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LIBERTY
LIBRARY --- LIES/LIARS/LYING

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LIBERTY

see "FREEDOM" for related links


Liberty is not the means to a higher
political end. It is itself the highest
political end.
--Lord Acton (1834—1902)
British historian.
_The History of Freedom in Antiquity_ [1877]

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We live, my dear, in an age of trial. What will be
the consequence, I know not.
--John Adams (1735—1826)
First VP and second President of the United States.
To Abigail Adams (1744-1818) [1774], quoted in _John Adams_ by David McCullough.


The numbers of men in all ages have preferred ease, slumber,
and good cheer to liberty, when they have been in competition.
We must then depend alone upon the love of liberty in the soul
of man for its preservation. Some political institutions must
be prepared to assist this love against its enemies. Without
these, the struggle will ever end only in a change of
imposters.
--John Adams (1735—1826)
First VP and second President of the United States.
Letter to Samuel Adams (1722-1803), [18 October 1790].

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A general dissolution of the principles and manners will more
surely overthrow the liberties of America than the whole force
of the common enemy.... While the people are virtuous they
cannot be subdued; but once they lose their virtue, they will
be ready to surrender their liberties to the first external
or internal invader.... If virtue and knowledge are diffused
among the people, they will never be enslaved. This will be
their great security.
--Samuel Adams (1722—1803)
American revolutionary leader.
Letter to James Warren [12 February 1779].

Experience teaches us to be most on our guard to protect
liberty when the government's purpose is beneficent. Men
born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their
liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty
lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning
but without understanding.
--Louis Brandeis (1856—1941)
American lawyer and associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court [1916—1939].
In "Olmstead et al. vs. United States," 277 U.S. 438, 478 [1928].

I will not cede more power to the state. I will not
willingly cede more power to anyone, not to the
state, not to General Motors, not to the CIA. I
will hoard my power like a miser, resisting every
effort to drain it away from me. I will then use
*my* power, as *I* see fit. I mean to live my life
an obedient man, but obedient to God, subservient
to the wisdom of my ancestors; never to the
authority of political truths arrived at yesterday
at the voting booth. That is a program of sorts,
is it not? It is certainly program enough to keep
conservatives busy, and liberals at bay. And the
nation free.
--William F. Buckley Jr. (1925—2008)
American author and journalist.
_Up From Liberalism_ [1959]

The people never give up their liberties
but under some delusion.
--Edmund Burke (1729—1797)
Irish-born Whig politician and man of letters.
Speech at County Meeting of Buckinghamshire [1784].

Liberty, Sancho, my friend, is one of the most precious gifts that
Heaven has bestowed on mankind; all the treasures that the earth
contains in its bosom or the ocean within its depths cannot be
compared with it. For liberty, as well as for honor, man ought to
risk even his life, and he should reckon captivity the greatest evil
life can bring.
--Miguel de Cervantes (1547—1616)
Spanish novelist.
"Don Quixote de la Mancha", bk. 2, part 14 [1615]

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It is the common fate of the indolent to see their
rights become a prey to the active. The condition
upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal
vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude
is at once the consequence of his crime, and the
punishment of his guilt.
--John Philpot Curran (1750—1817)
Irish judge.
Speech on the Right of Election of the Lord Mayor of Dublin [10 July 1790].

& note:

Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.
--Wendell Phillips (1811—1884)
American abolitionist and reformer.
Paraphrasing John Philpot Curran (above) in a speech
before the Massachusetts Antislavery Society in 1852,
according to _The Dictionary of Quotations_ edited
by Bergen Evans.

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You can only protect your liberties in this world
by protecting the other man's freedom. You can
only be free if I am free.
--Clarence Darrow (1857—1938)
American lawyer.
Addressing a jury in Chicago [1920],
quoted in Arthur Weinberg _Attorney for the Damned_ [1957].

Limitation is the essence of liberty, for as soon
as liberty is complete, it dies in anarchy.
--Will Durant (1885—1981)
American philosopher and writer.
"Rousseau and Revolution" [1967],
vol. X in_The Story of Civilization_

Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase
a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor
Safety.
--Benjamin Franklin (1706—1790)
American politician, inventor, and scientist.
"Pennsylvania Assembly: Reply to the Governor" [11 November 1755]
in _The Papers of Benjamin Franklin_, ed. Leonard E. Labaree, vol. 6,
p. 242 [1963].

Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice.
Moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.
--Barry Goldwater (1909—1998)
American conservative politician.
Speech in San Francisco, Ca. [16 July 1964], accepting nomination for president.

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Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies
there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it; no
constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it.
And what is this liberty which must lie in the hearts of men
and women? It is not the ruthless, the unbridled will; it is
not freedom to do as one likes. That is the denial of liberty,
and leads straight to its overthrow. A society in which men
recognize no check upon their freedom soon becomes a
society where freedom is the possession of only a savage
few; as we have learned to our sorrow.
--Learned Hand (1872—1961)
American judge.
"The Spirit of Liberty"
Speech in New York, N.Y. [21 May 1944].


The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right;
the spirit of liberty is the spirit which seeks to understand the minds
of other men and women; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which weighs
their interests alongside its own without bias; the spirit of liberty
remembers that not even a sparrow falls to earth unheeded; the spirit
of liberty is the spirit of Him who, near two thousand years ago,
taught mankind that lesson it has never learned, but has never quite
forgotten; that there may be a kingdom where the least shall be heard
and considered side by side with the greatest. And now in that spirit,
that spirit of an America which has never been, and which may never
be; nay, which never will be except as the conscience and courage of
Americans create it; yet in the spirit of that America which lies hidden
in some form in the aspirations of us all; in the spirit of that America
for which our young men are at this moment fighting and dying; in that
spirit of liberty and of America I ask you to rise and with me pledge
our faith in the glorious destiny of our beloved country.
--Learned Hand (1872—1961)
American judge.
"The Spirit of Liberty"
Speech in New York, N.Y. [21 May 1944].

