Letters Quotes - Page 9

• Other writers of history recorded the fighting of wars waged for the sake of children and country and other possessions. But our narrative of the government of God will record in ineffaceable letters the most peaceful wars waged in behalf of the peace of the soul.

  Eusebius

  Country, Children, War

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• Someone who does not write books, who thinks a lot, and who lives in unsatisfying society will usually be a good letter- writer.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Book, Writing, Thinking

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• On all the walls, wherever walls exist, I will inscribe this eternal indictment of Christianity--I have letters to make even blindmen see.... I call Christianity the single great curse, the single great innermost depravity, the single great instinct of revenge, for which no means is poisonous, secretive, subterranean, small enough--I call it mankind's single immortal blemish.... And we reckon time from the dies nefastus with which this calamity arose--following Christianity's first day!--Why not following its last day, instead?--Following today?--Transvaluation of all values!

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Time, Wall, Revenge

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• The profession of letters is, after all, the only one in which one can make no money without being ridiculous.

  Jules Renard

  Ridiculous, Poor, No Money

  Jules Renard, Louise Bogan, Elizabeth Roget (2008). “The Journal of Jules Renard”, p.245, Tin House Books

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• When I was quite young I fondly imagined that all foreign languages were codes for English. I thought that "hat," say, was the real and actual name of the thing, but that people in other countries, who obstinately persisted in speaking the code of their forefathers, might use the word "ibu," say, to designate not merely the concept hat, but the English word "hat." I knew only one foreign word, "oui," and since it had three letters as did the word for which it was a code, it seemed, touchingly enough, to confirm my theory.

  Annie Dillard

  Country, Real, Names

  Annie Dillard (1988). “Pilgrim at Tinker Creek”, Harpercollins

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• Real orgies are never so exciting as pornographic books. In a volume by Pierre Louys all the girls are young and their figures perfect; there's no hiccoughing or bad breath, no fatigue or boredom, no sudden recollections of unpaid bills or business letters unanswered, to interrupt the raptures. Art gives you the sensation, the thought, the feeling quite pure--chemically pure, I mean,... not morally.

  Aldous Huxley

  Girl, Art, Real

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• I received a letter from a lad asking me for an easy berth. To this I replied: You cannot be an editor; do not try the law; do not think of the ministry; let alone all ships and merchandise; abhor politics; don't practice medicine; be not a farmer or a soldier or a sailor; don't study, don't think. None of these are easy. O, my son, you have come into a hard world. I know of only one easy place in it, and that is the grave!

  Henry Ward Beecher

  Jobs, Son, Thinking

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• Letter-writing too often degenerates into a communicating of facts, and not of truths; of other men's deeds and not our thoughts.What are the convulsions of a planet, compared with the emotions of the soul? or the rising of a thousand suns, if that is not enlightened by a ray?

  Henry David Thoreau

  Communication, Writing, Men

  Henry David Thoreau (2012). “Thoreau's Book of Quotations”, p.56, Courier Corporation

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• There are geniuses in trade as well as in war, or the state, or letters; and the reason why this or that man is fortunate is not to be told. It lies in the man: that is all anybody can tell you about it.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  War, Lying, Men

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1851). “Essays, lectures and orations”, p.207

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• There's one post-Christmas chore I love-writing thank-you letters.... Lots of companies for many reasonable reasons, I guess, have a policy against sending even Christmas cards, never mind things, at Christmastime. But our clan gets a big kick out of opening the Warner-Lambert box containing an assortment of their wares; we argue over which of the boys is to get the Union Oil Co. necktie [and] all the holiday long we play the marvelous Christmas music sent by Goodyear.... None of these things means that Forbes or Forbeses have been had. But all of us like being thought of.

  Malcolm Forbes

  Writing, Holiday, Mean

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• Do not write me studied letters but ramble as you please.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Writing, Please

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• If your letters are as long as the bible, they will appear short to me. Only let them be brim full of affection.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Long, Affection, Ifs

  Thomas Jefferson (1830). “Memoir, Correspondence, and Miscellanies, from the Papers of Thomas Jefferson”, p.55

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• If doubtful whether to end with "yours faithfully," or "yours truly," or "yours most truly," &c. (there are at least a dozen varieties, before you reach "yours affectionately"), refer to your correspondent's last letter, and make your winding-up at least as friendly as his: in fact, even if a shade more friendly, it will do no harm!

