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PUNISH/PUNISHMENT
PUNS --- PURPOSE (ON HAVING A)

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see: "CAPITAL PUNISHMENT"
see: "CORPORAL PUNISHMENT"
see: "CRIME & PUNISHMENT"
see: "DEATH"
see: "DISCIPLINE"
see: "GUILT"
see: "HELL"
see: "JUSTICE"
see: "MERCY"
see: "PAIN"
see: "PRISON"
see: "REVENGE"


We find, in the rules laid down by the greatest English judges,
who have been the brightest of mankind; we are to look upon
it as more beneficial, that many guilty persons should escape
unpunished, than one innocent person should suffer. The
reason is, because it is of more importance to the community,
that innocence should be protected, than it is, that guilt should
be punished; for guilt and crimes are so frequent in the world,
that all of them cannot be punished; and many times they
happen in such a manner, that it is not of much consequence
to the public, whether they are punished or not. But when
innocence itself, is brought to the bar and condemned,
especially to die, the subject will exclaim, it is immaterial
to me whether I behave well or ill, for virtue itself is no
security. And if such a sentiment as this should take place
in the mind of the subject, there would be an end to all
security whatsoever.
--John Adams (1735—1826)
First VP and second President of the United States.
In Frederic Kidder _History of the Boston Massacre_ [1870].

Wrong must not win by technicalities.
--Aeschylus (525—456 B.C.)
Greek tragic dramatist.
_The Eumenides_ [458 B.C.]

The generality of men are naturally apt to be swayed by
fear rather than reverence, and to refrain from evil rather
because of the punishment that it brings than because of
its own foulness.
--Aristotle (384—322 B.C.)
Greek philosopher.
_Nicomachean Ethics_, bk. X, ch. 9

Lawyers are the only persons in whom
ignorance of the law is not punished.
--attributed to Jeremy Bentham (1748—1832)
English philosopher.


-

He that spareth his rod hateth his son.
--Bible
"Proverbs" 13:24


Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.
--Bible
"Galatians" 6:7


And thine eye shall not pity; but life shall go
for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for
hand, foot for foot.
-- Bible
"Deuteronomy" 19:21

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Hanging is too good for him, said Mr. Cruelty.
--John Bunyan (1628—1688)
English writer and allegorist.
_The Pilgrim's Progress_ [1678] "Apology for His Book"

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The players all played at once without waiting for
turns, quarrelling all the while, and fighting for
the hedgehogs; and in a very short time the Queen
was in a furious passion, and went stamping about,
and shouting "Off with his head!" or "Off with her
head!" about once in a minute.

Alice began to feel very uneasy: to be sure, she had
not as yet had any dispute with the Queen, but she
knew that it might happen any minute, "and then,"
thought she, "what would become of me? They're
dreadfully fond of beheading people here: the great
wonder is, that there's any one left alive!"

--Lewis Carroll [Charles Lutwidge Dodgson] (1832—1898)
English writer and logician.
_Alice's Adventures in Wonderland_ [1865], "The Queen's Croquet-Ground"

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Time wounds all heals.
--Frank Case (fl. 1938)
American hotel manager.
_Tales of a Wayward Inn_, ch. 2 [1938]

Exterminate all the brutes!
--Joseph Conrad [Teodor Jσzef Konrad Nalecz-Korzeniowski] (1857—1924)
Polish-born English novelist.
_Heart of Darkness_, ch. 2 [1902]

Better build schoolrooms for 'the boy',
Than cells and gibbets for 'the man'.
--Eliza Cook (1818—1889)
English poet.
"A Song for the Ragged Schools" [1853]

If people are good only because they fear punishment,
and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed.
--attributed to Albert Einstein (1879—1955)
German-American physicist who developed the
special and general theories of relativity.