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'Emergencies' have always been the pretext on which
the safeguards of individual liberty have been eroded.
--Friedrich A. von Hayek (1899—1992)
Austrian-born British economist. Co-winner of
the 1974 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics.
_Law, Legislation and Liberty_ [1973]

The love of liberty is the love of others; the
love of power is the love of ourselves.
--William Hazlitt (1778—1830)
English essayist.
_Political Essays [1819] "The Times Newspaper"

I know not what course others may take; but as for
me, give me liberty, or give me death!
--Patrick Henry (1736—1799)
American statesman, instrumental in the adoption of The Bill of Rights.
Speech in Virginia Convention [23 March 1775].

While democracy must have its organization and
controls, its vital breath is individual liberty.
--Charles Evans Hughes (1862—1948)
American professor of law, politician, and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court [1930—1941].

The enemies of Freedom do not argue;
they shout and they shoot.
--William Ralph Inge (1860—1954)
English writer and Dean of St. Paul's [1911—1934].
_End of an Age_ [1948]

No people ever lost their liberties unless they
themselves first became corrupt. . . The people
are the safeguards of their own liberties, and
I rely wholly on them to guard themselves.
--Andrew Jackson {Old Hickory} (1767—1845)
American military hero and 7th president of the United States [1829—1837].
To a Presbyterian clergyman in Pennsylvania [1824], quoted in Robert V. Remini,
_Andrew Jackson and the Course of American Freedom_ [1981].

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I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences
attending too much liberty, than those attending
too small a degree of it.
--Thomas Jefferson (1743—1826)
American statesman and president [1801—1809].
Letter to A. Stuart [1791].


The natural progress of things is for liberty
to yield and government to gain ground.
--Thomas Jefferson (1743—1826)
American statesman and president [1801—1809].
Letter to Edward Carrington [27 May 1788].


In every country and every age, the priest has been hostile
to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot...they
have perverted the purest religion ever preached to man
into mystery and jargon, unintelligible to all mankind, and
therefore the safer engine for their purpose.
--Thomas Jefferson (1743—1826)
American statesman and president [1801—1809].
Letter to Horatio Spafford [17 March 1814].

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Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe
alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of
Americans, born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined
by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage, and
unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human
rights to which this nation has always been committed, and to
which we are committed today at home and around the world.
Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we
shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support
any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success
of liberty.
--John Fitzgerald Kennedy (1917—1963)
American Democratic statesman, President of the U.S. [1961—1963].
Inaugural address [20 January 1961].


Liberty without learning is always in peril and
learning without liberty is always in vain.
--John Fitzgerald Kennedy (1917—1963)
American Democratic statesman, President of the U.S. [1961—1963].
President of the U.S. [1961-1963],
In a speech celebrating the ninetieth anniversary of
the founding of Vanderbilt University [18 March 1963].

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When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: 'Stick to the Devil you know.'
--Rudyard Kipling (1865—1936)
English writer and poet.
_The Gods of the Copybook Headings_ [1919]

The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep's throat, for which
the sheep thanks the shepherd as his liberator, while the wolf
denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty,
especially as the sheep was a black one. Plainly the sheep
and the wolf are not agreed upon a definition of liberty.
--Abraham Lincoln (1809—1865)
American Republican statesman, President [1861—1865].
Speech in Baltimore, Maryland [18 April 1864].

The war for liberty never ends. One day liberty has to be
defended against the power of wealth, on another day against
the intrigues of politicians, on another against the dead hand
of bureaucrats, on another against the patrioter and the
militarist, on another against the profiteer, and then against
the hysteria and the passions of the mobs, against obscurantism
and stupidity, against the criminal and against the over righteous.
In this campaign every civilized man is enlisted till he dies, and
he only has known the full joy of living who somewhere and at
some time has struck a decisive blow for the freedom of the
human spirit.
--Walter Lippmann (1889—1974)
American journalist.

If men are to wait for liberty till they become wise and
good in slavery, they may indeed wait for ever.
--Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800—1859)
English politician and historian.
_Essays Contributed to the Edinburgh Review_, "Milton" [1843]

Rome remained free for four hundred years and Sparta,
eight hundred, although their citizens were armed at
all times; but many other states that have been disarmed
have lost their liberties in less than forty years.
--Niccolς Machiavelli (1469—1527)
Florentine statesman and political philosopher.
_The Art of War_ [1521]

Perhaps it is a universal truth that the loss of liberty
at home is to be charged to provisions against danger,
real or pretended, from abroad.
--James Madison (1751—1836)
Fourth president of the United States [1809—1817].
Letter to Thomas Jefferson [13 May 1798],
in _The Republic of Letters, The Correspondence between
Thomas Jefferson and James Madison 1776-1826_ [1995]
ed. by James Morton Smith.

Of what use is political liberty to those who have no bread?
It is of value only to ambitious theorists and politicians.
--Jean-Paul Marat (1743—1793)
French politician, physician, and journalist, a leader of the
radical Montagnard faction during the French revolution.
Letter to Camille Desmoulins [24 June 1790].

When the same man, or set of men, holds the sword
and the purse, there is an end of liberty.
--George Mason (1725—1792)
American statesman, wrote the Virginia Declaration of Rights.

The sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or
collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their
number, is self-protection. The only purpose for which power
can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized
community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His
own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant.
He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forbear because it
will be better for him to do so, because it will make him happier,
because, in the opinions of others, to do so would be wise, or
even right. These are good reasons for remonstrating with him,
or reasoning with him, or persuading him, or entreating him, but
not for compelling him, or visiting him with evil in case he do
otherwise. To justify that, the conduct from which it is desired
to deter him must be calculated to produce evil in someone
else. The only part of the conduct of anyone, for which he is
amenable to society, is that which concerns others. In the part
which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of right,
absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign.
--John Stuart Mill (1806—1873)
English philosopher and social reformer.
_On Liberty_ [1859], ch. 1

If liberty means anything at all, it means the right
to tell people what they do not want to hear.
--George Orwell [Eric Blair] (1903—1950)
English novelist.
Introduction to "Animal Farm" [1945].

An avidity to punish is always dangerous to liberty. It
leads men to stretch, to misinterpret, and to misapply
even the best of laws. He that would make his own
liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from
opposition; for if he violates this duty he establishes
a precedent that will reach to himself.
--Thomas Paine [spelled Pane prior to 1774] (1737—1809)
English-American writer and political pamphleteer.
_Dissertation on First Principles of Government_ [1795]

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The poorest man may in his cottage bid
defiance to all the force of the Crown. It
may be frail; its roof may shake; the wind
may blow through it; the storms may enter,
the rain may enter, — but the King of England
cannot enter; all his forces dare not cross
the threshold of the ruined tenement!
--William Pitt, the Elder, also called (from 1766) 1st Earl of Chatham (1708—1778)
British statesman, twice virtual prime minister [1756—1761, 1766—1768].


I love the Americans because they love liberty,
and I love them for the noble efforts they made
in the last war.
--William Pitt, the Elder, also called (from 1766) 1st Earl of Chatham (1708—1778)
British statesman, twice virtual prime minister [1756—1761, 1766—1768].
Speech in the House of Lords [2 March 1770].

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You and I are told we must choose between a left
or right, but I suggest there is no such thing as
a left or right. There is only an up or down. Up
to man's age-old dream — the maximum of individual
freedom consistent with order — or down to the ant
heap of totalitarianism. Regardless of their sincerity,
their humanitarian motives, those who would sacrifice
freedom for security have embarked on this downward
path. Plutarch warned, 'The real destroyer of the
liberties of the people is he who spreads among them
bounties, donations and benefits.'
--Ronald Reagan (1911—2004)
American President [1981—1989] and former Hollywood actor.
"A Time for Choosing" [27 Oct. 1964]

All of us in this country give lip service to the ideals set forth in the
Bill of Rights and emphasized by every additional amendment, and
yet when war is stirring in the world, many of us are ready to curtail
our civil liberties. We do not stop to think that curtailing these liberties
may in the end bring us a greater danger than the danger we are trying
to avert.
--Eleanor Roosevelt (1884—1962)
American human rights activist, diplomat, and
wife of U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
"Cosmopolitan" [February 1940]

There is no room in this country for
hyphenated Americanism...The one
absolutely certain way of bringing
this nation to ruin, of preventing all
possibility of its continuing to be a
nation at all, would be to permit it
to become a tangle of squabbling
nationalities.
--Theodore Roosevelt (1858—1919)
American Republican statesman and President [1901—1909].
Speech in New York [12 October 1915].

Liberty means responsibility. That
is why most men dread it.
--George Bernard Shaw (1856—1950)
Irish comic dramatist, literary critic, Socialist propagandist, and winner
of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1925 [he didn't accept it.]
_Man and Superman_ [1903] "Maxims: Liberty and Equality"

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Iraq's new president, the Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani ... says that Iraqis
"wonder in amazement" at the debate over Iraq in Britain today. "Britain
should be proud that the liberation of Iraq has, in our eyes, been one of
your finest hours. History will judge Prime Minister Blair as a champion
against tyranny. Of that I have no doubt."

I can think of many, many reasons to vote against Mr. Blair's New Labour
party today. But it is really depressing that his role in liberating Iraq (and
previously Sierra Leone, Kosovo and Afghanistan) is just the subject of
vulgar abuse by Little Englanders. To them anti-Americanism is far more
important than solidarity with Iraqis trying to build a new society.

--William Shawcross
"Winston Blair" in _The Wall Street Journal_ [5 May 2005]

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A free society is one where it is safe to be unpopular.
--Adlai E. Stevenson (1900—1965)
American Democratic politician.

It is not the fact of liberty but the way in which liberty is
exercised that ultimately determines whether liberty itself
survives.... When liberty is taken away by force it can be
restored by force. When it is relinquished voluntarily by
default it can never be recovered.
--Dorothy Thompson (1894—1961)
American social worker and correspondent for the "New York Herald Tribune."
In her column [May 1958].

People generally do not appreciate what they do not suffer for.
A thing is held to be cheap if it did not cost dearly. Honor is
lightly worn if it was easily attained. Inherited liberty is too
often carelessly used until it is repossessed through sacrifices.
--Fred Robert Tiffany, D.D.

Liberty is the hardest test that one can inflict on
a people. To know how to be free is not given
equally to all men and all nations.
--Paul Valιry (1871—1945)
French poet.
_Regards sur le Monde Actuel_ [1931]

Liberty, when it begins to take root,
is a plant of rapid growth.
--George Washington (1732—1799)
American general and commander-in-chief of the colonial armies in the American
Revolution [1775—1783] and first president of the United States [1789—1797].
Letter to James Madison [2 March 1788].

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There is no happiness, there is no liberty, there is no
enjoyment of life, unless a man can say when he rises
in the morning, I shall be subject to the decision of no
unjust judge to-day.
--Daniel Webster (1782—1852)
American orator and politician.
Speech in New York, N.Y. [24 March 1831].