  Lewis Carroll

  Friendly, Dozen, Shade

  Lewis Carroll (1908). “Eight or Nine Wise Words About Letter-Writing”, p.11, Library of Alexandria

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• Bolkenstein, a Minister, was speaking on the Dutch programme from London, and he said that they ought to make a collection of diaries and letters after the war. Of course, they all made a rush at my diary immediately. Just imagine how interesting it would be if I were to publish a romance of the "Secret Annexe." The title alone would be enough to make people think it was a detective story.

  Anne Frank

  War, Thinking, People

  Anne Frank (1954). “The Diary of Anne Frank”, Pan

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• The entire merit of a man can never be made known; nor the sum of his demerits, if he have them. We are only known by our names; as letters sealed up, we but read each other's superscriptions.

  Herman Melville

  Character, Men, Names

  Herman Melville (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Herman Melville (Illustrated)”, p.874, Delphi Classics

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• European society has always been divided into classes in a way that American society never has been. A European writer considers himself to be part of an old and honorable tradition--of intellectual activity, of letters--and his choice of a vocation does not cause him any uneasy wonder as to whether or not it will cost him all his friends. But this tradition does not exist in America.

  James A. Baldwin

  Class, America, Choices

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• Universal empire is the prerogative of a writer. His concerns are with all mankind, and though he cannot command their obedience,he can assign them their duty. The Republic of Letters is more ancient than monarchy, and of far higher character in the world than the vassal court of Britain.

  Thomas Paine

  Character, Empires, World

  Thomas Paine (1819). “The American Crisis”, p.19

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• I was
  the girl of the chain letter,
  the girl full of talk of coffins and keyholes,
  the one of the telephone bills,
  the wrinkled photo and the lost connections.

  Anne Sexton

  Girl, Connections, Coffins

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• Of all injustice, that is the greatest which goes under the name of law, and of all sorts of tyranny the forcing of the letter of the law against the equity, is the most insupportable.

  Roger L'Estrange

  Law, Names, Injustice

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• A good writer does not receive anywhere near the number of poison-pen letters that is commonly assumed. Among a hundred jackassesthere are not ten who will admit to being jackasses, and at most one who will put it in writing.

  Karl Kraus

  Writing, Numbers, Doe

  Karl Kraus (1976). “Half-truths & One-and-a-half Truths: Selected Aphorisms”

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• Predictions that unit cohesion could not survive honesty about sexual orientation were simply wrong. What does threaten morale arethe prolonged investigations, the questioning of friends and co-workers, the searches of barracks for magazines and letters, the witch hunts.

  Anna Quindlen

  Honesty, Doe, Magazines

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• Russian is such a tough and complex language that I am happy enough to understand everything and read most things pretty well, but, without constant practice, my speech is not what I wish it was, and I would sooner write in crayon than write a letter in Russian.

  David Remnick

  Writing, Practice, Wish

  "Ask the Author Live: David Remnick on Russia and Putin". The New Yorker Live Chat, www.newyorker.com. December 9, 2011.

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• Don't drag candidates through weeks of endless interviews. Don't flake out on interviews. At DeveloperAuction, we often have offer letters prepared in advance, so we can hand them to great candidates as they are leaving the office.

  Matt Mickiewicz

  Hands, Office, Leaving

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• Cliche refers to words, commonplace to ideas. Cliche describes the form or the letter, commonplace the substance or spirit. To confuse them is to confuse the thought with the expression of the thought. The cliche is immediately perceivable; the commonplace very often escapes notice if decked out in original dress. There are few examples, in any literature, of new ideas expressed in original form. The most critical mind must often be content with one or the other of these pleasures, only too happy when it is not deprived of both at once, which is not too rarely the case.

  Remy de Gourmont

  Often Is, Expression, Ideas

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• Denotation by means of sounds and markings is a remarkable abstraction. Three letters designate God for me; several lines a million things. How easy becomes the manipulation of the universe here, how evident the concentration of the intellectual world! Language is the dynamics of the spiritual realm. One word of command moves armies; the word liberty entire nations.

  Novalis

  God, Spiritual, Moving

  "Pollen and Fragments". Book by Novalis. Fragment No. 2, 1798.

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