They hang the man and flog the woman
That steal the goose from off the common,
But let the greater villain loose
That steals the common from the goose.
--English folk poem [c. 1764]

First, it is a voice forever sounding across the centuries the laws
of right and wrong. Opinions alter, manners change, creeds rise
and fall, but the moral law is written on the tablets of eternity.
For every false word or vanity, the price has to be paid at last;
not always by the chief offenders, but paid by some one. Justice
and truth alone endure and live. Injustice and falsehood may
be long-lived, but doomsday comes at last to them, in French
revolutions and other terrible ways.
--James A. Froude (1818—1894)
English historian.
_Short Studies on Great Subjects_ [1894] "The Science of History"

Take heed: Most Men will cheat without
Scruple where they can do it without Fear.
--Thomas Fuller (1654—1734)
English writer and physician.
Comp., _Introductio ad Prudentiam_ [1731]

Whenever the offense inspires less horror than the punishment,
the rigor of penal law is obliged to give way to the common
feelings of mankind.
--Edward Gibbon (1737—1794)
English historian.
_The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_, vol. I, ch. XIV [1776-88]

Men are not hanged for stealing horses,
but that horses may not be stolen.
--George Savile, 1st Marquess Halifax (1633—1695)
English politician and essayist.
"Of Punishment" in _Political, Moral, and
Miscellaneous Thoughts and Reflections_ [1750].

What other dungeon is so dark as one's
own heart! What jailer so inexorable as
one's self!
--Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804—1864)
American novelist and short-story writer.
_The House of the Seven Gables_ [1851]

The seeds of our own punishment are
sown at the same time we commit sin.
--Hesiod (c. 700 B.C.)
Greek poet.
Attributed in _Mental Recreation Or, Select Maxims_,
p. 247 [Longman & Rees, London, 1831].

[Professor Wagstaff, (Groucho Marx):]
I'd horsewhip you if I had a horse.
--"Horse Feathers" [1932 movie]
Screenplay by Will B. Johnstone, Bert Kalmar, S.J. Perelman, and Harry Ruby.

We are not punished for our sins, but by them.
--Elbert Hubbard (1859—1915)
American editor, publisher, and author who
died in the sinking of the "Lusitania."
_The Roycroft Dictionary and Book of Epigrams_ [1923]

Happiness is not a reward — it is a consequence.
Suffering is not a punishment — it is a result.
--Robert Green Ingersoll (1833—1899)
American politician and orator know as "The Great Agnostic."
"The Christian Religion", pt. 2 in
_The North American Review_ [November 1881].

If the death penalty is to be abolished, let
those gentlemen, the murderers, do it first.
--Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr (1808—1890)
French novelist and journalist.
"Les Guκpes" [January 1849], as quoted in Fred R. Shapiro (ed.)
_The Yale Book of Quotations_ [2006].

This year in October [1613], the Turks observed
their feasts of Bayram ... a Turk having drunk wine
too freely (the drinking whereof is forbidden amongst
them, although they love it well, and drink in private)
was apprehended, and carried before the Grand Vizier:
who seeing the fact verified, inflicted this punishment
upon him, to have boiling lead poured into his mouth
and ears.
--Richard Knolles (c.1545—1610 )
English historian.
In M.J. Cohan and John Major (eds.) _History in Quotations_, p. 265 [2004].

The sins of youth are paid for in old age.
--Latin proverb

To be left alone
And face to face with my own crime, had been
Just retribution.
--Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807—1882)
American poet.
_The Masque of Pandora_, VIII "In The Garden" [1875]

No good deed goes unpunished.
--attributed to Clare Boothe Luce (1903—1987)
American playwright and politician.

Society needs to condemn a little more and understand a little less.
--John Major (b. 1943)
The youngest British prime minister of the 20th century [1990-97].
Interview with "Mail on Sunday" [21 February 1993].

A Chicago high school punished truants by
making them listen to Frank Sinatra records.
--Bill Mandel
"The Year 1992: Calling It Like It Was"
_San Francisco Sunday Examiner and Chronicle_ [20 December 1992]

I seem to you cruel and too much addicted to gluttony,
when I beat my cook for sending up a bad dinner. If
that appears to you too trifling a cause, say for what
cause you would have a cook flogged.
--Martial [Marcus Valerius Martialis] (38/41—103)
Roman poet.
_Epigrams_ [86-98], bk. VIII

It is an open question whether any behavior based on fear of
eternal punishment can be regarded as ethical or should be
regarded as merely cowardly.
--Margaret Mead (1901—1978)
American anthropologist.
Quoted in Rhoda Metraux (ed.) _Margaret Mead, Some Personal Views_ [1979].