God grants liberty only to those who love it
and are always ready to guard and defend it.
--Daniel Webster (1782—1852)
American orator and politician.
_Speech_ [3 June 1834]


While I trust that liberty and free institutions, as we
have experienced them, may ultimately spread over
the globe, I am by no means sure that all people
are fit for them; nor am I desirous of imposing or
forcing our peculiar forms upon any other nation
that does now wish to embrace them.
--Daniel Webster (1782—1852)
American orator and politician.
In a speech in Springfield, Massachusetts [29 September 1847].

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Before a standing army can rule, the people must be
disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom of Europe.
The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws
by the sword; because the whole body of the people are
armed, and constitute a force superior to any bands of
regular troops that can be, on any pretense, raised in
the United States.
--Noah Webster (1758—1843)
American lexicographer.
"An Examination into the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution," [1787]
Paul Ford, ed., Pamphlets on the Constitution of the United States, p. 56
(New York, 1888).

Liberty never came from government. The history of
liberty is a history of resistance. The history of
liberty is a history of limitations of governmental
power, not the increase of it.
--Woodrow Wilson (1856—1924)
American Democratic statesman and President [1913—1921].
Speech in New York City [9 September 1912].

The thing they forget is that liberty and freedom and democracy are so
very precious that you do not fight to win them once and stop. You do
not do that. Liberty and freedom and democracy are prizes awarded only
to those peoples who fight to win them and then keep fighting eternally
to hold them!
--Alvin York (1887—1964)
American soldier, famous as a World War I hero.



LIBRARY

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see "KNOWLEDGE" for related links


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A little library growing each year is an
honorable part of a man's history.
--Henry Ward Beecher (1813—1887)
American Congregational minister;
[brother of Harriet Beecher Stowe, son of Lyman Beecher.]


A library is not a luxury but
one of the necessities of life.
--Henry Ward Beecher (1813—1887)
American Congregational minister;
[brother of Harriet Beecher Stowe, son of Lyman Beecher.]

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Libraries are starting places for the adventure of
learning that can go on whatever one's vocation
and location in life. Reading is an adventure like
that of discovery itself. Libraries are our base
camp.
--James H. Billington (1929— )
American educator and the 13th Librarian of Congress.

I ... had always thought of Paradise
In form and image as a library.
--Jorge Luis Borges (1899—1986)
Argentinian writer.
"Poem of the Gifts" [1959]

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There is not such a cradle of democracy upon the earth
as the Free Public Library, this republic of letters,
where neither rank, office, nor wealth receives the
slightest consideration.
--attributed to Andrew Carnegie (1835—1919)
American businessman and philanthropist of Scottish birth.

& note:

[I]n 1901, industrialist Andrew Carnegie gave New York City
5.2 million dollars to construct sixty-five libraries. He had just
sold the Carnegie Steel Company to J. P. Morgan for 250 million
dollars, and decided to retire and devote himself to giving it
all away. He later donated money to create more than 2,500
libraries all over the United States and Britain. By the time he
died, Carnegie had given away over 350 million dollars. He
said, 'The man who enters a library is in the best society this
world affords; the good and the great welcome him, surround
him, and humbly ask to be allowed to become his servants.'
--The Writer's Almanac [12 March 2004]

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The best of my education has come from the public
library ... my tuition fee is a bus fare and once
in a while, five cents a day for an overdue book.
You don't need to know very much to start with,
if you know the way to the public library.
--Lesley Conger

The reflections and histories of men and women throughout
the world are contained in books....America's greatness is
not only recorded in books, but it is also dependent upon
each and every citizen being able to utilize public
libraries.
--Terence Cooke (1921—1983)
American cardinal.
In Vladimir Wertsman
_The Librarian's Companion_, p. 135 [1996].

With awe, around these silent walls I tread;
These are the lasting mansions of the dead.
--George Crabbe (1754—1832)
English poet.
"The Library" [1808]

My mother and my father were illiterate immigrants from Russia.
When I was a child they were constantly amazed that I could
go to a building and take a book on any subject. They couldn't
believe this access to knowledge we have here in America.
They couldn't believe that it was free.
--Kirk Douglas [Issur Danielovitch] (1916— )
American film actor and producer.

Consider what you have in the smallest chosen library.
A company of the wisest and wittiest men that could
be picked out of all civil countries, in a 1000 years,
have set in best order the results of their learning
and wisdom. The men themselves were hid and
inaccessible, solitary, impatient of interruption,
fenced by etiquette; but the thought which they
did not uncover to their bosom friend is here
written out in transparent words to us, the
strangers of another age.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803—1882)
American philosopher and poet.
"Books", _Society and Solitude_ [1870]

Unlike a lot of other libraries, [the New York Society
Library] still allows you to go to the shelves yourself.
. . . I appreciate the serendipity of the stacks, looking
for one book, but on occasion finding another, better
one, which I did not even know existed.
--David Halberstam (1934—2007)
American journalist and author. Winner of the
Pulitzer Prize in 1964 for international reporting.
"When the Third 'R' Stands for Repose"
_New York Times_ [19 December 1997]
(The Society Library is New York's oldest library.)

Your library is your portrait.
--Holbrook Jackson (1874—1948)
British journalist, writer, and publisher.
_Maxims of Books and Reading_, [1934], Chapter 13

Man, lots of time I wish I could just start
back in school, from about the sixth grade.
Man, I'd be the last one out of that library
every night.
--Malcolm X (1925—1965)
American civil rights campaigner.
Quoted by Alex Haley "Alex Haley Remembers" in
David Gallen _Malcolm X: As They Knew Him_ [1992].

I must say I find television very educational.
The minute somebody turns it on, I go to the
library and read a good book.
--Groucho [Julius Henry] Marx (1895—1977)
American film comedian.

I figured I'd better get it in before we waited
another ten years. Fifty-seven years would
be embarrassing.
--Robert Nuranen,
(In January 2007, returning an overdue
library book after forty-seven years.)

