ford (1913– ) QUOTATION: A strong defense is the surest way to peace. Strength makes détente attainable. Weakness invites war, as my generation—my generation—knows from four very bitter experiences. Just as America’s will for peace is second to none, so will America’s strength be second to none. We cannot rely on the forbearance of others to protect this Nation. The power and diversity of the Armed Forces, active Guard and Reserve, the resolve of our fellow citizens, the flexibility in our command to navigate international waters that remain troubled are all essential to our security. ATTRIBUTION: President GERALD R. FORD, address to a joint session of Congress, August 12, 1974.—Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Gerald R. Ford, 1974, p. 11.
Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) QUOTATION: To draw around the whole nation the strength of the General Government, as a barrier against foreign foes,… to equalize and moderate the public contributions, that while the requisite services are invited by due renumeration, nothing beyond this may exist to attract the attention of our citizens from the pursuits of useful industry, nor unjustly to burthen those who continue in those pursuits—these are functions of the General Government on which you have a right to call. ATTRIBUTION: President THOMAS JEFFERSON, letter to Amos Marsh, November 20, 1801.—The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Andrew A. Lipscomb, vol. 10, p. 293 (1903).
Abraham Lincoln (1809–65) QUOTATION: All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force take a drink from the Ohio or make a track on the Blue Ridge in a trial of a thousand years. ATTRIBUTION: ABRAHAM LINCOLN, address before the Young Men’s Lyceum, Springfield, Illinois, January 27, 1838.—The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, ed. Roy P. Basler, vol. 1, p. 109 (1953).
Robert Strange McNamara (1916– ) QUOTATION: We are confident that we can penetrate any enemy defenses with our missiles. We know that we are more than the equal of any nation in the world. ATTRIBUTION: ROBERT S. MCNAMARA, secretary of defense, conversation with newsmen after testifying before a joint session of the Senate Armed Services Committee and Defense Appropriations subcommittee, January 24, 1967, as reported by The New York Times, January 25, 1967, p. 17. McNamara denied there was an antimissile gap.
Emilio Mola (1887–1937) QUOTATION: Fifth Column. ATTRIBUTION: EMILIO MOLA. A term used by General Mola during the siege of Madrid in 1936, referring to the contingent of supporters within the city who would aid the army’s four columns attacking from outside.
A fully documented account of the term, its spread, its popularity, and its change of meaning may be found in Dwight L. Bolinger, “Fifth Column Marches On,” American Speech, February 1944, pp. 47–49. The first use in English, in a report from Spain, appears in The New York Times, October 17, 1936, p. 9, col. 4.
Chester William Nimitz (1885–1966) QUOTATION: That is not to say that we can relax our readiness to defend ourselves. Our armament must be adequate to the needs, but our faith is not primarily in these machines of defense but in ourselves. ATTRIBUTION: Admiral CHESTER W. NIMITZ, speech at the University of California, Berkeley, March 22, 1950.—The San Francisco Chronicle, March 23, 1950, p. 7, reported only the second sentence, but both can be found on a typed line of quotations by Admiral Nimitz received from the Navy Department Library.
George Washington (1732–99) QUOTATION: If we desire to avoid insult, we must be able to repel it; if we desire to secure peace, one of the most powerful instruments of our rising prosperity, it must be known, that we are at all times ready for War. ATTRIBUTION: President GEORGE WASHINGTON, fifth annual address to Congress, December 13, 1793.—The Writings of George Washington, ed. John C. Fitzpatrick, vol. 33, p. 166 (1940).
George Washington (1732–99) QUOTATION: To be prepared for War is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace. ATTRIBUTION: President GEORGE WASHINGTON, first annual address to Congress, January 8, 1790.—The Writings of George Washington, ed. John C. Fitzpatrick, vol. 30, p. 491 (1939).
James Wilson (1742–98) QUOTATION: A government without the power of defence! it is a solecism. ATTRIBUTION: JAMES WILSON, speech, Pennsylvania Convention on the adoption of the Federal Constitution, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, December 11, 1787.—The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution, ed. Jonathan Elliot, vol. 2, p. 520 (1836).