The idea that the sole aim of punishment is to
prevent crime is obviously grounded upon the
theory that crime can be prevented, which is
almost as dubious as the notion that poverty
can be prevented.
--H.L. (Henry Louis) Mencken (1880—1956)
American journalist and literary critic.
_Minority Report: H.L. Mencken's Notebooks_, no. 262 [1956]

We do not correct the man we hang; we correct others by him.
--Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (1533—1592)
French moralist and essayist.
_Essais_ (Essays) [pub. 1580—1588] "Of the Art of Conversation"

^

From the Denver Post.

A chief lieutenant in a violent drug and prostitution ring run
out of an Adams County motel was handed a stiff sentence
Monday. Alvin Hutchinson received three life sentences and
and five 30-year sentences, followed by six years of supervised
release, all to run concurrently.

--_New Yorker_ (mag.) [24 December 2007]

^

Distrust all men in whom the impulse to punish is powerful.
--Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844—1900)
German classical scholar, philosopher, and critic of culture.
_Thus Spake Zarathustra_, pt. II, ch. 29 [1892]

For de little stealin' dey gits you in jail soon or late.
For de big stealin' dey makes you Emperor and puts
you in de Hall o' Fame when you croaks.
--Eugene O'Neill (1888—1953)
American and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1936.
_The Emperor Jones_ [1921]

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]

First of all, then, Solon repealed all Draco's laws
because of their harshness and the excessively
heavy penalties they carried; the only exceptions
were the laws relating to homicide. Under the
Draconian code almost any offense was liable to
the death penalty, so that even those convicted
of idleness were executed, and those who stole
fruit or vegetables suffered the same punishment
as those who committed sacrilege or murder.
This is the reason why, in later times, Demades
became famous for his remark that Draco's code
was written not in ink but in blood. Draco himself,
when he was once asked why he had decreed the
death penalty for the great majority of offenses,
replied that he considered the minor ones deserved
it, and so for the major ones no heavier punishment
was left.
--Plutarch (A.D. 46?—119?)
Greek philosopher and biographer.
_Parallel Lives_ "Solon", in M.J. Cohan and
John Major (eds.) _History in Quotations_ [2004].

When Benjamin Franklin invented the lightning rod, the clergy,
both in England and America, with the enthusiastic support of
George III, condemned it as an impious attempt to defeat the will
of God. For, as all right-thinking people were aware, lightning is
sent by God to punish impiety or some other grave sin — the
virtuous are never struck by lightning. Therefore if God wants to
strike any one, Benjamin Franklin ought not to defeat His design;
indeed, to do so is helping criminals to escape. But God was equal
to the occasion, if we are to believe the eminent Dr. Price, one of
the leading divines of Boston. Lightning having been rendered
ineffectual by the "iron points invented by the sagacious Dr.
Franklin," Massachusetts was shaken by earthquakes, which Dr.
Price perceived to be due to God's wrath at the "iron points." In
a sermon on the subject he said, "In Boston are more erected than
elsewhere in New England, and Boston seems to be more dreadfully
shaken. Oh! there is no getting out of the mighty hand of God."
Apparently, however, Providence gave up all hope of curing Boston
of its wickedness, for, though lightning rods became more and more
common, earthquakes in Massachusetts have remained rare.
Nevertheless, Dr. Price's point of view, or something very like it,
is still held by one of the most influential of living men. When, at
one time, there were several bad earthquakes in India, Mahatma
Gandhi solemnly warned his compatriots that these disasters had
been sent as a punishment for their sins.
--Bertrand Russell (1872—1970)
British philosopher, mathematician, and Nobel laureate.
_An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish_ [1943]

Crime does not pay.
--"Scientific American" [10 October 1874]

[Of rumor:]
The tale-bearer and the tale-hearer should be both
hanged up, back to back, one by the tongue, the
other by the ear.
--Robert South (1634—1716)
English theologian and author.
Attributed in Tryon Edwards _A Dictionary of Thoughts_, p. 504 [1891 ed.].