If these writings of the Greeks agree with the book of God,
they are useless and need not be preserved; if they disagree,
they are pernicious and ought to be destroyed.
--Caliph Omar (581—644)
Muslim caliph.
Attributed remark after burning the Alexandrian Library in 642.

The library is a temple of learning, and
learning has liberated more people than
all the wars of history.
--Carl T. Rowan (1925—2000)
American journalist.

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If there were no books, no written records, think how
prodigious a time twenty-three centuries would be.
With four generations per century, twenty-three centuries
occupies almost a hundred generations of human beings.
If information could be passed on merely by word of mouth,
how little we should know of our past, how slow would be
our progress! Everything would depend on what ancient
findings we had accidentally been told about, and how
accurate the account was. Past information might be
revered, but in successive retellings it would become
progressively more muddled and eventually lost.

Books permit us to voyage through time, to tap the
wisdom of our ancestors. The library connects us with
the insights and knowledge, painfully extracted form
Nature, of the greatest minds that ever were, with the
best teachers, drawn from the entire planet and from
all of our history, to instruct us without tiring,
and to inspire us to make our own contribution to
the collective knowledge of the human species.

Public libraries depend on voluntary contributions. I
think the health of our civilization, the depth of our
awareness about the underpinnings of our culture and
our concern for the future can all be tested by how
well we support our libraries.

--Carl Sagan (1934—1996)
American astronomer and author.
_Cosmos_ [1980]

-

For him that stealeth a book from this library, let it
change into a serpent in his hand and rend him. Let him
be struck by palsy and all his members blasted. Let him
languish in pain, crying aloud for mercy, and let there
be no surcease for his agony until he sinks into dissolution.
Let book-worms gnaw his entrails in token of the worm that
dieth not, and when at last he goeth to his final punishment,
let the flames of hell consume for ever and aye.
--The Librarian at the Monastery of San Pedro, Barcelona

-

A bloke walks into a Glasgow library and says to the prim
librarian, "Excuse me Miss, dey ye hiv ony books on suicide?"

To which she stops doing her tasks, looks at him over the top
of her glasses and says, "Off wi' ye, ye'll no bring it back!"

-




LIES/LIARS/LYING

.
.

see: "HYPOCRISY"
see: "IMMORALITY"
see "DECEPTION" for other related links


There was once a young Shepherd Boy who tended his sheep
at the foot of a mountain near a dark forest. It was rather
lonely for him all day, so he thought upon a plan by which
he could get a little company and some excitement. He rushed
down towards the village calling out "Wolf, Wolf,"and the
villagers came out to meet him, and some of them stopped
with him for a considerable time. This pleased the boy so
much that a few days afterwards he tried the same trick,
and again the villagers came to his help. But shortly after
this a Wolf actually did come out from the forest, and began
to worry the sheep, and the boy of course cried out "Wolf,
Wolf," still louder than before. But this time the villagers,
who had been fooled twice before, thought the boy was again
deceiving them, and nobody stirred to come to his help. So
the Wolf made a good meal off the boy’s flock, and when the
boy complained, the wise man of the village said: "A liar
will not be believed, even when he speaks the truth."
--Ζsop (c. 620 B.C.—c. 560 B.C.)
(Thought to be a legendary figure.)
_Ζsop's Fables_

All that one gains by falsehood is, not to
be believed when he speaks the truth.
--Aristotle (384—322 B.C.)
Greek philosopher.
In Tryon Edwards _A Dictionary of Thoughts_, p. 298 [1908].

She tells enough white lies to
ice a wedding cake.
--Margot Asquith [Emma Alice Margaret Asquith]
(1864—1945), British political hostess.
Of Lady Desborough, in "Listener" [11 June 1953].

A bad man is worse when he pretends to be a saint.
--Francis Bacon (1561—1626)
English philosopher and essayist.

Whatever is only almost true is quite false, and among
the most dangerous of errors, because being so near
truth, it is the more likely to lead astray.
--Henry Ward Beecher (1813—1887)
American Congregational minister; brother of
Harriet Beecher Stowe, son of Lyman Beecher.

-

Matilda told such dreadful lies,
It made one gasp and stretch one's eyes;
Her aunt, who, from her earliest youth,
Had kept a strict regard for truth,
Attempted to believe Matilda;
The effort very nearly killed her.

For every time she shouted "Fire!"
They only answered "Little liar!"
And therefore when her aunt returned,
Matilda, and the house, were burned.

--Hilaire Belloc (1870—1953)
British poet, essayist, historian, and novelist.
_Matilda_

-

The most serious doubt that has been thrown on the
authenticity of the biblical miracles is the fact that most
of the witnesses in regard to them were fishermen.
--Arthur Binstead (1861—1914)
British journalist.
_Pitcher's Proverbs_ [1909]

People never lie so much as after a hunt,
during a war or before an election.
--Otto von Bismarck (1815—1898)
Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Prussia 1862—1890.
He unified Germany with a series of successful wars and
became the first Chancellor 1871—1890 of the German Empire.

We pay a person the compliment of acknowledging
his superiority whenever we lie to him.
--Samuel Butler (1835—1902)
English novelist, essayist, and critic.
_The Note-Books of Samuel Butler_, ch. 19,
ed. Henry Festing Jones [1907].

I begin to smell a rat.
--Miguel de Cervantes (1547—1616)
Spanish novelist.
_Don Quixote de la Mancha_ [1605—1615]
Pt. 1 [1605], bk. 4, ch. 10, p. 319.

Alas! they had been friends in youth;
But whispering tongues can poison truth.
--Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772—1834)
English poet, critic, and philosopher.