Wilson, the leader of the Federalist forces at the convention, was the only member of the Pennsylvania Convention who had been part of the Federal Convention writing the Constitution.
Other red
- Defense (400 to 412)
- Differences (436)
- Disarmament (440)
- Doing (447 to 449)
- Doing good (450 to 453)
- Enemies from within (521 to 525)
- Excellence (567 to 569)
- Experts (578)
- Exploration (579)
- Extremism (580 to 581)
- Foreign aid (611 to 612)
- Foreign policy (613 to 634)
- Defense of freedom (660 to 666)
- Government—by the people (760 to 765)
- Government—citizen participation (766 to 772)
- Government—definition of (773 to 775)
- Government—purpose of (776 to 787)
- Government—separation of powers (788 to 792)
- Government officials (793 to 794)
- Government spending (795 to 813)
- Haiti (838)
- Harm (847 to 848)
- Heroin (852)
- Idealists (868 to 871)
- Immigrants (881 to 884)
- Impeachment (888 to 894)
- Impropriety (895)
- Individual (898 to 905)
- Isolationism (910 to 911)
- Judiciary (938 to 944)
- Kentucky (964)
- Kings (965)
- League of Nations (1026 to 1027)
- Legislators (1028 to 1032)
- Legislature (1033 to 1041)
- Liberals (1042 to 1044)
- Living (1111 to 1127)
- McCarthyism (1170 to 1171)
- Mediocrity (1172)
- Military affairs (1176 to 1185)
- Military service (1186 to 1193)
- Nation (1233 to 1239)
- Needs (1240)
- New England (1241)
- Newspapers (1244 to 1250)
- North Carolina (1253)
- Nuclear energy (1254 to 1256)
- Oath of office (1260)
- Obscenity (1261)
- Patronage (1313 to 1314)
- Perverseness (1359)
- Pledge of Allegiance (1363 to 1364)
- Point of view (1365 to 1366)
- Political parties (1373 to 1388)
- Politicians (1389 to 1408)
- Positive thinking (1433 to 1436)
- Postal Service (1437 to 1439)
- Presidency (1485 to 1519)
- Prisons (1525 to 1528)
- Public affairs (1551 to 1552)
- Public opinion (1553 to 1559)
- Public service (1560 to 1571)
- Puritans (1574)
- Reasons (1582)
- Regulation (1586 to 1588)
- Relevance (1589)
- Representation (1590 to 1592)
- Republic (1593 to 1598)
- Rich (1631 to 1633)
- Right (1634 to 1637)
- Right and wrong (1638 to 1642)
- Running (1650 to 1651)
- Security (1671 to 1672)
- Self-deception (1677)
- Self-importance (1680 to 1681)
- Self-pity (1682)
- Self-respect (1683)
- Smithsonian Institution (1710)
- Solution (1735 to 1736)
- Space exploration (1737 to 1744)
- Speaking out (1745 to 1749)
- Spirit (1750 to 1754)
- State (1755 to 1760)
- States rights (1761 to 1763)
- Statesman (1764 to 1767)
- Statue of Liberty (1770 to 1771)
- Strike (1775 to 1776)
- Three-mile limit (1809)
- Times (1818 to 1822)
- Timing (1823 to 1824)
- Trying (1840 to 1843)
- Unemployment (1846 to 1847)
- Union (1848 to 1855)
- Values (1868)
- Vietnam War (1876 to 1888)
- War in Asia (1967 to 1968)
- Watergate affair (1979 to 1981)
- Weather (1982)
- Welfare (1983 to 1984)
- Westward movement (1985 to 1986)
- Winning (1987 to 1990)
- Winning and losing (1991 to 1994)
- World domination (2039 to 2045)
Other blue
- Democracy (413 to 426)
- Destiny (432 to 433)
- Devil (434 to 435)
- Diplomacy (437 to 439)
- Dissent (441 to 445)
- Dog (446)
- Doomsday (454 to 456)
- Dreams (457 to 466)
- Duty (467 to 474)
- Earth (475 to 478)
- Economy (479 to 480)
- Education (481 to 505)
- Elections (506 to 514)
- Enemies (515 to 520)
- Energy (526 to 527)
- England (528 to 536)
- English language (537 to 540)