If he who breaks the law is not punished, he who obeys it is
cheated. This, and this alone, is why law-breakers ought to
be punished: to authenticate as good, and to encourage as
useful, law-abiding behavior. The aim of criminal law cannot
be correction or deterrence; it can only be maintenence of
the legal order.
--Thomas Szasz (b. 1920)
American psychiatrist.
_The Second Sin_ [1973] "Punishment"

No obligation to justice does force a man to
be cruel, or to use the sharpest sentence.
--Jeremy Taylor (1613—1667)
English Anglican clergyman and writer.
In Reginald Heber (ed.) _The Whole Works of the Right
Rev. Jeremy Taylor_ [p. 17 in vol. 2 of 15 vols., 1822].

The punishment of criminals should be of use;
when a man is hanged he is good for nothing.
--Voltaire (Franηois Marie Arouet) (1694—1778)
French writer and philosopher.
_Philosophical Dictionary_ [1764] "Civil Laws"

Madame would make her toilette at dawn, seated
in her bedroom. Her hundred serfs, young and old,
male and female, would all come to report on what
they had been doing. Madame would pick out the
laziest and have them given a flogging. For those
who had toiled diligently she would prepare a goblet
of wine with her own hand and mix in marrow to
make it ready for drinking. Those who tasted this
wine would leave flushed with happiness, and compete
with each other to work hard, unmindful of their burdens.
Those who had been beaten would blame themselves
and say, 'What point is there in not making every effort
for her ladyship, and being rewarded with a beaker of
wine?' In this way everyone whom Madame employed
proved himself capable; her lands supported cattle by
the hundred, her streams bred fish and turtles by the
picul, and her gardeners tended fruit, melon, mustard,
and vegetables by the tens of acres.
--Wang Shizhen (16th century);
in M.J. Cohan and John Major (eds.)
_History in Quotations_ [2004]. Cohan and Major note:
A not untypical estate owned by a family of the official
class in mid-Ming times (1450-1600). 'Madame' was the
aunt of Wang Shizhen, a well-known bureaucrat and the
author of these lines. He gained the highest degree in the
official examinations between 1522 and 1566. According
to the law, only official families were allowed to own serfs,
but various subterfuges (such as fictive 'adoption') were
used to get round this, and it is hard to know how
widespread the practice was. A picul was a traditional
measure of capacity, about a tenth of a cubic yard.

You end up as you deserve. In old age you must
put up with the face, the friends, the health, and
the children you have earned.
--Fay Weldon (b. 1931)
British novelist.
_Praxis_ [1978]

When the gods wish to punish us they answer our prayers.
--Oscar Wilde (1854—1900)
Anglo-Irish dramatist and poet.
_An Ideal Husband_, act 2 [1895]

Executions, far from being useful examples to the survivors,
have, I am persuaded, a quite contrary effect, by hardening
the heart they ought to terrify. Besides, the fear of an
ignominious death, I believe, never deterred anyone from
the commission of a crime, because in committing it the
mind is roused to activity about present circumstances.
--Mary Wollstonecraft (1759—1797)
English feminist.
_Letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden,
Norway, and Denmark_, Letter 19 [1796]

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Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive
fines imposed, not cruel and unusual punishment
inflicted.
--Constitution of the United States [1787]
Eighth Amendment [1791]

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castigate [KAS-tuh-gayt], transitive verb:
To punish severely; also, to chastise verbally;
to rebuke; to criticize severely.

condign [kuhn-DINE; KON-dine], adjective:
Suitable to the fault or crime; deserved; adequate.
Synonyms: fitting, due, merited.

draconian (adj.) [drκ -'ko-ni-yκn]
Relating to painfully harsh or severe measures.
Etymology: From Greek drakon "dragon" which was also the family name
of Draco, archon of Athens in 621 B.C., known for his harsh laws.

expiate (verb) ['ek-spee-yeyt]
To atone for; to repay one's debt for an offense.

gauntlet (noun) ['gant-let]
1. The glove of a suit of armor.
2. Two lines of tormentors with flailing sticks between
which someone must run as punishment or initiation.

lenity [LEN-uh-tee], noun:
The state or quality of being lenient; mildness;
gentleness of treatment; leniency.

mulct [MULKT], noun:
A fine or penalty.

pillory (noun) ['pi-lκ-ree]
A frame with holes for the head and hands (the stocks)
and the post on which it stands. It was designed as a
form of punishment that exposed offenders to the
community as an example. Used as a verb, "pillory"
now means to viciously chastise someone publicly
or subject them to extreme public scorn or ridicule.

proscribe (verb) [pro-'skrIb ]
To prohibit or forbid as a bad practice.