The important thing is to stop lying to yourself. A man
who lies to himself, and believes his own lies, becomes
unable to recognize truth, either in himself or in anyone
else, and he ends up losing respect for himself as well
as for others. When he has no respect for anyone, he can
no longer love and, in order to divert himself, having no
love in him he yields to his impulses, indulges in the
lowest forms of pleasure, and behaves in the end like
an animal, in satisfying his vices. And it all comes from
lying — lying to others and to yourself.
--Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821—1881),
Russian novelist, journalist, and short story writer.

The little bit of truth contained in many a lie
is what makes them so terrible.
--Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach (1830—1916)
Austrian writer.
_Aphorisms_ [1880-1905], tr. David Scrase and Wolfgang Mieder [1994]

Whoever is careless with truth in small matters
cannot be trusted in important affairs.
--Albert Einstein (1879—1955)
German-American physicist who developed the
special and general theories of relativity.

Every violation of truth is not only a sort of
suicide in the liar, but is a stab at the health
of human society.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803—1882)
American philosopher and poet.
_Prudence_ [1841]

When we risk no contradiction,
It prompts the tongue to deal in fiction.
--John Gay (1685—1732)
English poet and dramatist.
_Fables_, pt. 1 [1727],
"The Elephant and the Bookseller"

[Catchphrase of Maxwell Smart (Don Adams):]
Would you believe . . .
--"Get Smart" [American TV show 1965—1970]

-

As ten millions of circles can never make a square,
so the united voice of myriads cannot lend the
smallest foundation to falsehood.
--Oliver Goldsmith (1728—1774)
Anglo-Irish writer, poet, and dramatist.
_The Vicar of Wakefield_, ch. 8 [1766]


Ask me no questions, and I'll tell you no fibs.
--Oliver Goldsmith (1728—1774)
Anglo-Irish writer, poet, and dramatist.
_She Stoops to Conquer_ [1773]

& see:

Them that asks no questions isn't told a lie.
--Rudyard Kipling (1865—1936)
English writer and poet.
"A Smuggler's Song" [1906]

-

Words - so innocent and powerless as they are,
as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good
and evil they become in the hands of one who
knows how to combine them.
--Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804—1864)
American novelist and short-story writer.

A thousand truths do not mark a man as a truth-teller, but a single lie
marks him as a damned liar....Lying to other people is your business,
but I tell you this: once a man gets a reputation as a liar, he might as
well be struck dumb, for people do not listen to the wind.
--Robert A(nson) Heinlein (1907—1988)
American science-fiction writer.

Whoever would lie usefully should lie seldom.
--John Hervey, 2nd Baron Hervey (1696—1743)
English politican and writer.
_Memoirs on the Reign of George II_
[ed. J.W. Croker, 1848]

-

By means of shrewd lies, unremittingly repeated,
it is possible to make people believe that heaven
is hell—and hell heaven. The greater the lie,
the more readily it will be believed.
--Adolf Hitler (1889—1945)
German dictator.
_Mein Kampf_ (My Battle) [1925]


The broad mass of a nation. . . will more easily
fall victim to a big lie than to a small one.
--Adolf Hitler (1889—1945)
German dictator.
_Mein Kampf_ (My Battle) [1925]

-

Sin has many tools, but a lie is
the handle which fits them all.
--Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809—1894)
American physician, poet, and essayist.
_The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table_ [1858], ch. 6

Hateful to me as the gates of Hades
is that man who hides one thing in
his heart and speaks another.
--Homer (c. 850? BC)
Greek epic poet.
__The Iliad_ [c. 800 B.C.]

You needn't love your enemy, but if you refrain from
telling lies about him, you are doing well enough.
--Edgar Watson Howe (1854—1937)
American journalist and author.

The punishment of the liar is that he
eventually believes his own lies.
--Elbert Hubbard (1859—1915)
American editor, publisher, and author who
died in the sinking of the "Lusitania."
_The Note Book of Elbert Hubbard_
p. 47, comp., Elbert Hubbard II [1927]

Hope is the universal liar who never loses
his reputation for veracity.
--Robert Green Ingersoll (1833—1899)
American politician and orator know as "the great agnostic."
Speaking at the Manhattan Liberal Club [February 1892].

-

Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.
--Thomas Jefferson (1743—1826)
American statesman and president [1801—1809].


He who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it
much easier to do it a second and third time, till
at length it becomes habitual; he tells lies without
attending to it, and truth without the world's
believing him. This falsehood of the tongue leads
to that of the heart, and in time depraves all its
good dispositions.
--Thomas Jefferson (1743—1826)
American statesman and president [1801—1809].
Letter to Peter Carr [19 August 1785].

-

It has always been the best policy to speak the truth —
unless, of course, you are an exceptionally good liar.
--Jerome K Jerome (1859—1927)
English novelist and playwright.
In "The Idler" [February 1892].

Boys, I may not know much, but I know the difference
between chicken shit and chicken salad.
--Lyndon B. Johnson (1908—1973)
American Democratic statesman, President [1963—1969].
(When asked (as majority leader) if he took seriously a
particular speech by Vice President Nixon.
In David Halberstam _The Best and the Brightest_ [1972].

I deny the lawfulness of telling a lie to a sick man
for fear of alarming him; you have no business with
consequences, you are to tell the truth.
--Samuel Johnson (1709—1784)
English poet, critic, and lexicographer.

Don't compromise yourself. You
are all you've got.
--Janis Joplin (1943—1970)
American singer.

The trust of the innocent is the liar's most useful tool.
--Stephen King (b. 1947)
American author known for horror novels.

Of all the liars in the world, sometimes
the worst are your own fears.
--Rudyard Kipling (1865—1936)
English writer and poet.

Lies, injustice, and hypocrisy are a part of every
ordinary community. Most people achieve a sort
of protective immunity, a kind of callousness,
toward them. If they didn't, they couldn't endure.
--Nella Larsen (1893—1964)
American novelist.
_Quicksand_ [1928]

It is not children only that one feeds with fairy tales.
--Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729—1781)
German dramatist.
_Nathan der Weise_, III, 6 [1779]

If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?
--Abraham Lincoln (1809—1865)
American Republican statesman, President [1861—1865].