- Environment (541 to 545)
- Epitaphs (546 to 549)
- Equality (550 to 554)
- Error (555)
- Europe (556 to 559)
- Evil (560 to 566)
- Experience (570 to 577)
- Facts (582 to 585)
- Failure (586 to 590)
- Faith (591 to 592)
- Fame (593 to 594)
- Fear (595 to 600)
- Flag (601 to 602)
- Flying (603 to 604)
- Fools (605 to 610)
- Forgiveness (635)
- Fortune (636 to 638)
- Freedom (639 to 659)
- Freedom of religion (667 to 670)
- Freedom of speech (671 to 681)
- Friendship (682 to 690)
- Future (691 to 698)
- God (699 to 705)
- Government (706 to 759)
- Greatness (814 to 831)
- Greed (832 to 833)
- Guilt (834 to 837)
- Happiness (839 to 846)
- Hate (849 to 850)
- Health (851)
- History (853 to 858)
- Home (859 to 861)
- Honesty (862)
- Hope (863)
- Human rights (864 to 867)
- Ideas (872 to 875)
- Idleness (876)
- Ignorance (877 to 880)
- Immortality (885 to 887)
- Independence Day (896 to 897)
- Ingratitude (906)
- Injustice (907 to 909)
- Israel (912 to 914)
- Italy (915)
- Jesus Christ (916 to 921)
- Joy (922 to 923)
- Judges (924 to 930)
- Judgment (931 to 937)
- Justice (945 to 963)
- Knowledge (966 to 974)
- Labor (975 to 981)
- Last words (988 to 990)
- Law (991 to 1013)
- Lawyers (1014 to 1017)
- Leadership (1018 to 1025)
- Liberty (1045 to 1081)
- Lies (1082 to 1083)
- Life (1084 to 1106)
- Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) (1107 to 1110)
- Lobbyists (1128)
- Loneliness (1129)
- Love (1130 to 1136)
- Majority (1137 to 1141)
- Man (1142 to 1162)
- Marriage (1163 to 1169)
- Memory (1173 to 1175)
- Mind (1194 to 1198)
- Moderation (1199)
- Money (1200 to 1209)
- Morality (1210 to 1214)
- Mortality (1215 to 1224)
- Mothers (1225 to 1226)
- Motives (1227 to 1231)
- News (1242 to 1243)
- Nobility (1251 to 1252)
- Nuclear war (1257 to 1259)
- Opinions (1262 to 1275)
- Oratory (1276 to 1288)
- Order (1289 to 1290)
- Past (1291 to 1293)
- Past and future (1294 to 1297)
- Past and present (1298 to 1301)
- Patriotism (1302 to 1312)
- Peace (1315 to 1329)
- People (1330 to 1347)
- Perfection (1348 to 1352)
- Perseverance (1353 to 1358)
- Plans (1360 to 1362)
- Policy (1367 to 1372)
- Politics (1409 to 1432)
- Poverty (1440 to 1442)
- Power (1443 to 1458)
- Praise (1459 to 1461)
- Prayers (1462 to 1480)
- Prejudice (1481 to 1484)
- Press (1520 to 1524)
- Privacy (1529 to 1531)
- Progress (1532 to 1541)
- Promise (1542)
- Promises (1543 to 1546)
- Property (1547 to 1550)
- Publicity (1572 to 1573)
- Race (1575 to 1580)
- Reading (1581)
- Reform (1583 to 1585)
- Responsibility (1603 to 1611)
- Retribution (1612)
- Revolution (1613 to 1618)
- Revolutionary War (1775–1783) (1619 to 1630)
- Rights (1643 to 1644)
- River (1645)
- Rome (1646 to 1648)
- Russia (1652 to 1658)
- Sacrifice (1659)
- Santa Claus (1660)
- Science (1661 to 1665)
- Sea (1666 to 1667)
- Secrecy (1668 to 1670)
- Self (1673 to 1676)
- Self-examination (1678 to 1679)
- Sex (1684 to 1685)
- Shakespeare, William (1564–1616) (1686)
- Ships and shipping (1687 to 1689)
- Silence (1690 to 1695)
- Sincerity (1696)
- Sins (1697)
- Slavery (1698 to 1706)
- Sleep (1707)
- Smile (1708 to 1709)
- Socialism (1711 to 1713)
- Society (1714 to 1719)
- Soldiers (1720 to 1734)
- Statistics (1768 to 1769)
- Strength (1772 to 1774)
- Success (1777 to 1786)
- Taxation (1787 to 1798)
- Teachers (1799 to 1800)
- Television (1801 to 1803)
- Ten Commandments (1804 to 1805)
- Theory (1806)