PUNS

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see: "HUMOR" for related links

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Hanging is too good for a man who makes
puns; he should be drawn and quoted.
--Fred Allen [John Florence Sullivan] (1894—1956)
American humorist.
Attributed in "New Woman" (mag.) [1983].

As one hyphen said to the other hyphen,
let's get together and make a dash.
--attributed to Fred Allen [John Florence Sullivan] (1894—1956)
American humorist.

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Puns are little "plays on words" that a certain breed of person loves
to spring on you and then look at you in a certain self-satisfied way
to indicate that he thinks that you must think that he is by far the
cleverest person on Earth now that Benjamin Franklin is dead, when
in fact what you are thinking is that if this person ever ends up in a
lifeboat, the other passengers will hurl him overboard by the end of
the first day even if they have plenty of food and water.
--Dave Barry (b. 1947)
American humorist.
_Dave Barry's Greatest Hits_ [1988] "Why Humor is Funny"

Time wounds all heals.
--Frank Case (fl. 1938)
American hotel manager.
_Tales of a Wayward Inn_, ch. 2 [1938]

A man that will make such an execrable
pun as that [...] will pick my pocket.
--John Dennis (1657—1734)
English critic and poet.
Quoted in Benjamin Victor
_An Epistle to Sir Richard Steele_ [1722, 2nd ed.].

^

Oliver St John Gogarty (1878—1957)
Irish poet.

Entering a tavern one day, Gogarty caught sight
of a friend wearing a patch over one eye. He
greeted him: 'Drink to me with thine only eye.'

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

^

People that make puns are like wanton boys
that put coppers on the railroad tracks.
--Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809—1894)
American physician, poet, and essayist.
_The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table_ [1858]

Many of us can still remember the social nuisance
of the inveterate punster. This man followed
conversation as a shark follows a ship.
--Stephen Butler Leacock (1869—1944)
Canadian humorist.
_The Boy I Left Behind Me_ [1947]

[To a waiter who had spilled soup on her dress:]
Never darken my Dior again.
--Beatrice Lillie (1894—1989)
Canadian actress and comedienne.
Quoted in Lore and Maurice Cowan _The Wit of Women_ [1969].

Arthur [Loesser] was the brother of the Broadway lyricist
Frank Loesser, who said that, as between the siblings, he
was "the eviler of the two Loessers."
--James Penrose
"Building a musical instrument and a company "
reviewing _Piano_ by James Barron in
_The Wall Street Journal_ [15 July 2006].

The noblest of all dogs is the hot-dog;
it feeds the hand that bites it.
--Laurence J. Peter (1919—1990)
Canadian teacher and author.
_Quotations for Our Times_ [1977]

[Referring to Alexander Woollcott:]
He always praises the first production of each
season, being reluctant to stone the first cast.
--Walter Winchell (1897—1972)
American journalist.
Quoted in Samuel Hopkins Adams
_A. Woollcott, His Life and His World_ [1945].

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Washington, D. C.
A tour guide was showing a tourist around Washington, D. C.
The guide pointed out the place where George Washington
supposedly threw a dollar across the Potomac River. "That's
impossible," said the tourist. "No one could throw a coin
that far!" "You have to remember," answered the guide.
"A dollar went a lot farther in those days."

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After eating his entree at the mess hall
the soldier went AWOL to binge on
chocolate eclairs. He was charged for
being a desserter.
--anon.

I've had enough of gardening — I'm just
about ready to throw in the trowel.
--anon.

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A grenade thrown into a kitchen in France
would result in Linoleum Blownapart.

Time's fun when you're having flies.
--Kermit the Frog

Q: What did Big Ben say to the Leaning Tower of Pisa?
A: I've got the time if you've got the inclination.
--Christmas Cracker

-

In 1868 a farmer from eastern Montana was riding in a
stagecoach on a trip to Helena. Fifteen miles short of
Helena a cowboy on horseback pulled up on the left
side of the stagecoach and a riderless horse pulled up
on the right. The cowboy leaned down, opened the door,
jumped off his horse and into the stagecoach. Then he
opened the right door and jumped onto the riderless
horse. The farmer, wondering what was going on, asked,
"What are you doing?"