Every word she writes is a lie,
including 'and' and 'the'.
[of Lillian Hellman.]
--Mary McCarthy (1912—1989)
American novelist.
In "New York Times" [16 February 1980].

-

If falsehood, like truth, had but one face, we would be
on more equal terms. For we would consider the contrary
of what the liar said to be certain. But the opposite
of truth has a hundred thousand faces and an infinite
field.
--Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (1533—1592)
French moralist and essayist.


It is not without good reason said, that he who has not
a good memory should never take upon him the trade
of lying.
--Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (1533—1592)
French moralist and essayist.
_Essais_ "Of Liars" bk. I Ch. IX


Lying is a hateful and accursed vice. We have no other tie
upon one another, but our word. If we did but discover the
horror and consequence of it, we should pursue it with fire
and sword, and more justly than other crimes.
--Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (1533—1592)
French moralist and essayist.

-

Literature was not born the day when a boy crying "wolf, wolf"
came running out of the Neanderthal valley with a big gray wolf
at his heels; literature was born on the day when a boy came
crying "wolf, wolf" and there was no wolf behind him.
--Vladimir Nabokov [pen name Vladimir Sirin] (1899—1977)
Russian-born American novelist.
_Lectures on Literature_ "Good Readers and Good Writers" [1980]

-

The most common sort of lie is the one
uttered to one's self.
--Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844—1900)
German classical scholar, philosopher, and critic of culture.
_Twilight of the Idols_ [1888]


I'm not upset that you lied to me, I'm upset
that from now on I can't believe you.
--Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844—1900)
German classical scholar, philosopher, and critic of culture.
_Beyond Good and Evil_ [1885-1886]

-

Start a lie and a truth together, like hare and hound: the lie
will run fast and smooth, and no man will ever turn it aside;
but at the truth most hands will fling a stone, and so hinder
it for sport's sake, if they can.
--Ouida [Maria Louise de la Ramιe] (1839—1908)
English novelist.
_Signa_ [1875] p. 61

144. Where thou art Obliged to speak, be sure speak
the Truth: For Equivocation is _half way_ to Lying,
as Lying, _the whole way to Hell._
--William Penn (1644—1718)
Quaker leader and advocate of religious freedom who oversaw
the founding of the American Commonwealth of Pennsylvania as
a refuge for Quakers and other religious minorities of Europe.
_Some Fruits of Solitude in Reflections and Maxims_ [1682]
[_Italics_ by Penn]

Debts and lies are generally mixed together.
--Franηois Rabelais (c. 1494— c. 1553]
French humanist, satirist, and physician.
_Gargantua and Pantagruel_ bk. III, ch. V [1548].

The gain of lying is, not to be trusted of any,
nor to be believed when we speak the truth.
--Sir Walter Raleigh (c. 1552—1618)
English explorer and courtier.

People think that a liar gains a victory over his
victim. What I've learned is that a lie is an act
of self-abdication, because one surrenders one's
reality to the person to whom one lies, making that
person one's master, condemning oneself from then
on to faking the sort of reality that person's view
requires to be faked. And if one gains the immediate
purpose of the lie—the price one pays is the
destruction of that which the gain was intended to
serve. The man who lies to the world, is the world's
slave from then on.
--Ayn Rand (1905—1982)
Russian-born American writer.
_Atlas Shrugged_ [1957]

-

Tell a big lie to millions of people, tell it over
and over without bothering about facts or logic,
without regard to how preposterous or ridiculous
or vicious it sounds at first, and pretty soon it
acquires the status of fact with those unhappy
people who are not in a position to check the facts.

Pretty soon even the injured and slandered parties,
who know better, are panicked into fighting the big
lie or negotiating over it, just as if it were the
truth.

--Philip D. Read

-

One of the oil men in heaven started a rumor of a gusher
down in hell. All the other oil men left in a hurry for
hell. As he gets to thinking about the rumor he had started
he says to himself there might be something in it after all.
So he leaves for hell in a hurry.
--Carl Sandburg (1878—1967)
American poet.
_The People, Yes_, #45

Oh what a tangled web we weave,
When first we practise to deceive!
--Sir Walter Scott (1771—1832)
Scottish novelist and poet.
"Marmion", Canto vi. Stanza 17

I would offend with the truth then please
with adulation.
--Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4 B.C.— 65 A.D.)
Roman philosopher and poet.

-

No legacy is so rich as honesty.
--William Shakespeare (1564—1616)
English dramatist.
_All's Well That Ends Well_ [1602—1604]


Mine honour is my life; both grow in one;
Take honour from me, and my life is done.
--William Shakespeare (1564—1616)
English dramatist.
_Richard II_ [1595]


Who steals my purse steals trash; 'tis something, nothing;
'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands;
But he that filches from me my good name
Robs me of that which not enriches him
And makes me poor indeed.
--William Shakespeare (1564—1616)
English dramatist.
_Othello_ [1604—1605], act 3, sc. 3, l. 160

-

The liar's punishment is not in the least that
he is not believed, but that he cannot believe
anyone else.
--George Bernard Shaw (1856—1950)
Irish comic dramatist, literary critic, Socialist
propagandist, and winner of the Nobel Prize
for Literature in 1925 [he didn't accept it.]
_The Quintessence of Ibsenism_ [1890], ch. 4

-

"Sick"
by Shel Silverstein (1930—1999)
Ameican poet and songwriter.