- Thought (1807 to 1808)
- Time (1810 to 1817)
- Today (1825)
- Treason (1826)
- Trust (1827 to 1828)
- Truth (1829 to 1839)
- Tyranny (1844 to 1845)
- United Nations (1856 to 1858)
- Unity (1859 to 1867)
- Victory (1869 to 1875)
- Violence (1889 to 1896)
- Voters and voting (1897 to 1908)
- War (1909 to 1954)
- War and peace (1955 to 1966)
- Washington, D.C. (1969 to 1975)
- Washington, George (1732–1799) (1976 to 1977)
- Water (1978)
- Wisdom (1995 to 2003)
- Wives (2004 to 2009)
- Women (2010 to 2018)
- Words (2019 to 2021)
- Work (2022 to 2032)
- World (2033 to 2038)
- World War I (1914–1918) (2046 to 2049)
- World War II (1939–1945) (2050 to 2070)
- Worth (2071 to 2073)
- Writers and writing (2074 to 2082)
RQ missing
- Nothing that we could say could add to the impressiveness of the lesson furnished by the events of the past year, as to the needs and the dangerous condition of the neglected classes in our city. Those terrible days in July—the sudden appearance, as if from the bosom of the earth, of a most infuriated and degraded mob; the helplessness of property holders and the better classes;… immense destruction of property—were the first dreadful revelations to many of our people of the existence among us of a great, ignorant, irresponsible class who were growing up here without any permanent interest in the welfare of the community or the success of the government…. It should be remembered that there are no dangers to the value of property, or to the permanency of our institutions, so great as those from the existence of such a class of vagabond, ignorant, and ungoverned children. This "dangerous class" has not begun to show itself as it will in eight or ten years when these boys and girls are matured. Those who were too negligent or too selfish to notice them as children, will be fully aware of them as men. They will vote. They will have the same rights as we ourselves, though they have grown up ignorant of moral principle…. They will poison society. They will perhaps be embittered at the wealth and the luxuries they never share. Then let society beware, when the outcasts, vicious, reckless multitude … swarming now in every foul alley and low street, come to know their power and use it.
- Children's Aid Society 11th Annual Report, "written in the aftermath of the draft riots of 1864", according to Senator Robert F. Kennedy, who quoted from it August 25, 1966. Federal Role in Urban Affairs, hearings before the Subcommittee on Executive Reorganization of the Committee on Government Operations, United States Senate, 89th Congress, 2d session (1966), part 4, p. 919.
- I do not choose to be a common man. It is my right to be uncommon—if I can. I seek opportunity—not security. I do not wish to be a kept citizen, humbled and dulled by having the state look after me. I want to take the calculated risk; to dream and to build, to fail and to succeed. I refuse to barter incentive for a dole. I prefer the challenges of life to the guaranteed existence; the thrill of fulfillment to the stale calm of utopia. I will not trade freedom for beneficence nor my dignity for a handout. I will never cower before any master nor bend to any threat. It is my heritage to stand erect, proud and unafraid; to think and act for myself, enjoy the benefit of my creations, and to face the world boldly and say, this I have done. All this is what it means to be an American.