The cowboy replied, "Nothing. It's just a stage I'm going
through."

-

Two buffaloes were grazing contentedly on the open prairie when a
cowboy rode up. Looking the animals over, he shook his head and
said, "You two are the ugliest buffaloes I ever saw. Look at you —
your fur is tangled, you have humps on your backs and you slobber
all over the place." As the cowboy rode off, the first buffalo
remarked to the second, "I think I just heard a discouraging word."

-

A group of friars were behind on their belfry payments, so they opened
a small florist shop to raise funds. Since everyone liked to buy flowers
from the men of God, a rival florist across town thought the competition
was unfair. He asked the good fathers to close down, but they would not.
He went back and begged the friars to close. They ignored him. So, the
rival florist hired Hugh MacTaggart, the roughest and most vicious thug
in town to 'persuade' them to close. Hugh beat up the friars and trashed
their store, saying he'd be back if they didn't close up shop. Terrified,
they did so, thereby proving that only Hugh can prevent florist friars.

-

A skeptical anthropologist was cataloging South American
folk remedies with the assistance of a tribal brujo who
indicated that the leaves of a frond fern were a sure cure
for any case of constipation. When the anthropologist
expressed his doubts, the brujo looked him in the eye and
said, 'Let me tell you, with fronds like these, who needs
enemas?'

-

Historians have recently discovered that Annie Oakley,
famed sharp-shooter of the Old West, had a sister. The
sister, Carrie, gained some renown in her day as a singer
in various saloons throughout the West, but it was not
until after her death that she was very widely known.
Today, countless bars are dedicated to Carrie Oakley.

-

Did you ever wonder why there are no dead penguins on the
ice in Antarctica - where do they go?

It is a well known fact that the penguin is a very ritualistic bird
which lives an extremely ordered and complex life.

The penguin is very committed to its family and will mate for life,
as well as maintaining a form of compassionate contact with its
offspring throughout its life.

If a penguin is found dead on the ice surface, other members of
the family and social circle have been known to dig holes in the
ice, using their vestigial wings and beaks, until the hole is deep
enough for the dead bird to be rolled into and buried.

The male penguins then gather in a circle around the fresh grave
and sing: "Freeze a jolly good fellow."

-




PURPOSE (ON HAVING A)

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see: "IDEALISM"
see: "LIFE" for other related links
see: "SUCCESS" for other related links


We are here on Earth to do good to others.
What the others are here for, I don't know.
--attributed to W.H. [Wystan Hugh] Auden (1907—1973)
English-born poet and man of letters.

Here is a test to find whether your mission
on earth is finished: If you're alive, it isn't.
--Richard Bach (b. 1936)
American writer.
_Illusions_ [1977]

I'll tell you a big secret, my friend. Don't wait
for the Last Judgment. It takes place every day.
--Albert Camus (1913—1960)
French novelist, dramatist, and essayist who won
the 1957 Nobel Prize for Literature.
_La Chute_ (The Fall) [1956]

Firmness of purpose is one of the most necessary sinews of character
and one of the best instruments of success. Without it, genius wastes
its efforts in a maze of inconsistencies.
--Lord Chesterfield [Philip Dormer Stanhope] (1694—1773)
British writer and politician.
Quoted in Charles Varle
_Moral Encyclopaedia, Or, Varlι's Self-Instructor, No. 3_, p. 44 [1831].

The secret of success is constancy of purpose.
--Benjamin Disraeli (1804—1881)
British Tory statesman, novelist, and Prime Minister [1868, 1874—1880].
Quoted in Alexander Charles Ewald
_Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield, K.G_, vol. 2, p. 240 [1882].

Strange is our situation here on earth.
Each of us comes for a short visit, not
knowing why, yet sometimes seeming
to divine a purpose.
--Albert Einstein (1879—1955)
German-American physicist who developed the
special and general theories of relativity.
Opening lines of his essay in Living Philosophies [1931],
reprinted in Clifton Fadiman (ed) _Living Philosophies_ [1990].