"I cannot go to school today,"
Said little Peggy Ann McKay.
"I have the measles and the mumps,
A gash, a rash and purple bumps.
My mouth is wet, my throat is dry,
I'm going blind in my right eye.
My tonsils are as big as rocks,
I've counted sixteen chicken pox
And there's one more--that's seventeen,
And don't you think my face looks green?
My leg is cut--my eyes are blue--
It might be instamatic flu.
I cough and sneeze and gasp and choke,
I'm sure that my left leg is broke--
My hip hurts when I move my chin,
My belly button's caving in,
My back is wrenched, my ankle's sprained,
My 'pendix pains each time it rains.
My nose is cold, my toes are numb.
I have a sliver in my thumb.
My neck is stiff, my voice is weak,
I hardly whisper when I speak.
My tongue is filling up my mouth,
I think my hair is falling out.
My elbow's bent, my spine ain't straight,
My temperature is one-o-eight.
My brain is shrunk, I cannot hear,
There is a hole inside my ear.
I have a hangnail, and my heart is--what?
What's that? What's that you say?
You say today is. . .Saturday?
G'bye, I'm going out to play!"

-

We should keep so close to the
facts that we never have to
remember the second time
what we said the first time.
--F. Marion Smith

If you want the truth to go round the world you
must hire an express train to pull it; but if you
want a lie to go round the world. it will fly; it is
as light as a feather, and a breath will carry it.
It is well said in the old proverb,'a lie will go
round the world while truth is putting its boots
on.'
--Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834—1892)
English nonconformist preacher.
_Gems from Spurgeon_ [1859]

The cruelest lies are often told in silence.
--Robert Louis Stevenson (1850—1894)
Scottish essayist, poet, and novelist.
_Virginibus Puerisque_ [1881], ch. 4

Rather than love, than money, than fame,
give me truth.
--Henry David Thoreau (1817—1862)
American essayist, poet, and practical philosopher.

The best years of a woman's life —
the ten years between 39 and 40.
--attributed to Sophie Tucker (1884—1966)
American vaudeville artist.

-

If you tell the truth you don't have to
remember anything.
--Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835—1910)
American humorist, novelist, journalist, and river pilot.


One of the most striking differences between a
cat and a lie is that a cat has only nine lives.
--Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835—1910)
American humorist, novelist, journalist, and river pilot.
_Pudd'nhead Wilson_ [1894]
ch. 7 epigraph: "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar"


Mark Twain loved to brag about his hunting and fishing
exploits. He once spent three weeks fishing in the
Maine woods, regardless of the fact it was the state's
closed season for fishing. Relaxing in the lounge car
of the train on his return journey to New York, his
catch iced down in the baggage car, he looked for
someone to whom he could relate the story of his
successful holiday. The stranger to whom he began
to boast of his sizable catch appeared at first
unresponsive, then positively grim. 'By the way,
who are you, sir?' inquired Twain airily. 'I'm the
state game warden,' was the unwelcome response.
'Who are you?' Twain nearly swallowed his cigar.
'Well, to be perfectly truthful, warden,' he said
hastily, 'I'm the biggest damn liar in the whole
United States.'

--_Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes_
edited by Clifton Fadiman and Andrι Bernard [2000 ed.]


A lie can travel half-way around the world
while the truth is putting on its shoes.
--attributed to Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835—1910)
American humorist, novelist, journalist, and river pilot.

^

Falsehoods not only disagree with truths,
but usually quarrel among themselves.
--Daniel Webster (1782—1852)
American orator and politician.

Falsehood, like poison, will generally be rejected when
administered alone; but when blended with wholesome
ingredients may be swallowed unperceived.
--Richard Whately (1787—1863)
English philosopher and theologian.
In James Wood _Dictionary of Quotations from Ancient
and Modern, English and Foreign Sources_, p. 100 [1899].

A man is justified in lying to protect the honor
of a woman or to promote public policy.
--Woodrow Wilson (1856—1924)
American Democratic statesman and President [1913—1921].
December 1912 remark to Col. Edward House, in Thomas A Bailey
_Presidential Greatness: The Image and the Man from George
Washington to the Present_ [1966].

-----

apocryphal (adjective) [κ-'pah-krκ-fκl]
Of unknown origin hence of questionable authenticity,
spurious; non-canonical; erroneous

belie (verb) [bκ-'LI]
To show to be false, contradict, to misrepresent, to give a false
impression of.

calumny (noun)
A false statement maliciously made to injure another's reputation.
Synonyms: aspersion, defamation, denigration, slander

canard [kuh-NAHRD], noun:
An unfounded, false, or fabricated report or story.
This is just a canard that is assumed to be true because it
has been repeated so often.
--Bruce Bartlett, "Lower Taxes Higher Revenue?,"
_National Review_, [13 March 2003]

mendacious (adj.) [men-'dey-shκs ]
Lying, untruthful.

prevaricate (verb) [prκ-'vζ-rκ-keyt]
Misleading someone away from the truth by
concocting an inaccurate account of something.

putative (adjective) [PYOO-tuh-tiv]
Commonly supposed; assumed without conclusive grounds for belief.
The only other derivational relative is the adverb "putatively."
"Putative" is nearly synonymous with "reputed" but carries a
strong connotation of untruth much like "supposed."
Ex.: A report has found that the putative evidence for the paper
that started the controversy was fabricated.
--Margot O'Toole,
"The Whistle-Blower and the Train Wreck,"
_New York Times_ [12 April 1991]

specious (adj.) ['spee-shκs]
Ostensibly true but, in fact, false, misleading;
deceptively attractive (language, gestures, and such)

spurious [SPU`RI-OUS]:
Not proceeding from the true source, or from the
source pretended; not genuine; false; adulterate

tarradiddle [air-uh-DID-uhl], noun:
1. A petty falsehood; a fib.
2. Pretentious nonsense.

traduce [truh-DOOS; -DYOOS], transitive verb:
To expose to contempt or shame by means of false
statements or misrepresentation; to represent as
blamable; to vilify.


end page



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