- Dean Alfange, Who's Who in America, 1984–85, vol. 1, p. 42. These words have appeared at the end of his entry in several successive editions. Originally published in This Week Magazine. Later reprinted in The Reader's Digest, October 1952, p. 10, and January 1954, p. 122, lacking these words: "I will never cower before any master nor bend to any threat" and "to stand erect, proud and unafraid."
- Sir, since the debate opened months ago those of us who have stood against this proposition have been taunted many times with being little Americans. Leave us the word American, keep that in your presumptuous impeachment, and no taunt can disturb us, no gibe discompose our purposes. Call us little Americans if you will, but leave us the consolation and the pride which the term American, however modified, still imparts.
- William Edgar Borah, remarks in the Senate, November 19, 1919, Congressional Record, vol. 58, p. 8783. This speech, known as the "Little American" speech, referred to the treaty to ratify the League of Nations proposed after World War I.
- That what is true of business and politics is gloriously true of the professions, the arts and crafts, the sciences, the sports. That the best picture has not yet been painted; the greatest poem is still unsung; the mightiest novel remains to be written; the divinest music has not been conceived even by Bach. In science, probably ninety-nine percent of the knowable has to be discovered. We know only a few streaks about astronomy. We are only beginning to imagine the force and composition of the atom. Physics has not yet found any indivisible matter, or psychology a sensible soul.
- Lincoln Steffens, "This World Depression of Ours is Chock-full of Good News", Hearst's International Combined with Cosmopolitan (October 1932), p. 26; reprinted in The World of Lincoln Steffens, ed. Ella Winter and Herbert Shapiro (1962), p. 216.
- Catholic-baiting is the anti-Semitism of the liberals.
- Peter Viereck, Shame and Glory of the Intellectuals (1953), chapter 3, p. 45.
- In several educational institutions during the last few years manifestation of student activity in riots has been exciting the country. To the conservative mind, these riots bode no good. As a matter of fact student riots of one sort or another, protests against the order that is, kicks against college and university management indicate a healthy growth and a normal functioning of the academic mind.
Youth should be radical. Youth should demand change in the world. Youth should not accept the old order if the world is to move on. But the old orders should not be moved easily—certainly not at the mere whim or behest of youth. There must be clash and if youth hasn't enough force or fervor to produce the clash the world grows stale and stagnant and sour in decay. If our colleges and universities do not breed men who riot, who rebel, who attack life with all the youthful vim and vigor, then there is something wrong with our colleges. The more riots that come on college campuses, the better world for tomorrow.- William Allen White, "Student Riots", editorial, The Emporia (Kansas) Gazette (April 8, 1932); reported in Forty Years on Main Street, compiled by Russell H. Fitzgibbon (1937), p. 331.
- Where they [] resemble each other, however, is that in all cases, it is the Western impact which has stirred up the winds of change and set the processes of modernization in motion. Education brought not only the idea of equality but also another belief which we used to take for granted in the West—the idea of progress, the idea that science and technology can be used to better human conditions. In ancient society, men tended to believe themselves fortunate if tomorrow was not worse than today and anyway, there was little they could do about it. The idea, the revolutionary idea, that tomorrow might be better and that man can do something about it is entirely Western—and all around the world it inspires what Mr. Adlai Stevenson has called "the revolution of rising expectations." If a man has lived in a tradition which tells him that nothing can be done about his human condition, to believe that progress is possible may well be the greatest revolution of all.
- Barbara Ward, The Unity of the Free World (1961), p. 12; from her lecture on the cultures of Asia and the continent of Africa, State University of Iowa, Iowa City (April 6, 1961).
- I didn't say that I didn't say it. I said that I didn't say that I said it. I want to make that very clear.
- Attributed to George Romney, National Review (December 12, 1967), cover. Reported as unverified in Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations (1989).
- A committee is a group of the unwilling, chosen from the unfit, to do the unnecessary.
- Author unknown. Reported Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations (1989).
Republican party
- I became a Republican in 1951, the first year I could vote.
- I am not part of the problem. I am a Republican.
- I also believe that government has no business telling us how we should live our lives. I think our lifestyle choices should be left up to us. What we do in our private lives is none of the government's business. That position rules out the Republican Party for me.