It is not enough for me to ask questions; I want
to know how to answer the one question that
seems to encompass everything I face: What
am I here for?
--Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907—1972)
Jewish theologian and philosopher.
_Who Is Man_, ch. 4 [1965]

Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life.
--Eric Hoffer (1902—1983)
American longshoreman, philosopher, and author who
received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1982.
_The True Believer: Thoughts On The Nature Of Mass Movements _ [1951]

-

The riders in a race do not stop short when they reach the goal.
There is a little finishing canter before coming to a standstill.
There is time to hear the kind voice of friends and to say to one's
self: 'The work is done.'

But just as one says that, the answer comes: 'The race is over,
but the work never is done while the power to work remains.'

The canter that brings you to a standstill need not be only coming
to rest. It cannot be, while you still live. For to live is to function.
That is all there is in living.

--Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (1841—1935)
Justice of the United States Supreme Court,
legal historian, and philosopher.
Radio address on his 90th birthday [8 March 1931].

-

Great minds have purposes, others have wishes. Little
minds are tamed and subdued by misfortune; but great
minds rise above them.
--Washington Irving (1783—1859)
American writer.
Attributed in S. DeWitt Clough
_Backbone: Hints For The Prevention Of Jelly-Spine Curvature_ [1911].

Men who have attained things worth having in this world
have worked while others idled, have persevered when
others gave up in despair, have practiced early in life the
valuable habits of self-denial, industry, and singleness of
purpose. As a result, they enjoy in later life the success
so often erroneously attributed to good luck.
--Grenville Kleiser (1868—1953)
American writer of humor and inspiration.
Quoted in _The Forbes Scrapbook of Thoughts on the
Business of Life_ [New York: BC Forbes & Son, 1950].

To love the worthy people who surround me, shun the
evil ones, enjoy the good things in life, endure the bad,
and remember to forget. This is my optimism. It has
helped me to live. May it help you also.
--Andrι Maurois (1885—1967)
(pseudonym of Ιmile Salomon Wilhelm Herzog)
French author.
_Lettres a l'Inconnue_ [1953]

I cannot believe that the purpose of life is to be
"happy." I think the purpose of life is to be useful,
to be responsible, to be compassionate. It is, above
all, to matter: to count, to stand for something, to
have made some difference that you lived at all.
--Leo Rosten (1908—1997)
Polish-born American writer and social scientist.
_Passions and Prejudices_ [1978]

Not everyone who carries a long knife is a cook.
--Russian Proverb

Nothing contributes so much to tranquilize the mind as
a steady purpose—a point on which the soul may fix its
intellectual eye.
--Mary Shelley (1797—1851)
English novelist.
_Frankenstein_, "Letter I" [1818]

-

It may be that your sole purpose in life is
simply to serve as a warning to others.
--anon.

-

"The Useless Tree"

One spring, as peach blossoms filled the valley below with
a spray of white fragrance, an ancient sage wandered the
Heights of Shang. There on a hillside stripped of everything
else, he saw a large and extraordinary tree. So huge it was,
the horses that drew a hundred chariots could be sheltered
under its shade. "What a tree this is!" he thought. Imagining
the amount of timber it must contain, he marvelled that the
tree had never been cut down.

But as he sat beneath it and looked up into the tree's branches,
he saw how twisted and crooked they were. Turning in every
direction, none of them were large enough to be made into
rafters or beams. He reached up and broke off a twig, tasting
the sap. It was sharp and bitter. "This tree would be useless for
tapping," he concluded, "producing no syrup of any worth."
The leaves, too, gave off an offensive odour as he broke them.
They were too fragile to be woven into mats or braided into
baskets. They would not even make good mulch! Even the
roots, as he studied them, were so gnarled and notty that
one could never carve a bowl or fashion a fine decorative
box out of them.

The sage said at last; "This, indeed, is a tree good for nothing!
That is why it has reached so great an age. The cinnamon tree
can be eaten; so it is cut down. The varnish tree is useful, and
therefore incisions are made in it. We all know the advantage
of being useful, but only this tree knows the advantage of being
useless!" The wise man sat in the shade of that great tree for the
rest of the day, as a light wind drifted up from the valley below.
He breathed the scent of distant peach blossoms and sat in
studied silence, happily contemplating his own uselessness.

--anon.


end page



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